Alaska Adventure – Tok to Whitehorse

Day 20 – June 18, 2009

Packed our stuff up from the Sourdough campground and headed into town to get a spare tire and rim.  We first tried Tok RV, but with no success.  The woman at the Sourdough campground mentioned that there was a poster up at the grocery store for someone selling tires so we were off to the 3 Bears Grocery to check that out. We called him up and he said that he did not have much for 12 inch, but he did have one used one. As that seemed to be the only hope for a spare tire before Whitehorse we went to have a look at it.  It was a very wide tire and we needed a rim too – the pair was going to cost us 70 bucks so Jason decided against it. We went into town and tried a chevron station, they said they had a tire but the inventory was wrong and they had no rim to mount it on. The guy working there referred us to yet another place where we finally got a brand new tire and rim for 99.00 USD. Not a bad price. So then we where off, we had some rain for a bit, but only enough to keep the dust down. This was the stretch of road that was so bad and we where dreading the most – but in the end it was lots better coming back then it was going out. We stopped at a Geocache just inside the Alaska border and dropped the rest of our Travel Bugs and a geocoin and then we held our breath for the border crossing. But this too went even better than expected; just a few sneaky questions that not answered honestly would soon find you in a tangled lie. But we had only truth to offer so we were out of there in under a minute.

We had open roads with few other drivers which made the dusty gravel easier to drive and we made good time. We stopped at a small restaurant between destruction bay and Whitehorse somewhere and had a bit to eat. Kara had a Chicken Breast Sandwich and I had a monte cristo. Ohh! Just before that we just driving along and out of the bush on the right side a moose appears with much haste! Our reaction by this point in the trip is grabbing the camera (which inevitably has the wrong lens for the occasion). Kara is reaching for the Camera and then I see a baby moose come out too… and then a second baby! Now we have had plenty of moose pictures by this time so missing a picture of a single moose is no big loss, but a moose with TWO baby’s – that’s something to write (or email) home about (and attach a photo). The Moose and Mooslings are running, straight across the highway so they will soon be on our left, so Kara passes me the camera so I can take the picture out of my window, at this point I see why the moose are running… there is a big black bear chasing them!!!! What!? Yup full tilt bear chase going on here. I got a picture of the bear and a snap of the moose entering the bush but that was it. Didn’t see that photo on a brochure…

Low clouds made for poor picture taking for most of the trip, so we only got a few on this side of destruction bay. Not much else of interest. Went to earls for supper…