Taylor Highway to Tok

Tok, what can I say about it. There are a few businesses scattered along a couple miles of highway, (bottom left) but not many tourist attractions really. Possibly the biggest excitement is the nightly sourdough pancake toss along with local music. There is also a population of 1,400 very friendly people. Arriving in Tok you are at the crossroads for heading out to Anchorage, Fairbanks or Valdez.

Wildflowers continue to brighten the highways.

West Fork of the Dennison River.
These are Mount Fairplay mountains. I wonder if the guy on Survivor, Johnny Fairplay, took his name from these mountains?

It would seem that the ever present snow topped mountains are all around us. Every twist in the road gives us another view of of the scenery.

Don thinks the Taylor Hwy is worse than the Top of the Work Highway because it is not flat and we can not drive beyond 30 mph. Except motorcycles and cars. They zoom by us.

Just when you think the road is going to get better, we run across a patch of gravel. The concrete highway is "wavy" enough to keep us at a slow pace; don't need these gravel pits to slow us down. Actually the Alaska Highway Systems do a fabulous job of repairs the roads. There are a lot of crews out there working to assure we tourists will continue to come to Alaska.

Yup! The road narrowed for the newly repaired road.

We don't always have snow capped mountains. The views are ever changing, really.







Above and above right....

Lush green hill sides and huge wide open expanses is the feeling I get until we drive into the "burn complex" from 2004. The ground cover has come back and a few willowy bushes. The pines that burned remain standing, blackened & dead; branches holding on and darkened tuffed needles tops remaining at attention, all never to grow again. These trees did not bow to the raging fires fires sweeping through and around them; they stood tall and proud. Oh lordy, there I go again trying to be poetic.









Before leaving Chicken, I check the time of sunset (left) which was 11:30pm; sunrise came at 4:00am, and yes, I was awake then--to quickly snap the picture and quickly get back into my nice warm, cozy bed for more sleep.

BBYN, Karen & Don