June 25 - Tok, Alaska

We are beaconing again- well sometimes, but at least we are in Alaska, so please keep checking on our progress in "we are here" as we are in the interior now.I have to catch up with several days. We were planning on taking a tour of a Dog Sled Summer camp on June 21. We were in our assigned pick up spot at 11AM that morning but had to call to find where the driver was. We finally found each other and off we went to the camp. Unfortunately when we got there the gate was locked! The driver called the company and they told her to go back into town and pick up some passengers off the cruise ship who were scheduled for the next tour. So off we went back to town and were then told that there were so many cruise passengers that the van would be full ( it sitted 12) and we would now have to wait until 4 to tour. We were not happy. However I fortunately had a 2 for 1 coupon for that tour so we were only paying for 1 and I felt like I couldn't grumble too much. Anyway we went back at 4 and had a great tour. We met a couple of Iditerod Mushers and all the dogs. There were about 100 dogs  at the camp. They were all lting about quietly ( some where on top of their doghouses) until the mushers started to hook the 12 dogs to our cart and then they all started barking and leaping around as they all wanted a turn to pull the cart. What a noise.

They had modified a cart so that it could be attached to the dog leads. They do this in the summer to keep the  dogs  exercised and to help them  stay in shape pulling it. It was a blast. We reached about 10 miles an hour. After the ride we were able to see, hold and pet some 6 week old musher dogs. Cute. As a compensation to us the tour company gave us each a cap and a stuffed musher dog which we have called "Musher.

We then drove back out to the Mendenhall Glacier and had dinner out there looking at the Glacier. It was pouring rain the next day but we were catching the ferry to Haines so it didn't really matter.  We arrived in Haines at 7PM and drove out to a State Park for the night. It was a beautiful, wooded area. MOSQUITOES!!!! The next day (June 23) we toured Haines. They had a nice Museum that talked about the Mining in the area and a small Raptor Center that specialized in Owls. They had a Barn Owl and a Horned Owl there. Other than that we were not impressed with that town. We spent the night out at the other end of town at Mosquito Lake C.G. Garry had been told there was good fishing there. I wondered about his willingness to camp someplace with the word Mosquito in it but it was his choice. Suffice it to say the campground was aptly named!!!! and he didn't get a fish. However we did see a pair of nesting Swans.

Yesterday we decided to leave Haines and start our drive to Tok. That is a nice thing about not being locked in to a ferry schedule anymore. We can now drive whereever we want to go. It was still a drizzly day when we left. We hadn't gone 4 miles when we saw a BEAR in the middle of the road!! Finally!  40 miles outside of town we crossed into Canada for the first time. After hearing all sorts of horror stories we didn't have any problems. We stopped for fuel in Haines Junction, BC. Everything in Canada is in liters and we are confused!! As we were standing there a guy walked up to us and asked if we were heading to Tok. We said we were and he asked if he and his wife could get a ride with us. Huh??? They were young, clean cut and trying to meet some friends. It had cost us $ 67.00 for fuel and he offered to pay for the gas and immediately gave us $ 80.00. So we agreed to take them to Tok. They sat on the floor the whole way. The road was terrible as it is built over permafrost and suffers from frost heave. But the drive was beautiful as it goes through several mountain ranges. We had hoped to see more wildlife but no luck. We had to cross the border back into Canada so we let Scott and Reem out before the bordrrf so they could walk across. The Border Patrol told us that was the correct thing to do and we then picked them up on the other side and away we went. We finally made it into Tok about 7:30 last night. We said goodbye to Scott and Reem and headed to a restaurant for dinner as we had an extre $ 80.00 in our pocket and it was Garry's Birthday. This is a very small town and not much is here. We filled up the camper again at a Chevron station which then allows campers to stop overnight in the field behind the station. They also had a car/rv wash which we used as we were covered in dust and mud from the drive up. We checked with the gun store here today  but what a Snafu we are having with the gun. It probably won't get here now until July 3 and we have a reservation  to go white water rafting in Hope on the Kenai Peninsula that day. I don't want to talk about it !!!!! So I am not sure where we go from here. I hope we are going down to Valdez.