Chicken, Tok, and Fairbanks
(posted from Noel Wien Library, Fairbanks, AK)
(this post covers 17-21 July, 2008)

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Monday, 21 July-

Today we had the new ball joints installed. And during that process the tech showed me the steering inner-tie-rod-end needed replacing. That added another $250 to the bill, bringing it up to almost $1000. The installation was estimated at six hours but only took about three and a half. Again, though, I’d rather get it done now than need it on the Dalton or worry about it the whole way home, hoping to save a couple of hundred bucks.
In trying to get the wheels aligned the technician found the van drifted to the right on the test drive despite the specs being right on. He swapped the front tires side-to-side and now it drifted left—an indication of tire-tread separation in one or the other of the front tires. But the problem is there’s no way to see the tread separation. So I thought I was probably just out of luck. But the mechanic said he’d write what he found on the receipt and I could try taking it up with the tire dealer, in this case Wal-mart.
At the Wal-mart, the van was taken in right away. The tech looked at the tires and of course couldn’t see anything wrong but because I had the receipt showing another garage had diagnosed tread separation and I had used less than 25% of the tread depth, they gave me two new tires and mounted and balanced them at no charge. I did have to pay a road-hazard fee of $10 a tire but for $20 I got two brand-new tires.
After all this van-repair drama, we then spent the afternoon tracking down some more supplies. We were running low on butane for our cookstove and had decided we should look for a restaurant-supply business for it. We stopped at a food-wholesaler who gave us directions to the restaurant-supply and we found our butane there at a bargain price: $2.50 a can.
We also went shopping for an artist’s portfolio to protect our front-window screens and found what we needed at Michael’s.
Later that afternoon we went back to Pioneer Park and this time visited the Art Association gallery and the Pioneer Museum. The former was okay (a quilting display) but the latter was very good. We then had supper in the parking lot before returning to Sam’s for a movie, this time ‘There Will Be Blood’ with Daniel Day-Lewis. We loved seeing the historical representation but felt we should have read the book (“Oil!” by Upton Sinclair) before seeing the movie so we could have better understood it.

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Sunday, 20 July-

We spent the morning at the local Laundromat, taking our showers and doing laundry. We had first gone to the local ice arena/recreation center where showers were supposed to be available for $3 each but that area was closed while they hosted the Alaska state girls’ softball tournament. We then found the B&C Laundromat near the university but showers were $4.50 each with a sign posted nearby: ‘one adult only’. Because of the high cost, we decided Labashi would take a shower but I’d make-do with a wash-up in the van. But as I was leaving I asked the attendant and she said we could share. Good deal!
That afternoon we went to Pioneer Park. I loved the Pioneer Air Museum which was what I call a jumble-museum. I love these smaller museums which have so much historic gear and too little room for it so it’s jammed into every little corner and I can spend hours trying to sort through what everything is and what it means. The Glenn Curtiss Museum in New York is similar, as is the Men-in-the-Sea museum in Panama Beach, Florida. All suffer from a too-small budget and therefore don’t have display cases but through dedicated volunteers they still manage to put together great exhibits.
We also went through the Native Americans building where we saw a very-well-done video about qayaq, baidarka, and umiak- building techniques and uses by the many native groups around the state.
That evening we had more shopping to do at the Wal-mart and Lowe’s and we picked up two videos for tomorrow. The van repair is supposed to take five to six hours so we’ll probably need something to keep us occupied in the garage waiting room.


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Saturday, 19 July-

This morning we drove into the Visitor’s Center area and took in the ‘Golden Days’ parade. This one lasted for hours and wound all through the town. It had everything: antique cars, parade bands and majorettes, tractors, floats, fire engines, scout troops, etc. After watching for a while we started on a walking tour of downtown Fairbanks. We browsed through a sporting goods store (Ray’s) and enjoyed looking at rows and rows of historical photographs (being sold by the historical society as a fund-raiser) and checked out a local furniture store. We then walked to a nearby gun shop to look around. There we got into a spirited discussion with the gun-shop owner about politics as I bought a box of triple-ought buck for our trip into the backcountry. When Labashi and the gun-shop guy began voicing their very different opinions about Obama, Reagan, Carter, and Bush, I thought the discussion might go downhill very quickly (I, of course, am firmly astride the fence, as usual) but the guy was actually very respectful of different opinions and in fact eager to hear. While they played the game of witty repartee, I (unarmed for a battle of wits) looked at guns. Here the handguns tended to be very large caliber and massive in size; guns it would take at least two hands to lift and would be very difficult to control when shot. I’ve seen YouTube footage of people shooting these and they often end up with a knot on the head from the unexpected kickback. Labashi enjoyed her exchange with the guy and now wants to study up on how to more effectively defend her position. And the guy invited her back anytime to continue the discussion.
That afternoon we went to the Museum of the North at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks (UAF) campus. The museum is a beauty and the exhibits are very well done, both for natural history and for Alaskan art.
That evening we went to the final evening of the World Eskimo-Indian Olympics which has been going on all week. After a ceremony introducing all the athletes and dancers we enjoyed an excellent performance by an older traditional dance group, then demonstrations and awards for the arm-pull event and the finals and awards of the high-ball-kick and blanket-toss events. Our host for the evening was a funny older Inuvaluit guy. Here’s one of his jokes: “Why is it,” he asked during a pause in the action, “that the third hand on the clock is called the second hand?” He repeated his question, then said ‘In the land of the midnight sun, we have a lot of time to think about things like that in the winter”.
After the Olympics we returned to Sam’s for the night.

