We get out the E-Bikes and toured the town and do a walk about down town. Power shopping, we actually ran into Scott and Tami, they had come in a couple days early, so we hooked up for dinner at the Lighthouse on the wharf and had a great Halibut Fish dinner. Mom had fish tacos. During the day we drove out to the north east side of town to Chilikoot lake and RV park. We took some pictures and spoke with some locals and then headed back to camp.
Another travel day as we moved from Dezadeash lake to Haines on the Haines Highway south from Haines Junction on the ALCAN highway. Haines is 150 miles south of Haines Junction. We will take the Ferry to Skagway on Friday. But for today, we had a nice 120 mile ride through some awesome country side. We made several stops along the way for lunch and pictures. We are in Haines for only two nights and will explore all day tomorrow. On another note, we recognized an RV in the campground last night at Dezadeash Lake, it was no other than Scott and Tami of FoxRVTravel.com that we met in Quartz Creek Campground in Kenai almost a month ago. We have been leep frogging each other along the same route through Alaska. We had a great morning chatting and catching up on each others adventures.
We planned to make it to Haines today, but again fell short and stopped at another YT campground at Dezadeash Lake. We drove through Destruction bay and decided to push on farther to Dezadeash. Destruction bay is on Kluane lake which was huge, it is over 40 miles long. We saw many other lakes, rivers, and mountains along the way, it was non-stop wilderness.
Our goal today was to fuel in Tok, cross the border into Canada and camp at Destruction bay. This would have been a 280 mile day but we did not make it that far and stopped at Lake Creek CG in YT. We did cross the border and were now in Canada so that was a success. Had no issues crossing the border and Mom got her first stamp in her brand new first ever passport at 83 years young.
Today we make the turned south to Texas. We headed back to Fairbanks, then down the Alaskan Highway towards Tok. Just outside of Fairbanks is North Pole Alaska. Mom and I were here in 2018 so we pull in and do some power shopping. I scored a nice sweatshirt. Snapped some Santa pics, dropped off our wish list for Santa, and got on our way. We planned to make it to Deadman Lake CG but did not even make it to Tok. We stopped 50 miles short of Tok at a turn out on Dot Lake. It was a nice spot with a view so we parked it and will do Tok tomorrow.
We picked up mom at the Airport at 1:45 am and went straight to bed. We slept in till almost noon then packed it up and headed to Chena hot springs but not before stopping at Fred Meyers and REI for some quick items... never quick... We got to Chena Hot springs just a short 64 mile ride north east of Fairbanks. We got a great pull through spot, ate some dinner, chilled a bit, then we slipped into our swim suits and headed to the hot springs. Chena Hot Springs resort has hotel rooms and a small 24 site RV parking area with no hook ups. The Ice Museum that has Ice Sculptures and a bar was closed due to maintenance so we were not able to check that out. Later we find out the bar was open where you could get an Appletini in a ice glass. Bummer missed that, will do that next time. The springs were hot and did not disappoint. Yoli and I get a walk in before bed time and call it a day.
Travel day, we say goodbye to Denali and head to Fairbanks. Christina and Alex took the Jeep early this morning at 6:30am to Fairbanks to catch their 10am flight back to Dallas. We got up around 9am, packed, dumped, filled, and headed north to Fairbanks. We make a stop at the 49th State Brewery in Healy on the journey north. Tonight we bed down at a Harvest Host "Expressions in Glass" near the Airport because we will be picking up Mom at the airport at 1:40am tonight. So we will be sleeping in tomorrow before we head to Chena Hot Springs for a side trip and last trip before heading south back to Texas that I labeled "The Big U-Turn".
