June 1st, 2024 - Hanging around Tok

Happy June 1st!

Another beautiful day and we decided to do a little exploring (plus a few Day's End sites).

This is our site:

We love this little park.  We stop here every time we are in Alaska.  The river behind our site:

A little information on the start of the town of Tok!:

In 2009, we camped near here - on a dirt road that led to an overlook of the Tanana River.  It was beautiful.  When we came back that summer, this whole area was under construction for the new bridge.  This is now an overlook from the old bridge:

Parts of the old bridge:

They did incorporate some of the old into the new:

Part of the old bridge:

The other side of the old bridge - check out the Alaskan Range in the background (it almost looks like a painting, doesn't it?):

I know some of this may be hard to read but the one thing that stood out to me - The ALCAN Highway is the only land route into Alaska. If an earthquake destroys the Tanana River Bridge, it will disrupt commerce and transportation dramatically - WOW!

Now I have to say that there is another route from the Yukon over the Top of the World Highway but it has a ferry crossing over the Yukon River.  For supply trucks like 18 wheelers...it would be doable but, darn, it would be difficult.  

I never realized how important this bridge is to the Alaskan supply chain:

The Tanana River:

The other side of the rest area:

When we came thru two days ago, we passed this abandoned wayside at the junction of the Alaskan and Taylor Highways and I wanted to go back and check it out.

It was a really cool area but there were a lot of "No Trespassing Signs".  I could not find anything on the internet about this road house so.. if you find something, let me know.

A picture of the Alaskan Range on the way back home:

After lunch I went into town for a little shopping and we ended the evening with potatoes and steaks over the fire - Yum!

Tomorrow we head to Chicken so stay tuned and enjoy today!