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Friday, 18 July-

Today I wanted to get the 120-miles into Fairbanks and start looking for a garage to replace Mocha Joe’s ball-joints. I don’t want to attempt the Dalton Highway without getting the obviously-bad left side fixed and may as well get the right side done at the same time. If I were just using Mocha Joe around home I could do the wait-till-it-breaks thing but not when we’re traveling like this; it’s just too much hassle.
At North Pole (just before Fairbanks) I talked with a garage guy but couldn’t get in until Tuesday and he seemed unwilling to give me a firm estimate. We drove downtown to the Visitor’s Center where I used their Yellow Pages to find some other candidates. I tried the Ford dealer to get a baseline but that didn’t work at all. The service manager insisted I’d have to have the vehicle inspected by a mechanic to give us an estimate and connected me with the appointments girl—who couldn’t even give us an appointment for an estimate until the 28th. What idiots.
I called a garage which gave me an estimate of $742 and used that as a baseline. I walked over to a local Chevron station recommended by staffer Yuki at the visitor’s center but their estimate was $1000. I finally hit upon GT Automotive for an estimate of $733 and they could do it Monday and it included a ‘thrust line’ alignment. Hopefully that’s all I need. From the various estimates I see the labor rate up here is $100 per hour and parts are undoubtedly higher but I should have thought of that earlier, eh?
We drove over to the garage to be sure they seemed competent and while there asked where I might find a used tire and wheel and learned that Giant Tire is the place in Fairbanks for used. The second spare is for the Dalton Highway. After our flat tire on the Dempster and hearing how many other people had flats there, I’m very willing to go along with the recommendation for two spares on the Dalton.
At Giant Tire I told the guy I’d be using it for the Dalton and he said he’d sell me the tire and wheel for $85 and if I wanted to return it after the trip, he’d give me $42 for it. Perfect! We’ll be coming back this way and I don’t want to lug a second spare home anyway.
We then went shopping for a means to haul the second spare. I almost bought a hitch platform but we didn’t want to have that rattle around on the back of the van all the way home. I found a hitch-mounted spare tire carrier but that was $140—way too much. So we’re just going to wrap it up and live with it inside the van for a week.
We then went grocery-shopping at the Safeway and for once we found block ice— and in nice, dense 12-pound blocks—and gassed up at a bargain $4.46 per gallon.
We had checked out the local Wal-mart for overnighting and it was ok but looked noisy. But just down the street we found a Sam’s Club with a good back lot away from the road and enough white-noise from their heating/cooling system to soften the roar of the inevitable muffler-challenged drunks late at night. And next door is a Blockbuster Video store so we rented two videos and had a film festival in the Sam’s Club parking lot. We watched ‘Margot at the Wedding’ and ‘Juno’, two radically different movies. ‘Margot’ (with Nicole Kidman) was a little too much info about a dysfunctional family and seemed to get lost in mid-scene here and there. ‘Juno’ was a cute, though completely unrealistic, view of a 16-year-old’s pregnancy. Ellen Page is fantastic as Juno.

