The next day, we once again found ourselves crossing a border. This time, it was back into the United States, where the Yukon meets the ALCAN.
The first town we came to was Tok. It is a small community that services folks driving the ALCAN. There are not many places to stop along the highway, and this is one of the rare options. There’s a great little hotel and restaurant there called Fast Eddie’s that we enjoyed. It is well known as THE local stopping point. While there are a few other restaurants in Tok, none compare to Fast Eddie’s. To drivers of the ALCAN, it has a reputation that runs east and west. It is open long hours and caters to those who routinely drive this route as they transport goods through one of the few road connections to the rest of the United States. Because it is the first town across the border — and it is xx miles away at that — Tok is a destination for many. Fast Eddie’s has good food and great marketing, and as a result, it is a must stop eatery for many.
As we left Tok the next morning, we headed to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. I wish the weather had been better, as it was relatively cloudy, but I did manage to take a few pictures, learn a bit of the area’s history, and get a sense of why this area was a national park. Interesting, on the other side of the Canadian border is Kluane Canadian National Park, so both countries saw this area as a place worth preserving. Since we couldn’t really hike and the weather was dismal, we didn’t stay long in Wrangell-St. Elias before we ventured on to our stay in Anchorage.
Anchorage looks like most other cities of its size, with all of the commercial activity and neighborhoods you would expect. There was a strong military presence around all of Alaska, but specifically in Anchorage and later, Fairbanks. Anchorage does not have the suburbs of most larger U. S. cities. It appears that the late development of the city, in combination with state laws, allowed the primary city to become larger rather than have small suburbs around it. The city has embraced its mining heritage with cool street lights that look like miner’s lights in the downtown.
As we headed south, we happened along some other wildlife in the area, including this moose that was just grazing by the roadside. It was about here that I started noticing how much my views looked like Bob Ross paintings, and everywhere, there was a happy little tree. My friend, Russell Treadway, was a big Bob Ross fan, so I made a point of sending him a picture and saying, ‘Oh, look, Bob Ross has been here.’ As it turns out, Ross WAS stationed in Fairbanks while he was in the Air Force. What a coincidence! We arrived in Homer that night with a day to relax before our big fishing adventure.
