Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Cheri Aug-28-12
12:12 AM | 
Posted by
Sharp's Travels
We were up at 6am, but come to find out it was only 5am. We forgot to set our clock in the bedroom back 1 hour after we crossed the border into Alaska.
It’s only 37 degrees this morning. Our park planned a special breakfast for us at 8am. All the sourdough pancakes you can eat with reindeer sausage for $6.00. Most of us were there for that.
The sun is shining and by 10am we were all ready to pull out. The roads were dry and much better today. We had gravel patches and some pot holes to go around, but we all handled that well.
The colors are beautiful. Fall is in full bloom up on the Top Of The World Highway. The Aspens have turned a beautiful yellow and sometimes orange & red mixed in. The fireweed has turned a deep red. It lines the sides of the highway.
There is lots of Black Spruce. They are odd-shaped, survivor trees that grow in the tundra, bogs and on top of permafrost (permanently frozen ground). Black Spruce never grows very tall. The mountains were beautiful. We have started to see termination dust (snow) on top of the mountains. That means winter is not far away.
We caught a glimpse of a rainbow as we were coming down off the mountain into Tok. We are staying 1 night at the Sourdough Campground in Tok.
Sourdough is the stuff of legends in the north. Old-timers wore pouches of sourdough started around their necks, or even tucked it away in their long johns, to keep it warm enough to ferment. The people here at our campground have embraced the history of sourdough and are doing their part to keep the tradition alive. The Sourdough Café is famous for its delicious breakfast—sourdough pancakes & reindeer sausage. The pancakes are made using starter that dates back to 1956.
Gay and I left the group when they pulled off for a break about 35 miles out of Tok. We pulled into the campground, got our unit backed in and waited for the rigs to arrive. Everyone was pretty dirty from the rain and dirt roads yesterday, so some pulled into wash stations to clean things up a bit and gas up before coming to the campground.
It was a long process for us to park everyone because they kept trickling in 1 or 2 at a time for about 2 ½ hours. It was real windy and the temps were still in the mid 40’s, so it got pretty cold to stand outside. We didn’t have our unit opened up yet, so we took a couple of breaks and went into the office to get warm. We were glad when everyone was settled.
We missed lunch so had an early dinner. Tonight is the “Survivors Party” for us who made it over the Top OF The World Highway. We also had a “pancake toss”. The winner got a free pancake breakfast tomorrow.
We finally called it a night. Thank goodness for electric blankets!
To see pictures of the day click on this link https://picasaweb.google.com/sharpstravels then click on album: Chicken to Tok.
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