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Thursday, 17 July-

Today was a travel day. For some reason I woke this morning around 0530 and after my tossing and turning woke Labashi, we read a little but decided we may as well get going. We wanted an earlier start to avoid a traffic jam on the Taylor anyway. A ‘traffic jam’ in this case is encountering an oncoming large vehicle on one of the ‘Slide Areas’— half-mile-long, one-lane cuts with solid rock on one side, a sprinkling of ‘Do Not Stop’ avalanche-warning signs, and a 1000-foot drop on the other (and there’s no guardrail for those Lower-48 sissy-drivers). We’re retracing our route back to our turnoff from the Top-of-the-World Highway. Eagle is the north end of the Taylor Highway and once we get back to the Jack Wade Junction (where we turned off), the road is known as the Taylor if we go toward Alaska and as Top-of-the-World Highway if we turn back toward Canada (Dawson City, YT).
Given the problem with the ball joint on the left-front wheel I was a bit concerned about the reported roughness of the lower Taylor. In Dawson City, I had seen a somewhat-distraught older gentleman waving his arms and declaring the Taylor/Top-of-the-World Highway is so rough it should be closed. When the visitor’s center staffer said someone else had just reported it wasn’t bad, he said “Well, maybe not for pickups but for motor homes it’s horrible”. Others reported it was badly pot-holed, particularly where paved. ‘Rough, but passable’ was the consensus.
So we started out our 160-mile drive to intersect the Alaska Highway (at Tetlin Junction) going slow-- just 25 miles per hour. But we soon realized that’s just fine. We’re in no rush and it’s a beautiful, sunny day and we’ll be traveling through wilderness almost all the way. Heck, we’ve often driven hundreds, if not thousands, of miles just to find places like this where we can lope along at 25 miles per hour, looking for wildlife and admiring the mountains and streams. The good stuff just normally doesn’t last so long!
Our trip out was great. Where we had to stop several times on the way in to allow our overworked brakes to cool, we now had a series of climbs. The road first climbs 12 miles or so to American Summit with its miles-long views, then descends and begins a series of climbs and descents through one creek-valley after another. We crossed the American Creek (several times), the Columbia, the King Solomon, the Forty-Mile, the Solomon, the Alder, the O’Brien, all cutting through dramatic scenery. Our roadway often ran high above the valley, giving us postcard-like overviews of the creek valleys.
We passed through the slide areas without meeting another vehicle and in fact it was some two hours before we met our first. After Jack Wade Junction we stopped at a canoe launch for the Forty-Mile River for lunch and I saw one of the types of fool’s gold in the river. These were small chips of mica which in the sunny shallows looked like gold dust.
From there it was only a short drive to Chicken, a curious little place. Chicken is a classic ‘tourist trap’ but we kind of liked it—at least for a stopping place. ‘Beautiful Downtown Chicken’ is a three-storefront row of shops: a gift store, a bar, and a café. The gift shop is of course jammed with all the Alaska-themed bric-a-brac you can imagine. The bar is a photo-op for the tourist trade. The ceiling and walls are covered with thousands of flags, banners, hats, signs, etc. and there’s a short bar with four or five stools. The café has a standup counter and a few booths. The end of the counter is lined with beautiful pies, all thick-crusted and overflowing and the cook-staff is busy, busy, busy.
Two busloads of tourists were there but just loading up to leave. One of the buses was special—it was a ‘sleeper bus’. The front half of the bus looked like a normal bus but the back half had a second level and that section had a small kitchen plus beds for 24 people. The left side of the bus from halfway back had small windows, maybe 8 x 12 inches in size, five or six rows of them high, apparently at the end of each person’s sleeping cubicle.
I’d like to have had a tour of that bus. I don’t think I’d want to live with 23 other people on it but I’d like to see the engineering. The bus driver was also the cook according to one of the passengers. She said he prepares a small breakfast and dinner (though I’m not sure; she may have meant ‘lunch’). She also said these buses are common in Europe, there are five of them in the US and a few of them in Asia. It had both Alaska and German license plates. The touring company is Rotel.
Interestingly, Beautiful Downtown Chicken has a good wi-fi connection. We took advantage of that to update the blog and check our mail but did have some difficulty using it to make phone calls. Afterwards we shared a piece of good cherry pie at the cafe and heard the cooks complaining about having five tour buses already today (by lunch-time).
Back on the Taylor we were surprised to hit hard road within a few miles. The dirt road had been very dusty but with few potholes and only the occasional fist-sized sharp-edged rocks to avoid. The hard road wasn’t bad at 35-40 miles per hour due to the frost-heaves. I could see why some guys say the dirt road is better than the hard road. The former doesn’t have the suspension-crunching ‘speed bumps’ and dropouts of the latter. But we only had a few miles of it and then we started dropping down to Tetlin Junction.
Back on the Alaska Highway we soon hit Tok (pronounced ‘toke’). We stopped at the Alaska Public Lands Center and the tourist center for info but were soon back on the road. There we passed an RV campground with an odd sight: two guys out front washing their bus-sized RVs and a line up of six more RV’s waiting. Those must have come across the Top-of-the-World Highway and were washing off the dust and mud.
Outside of Tok we started seeing higher mountains, these with much more snow. The road was blissfully flat, smooth and arrow-straight for long stretches.
Though there are several state parks in this area our ‘Alaskan Camping’ guidebook showed a free roadside campground at the Gerstle River. This turned out to be a larger wayside right beside the half-mile-wide riverbed. We followed tracks out onto the riverbed and drove a hundred yards or so upriver to a spectacular view of the mountains and what I believe was Johnson Glacier. The ‘river’ in this case was a half-mile-wide river of rocks and way out in the middle we could see a rush of glacier-melt water. We had supper and spent our evening there watching the shadows on the mountains and planned to stay the night out there. But as sleepy-time neared we decided it would be stupid of us to stay out on a riverbed we don’t know and assume the river wouldn’t rise in the rain forecast for tonight. We moved back to the wayside and into one of the little pulloffs for campers and picnickers.

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