Friday, July 26, 2013

All the Way to the Top


Life-size mosquitoes at Delta Junction.  Really.

Thursday night found us in the tiny town of Chicken, year-round populan of seven or twelve, depending on the source.  No cell phone, no internet, no TV. It's an old gold-mining town, but everything around here is an old gold-mining town. The founders wanted to name it Ptarmigan
(the Alaska state bird), but couldn't agree on the correct spelling, so settled for Chicken.
This gigantic speciman was made from recycled high school lockers.
Apparently those doors can only be slammed so many times before they give up. 

The Taylor Highway (yes, they dare to use the word highway) leads from Chicken to the Canadian border.  It's much better on the Canadian side where it is the Top of The World Highway, with the highest point being 4,515 feet, above the treeline and the clouds.  This is an especially smooth and wide part, but mostly it's narrow and nerve shattering.
Yesterday a big RV slid over the edge, where it was all soft and mushy - no injuries,
but the tow truck looked like it belonged to the Jack's Giant.
It stopped raining in the early evening, so we had better luck this morning at 6:00 - and less dust.  Also little traffic because the border doesn't open until 8:00, meaning we had no oncoming traffic for the American part.  Still, I wouldn't want to do it every day. 

Filled with self-accomplishment pride, Al has bestowed a Ph.D on himself - Pothole Driver.    
 

Now we're in Dawson City, Yukon where Klondike gold mining is still active,
so I'm going out to pick up a few huge nuggets.

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