7/12 & 7/13
Today we travel along the West side of the Wrangell Mountains which are beautiful. The roads are very rough. Eventually we came to an area (about 10 miles) of gravel with big pot holes and boulders in the road way. We could only drive about 25 MPH max. Then we had to stop to wait for a pilot car. The road ahead was more like a trail than a road. But at last we were on blacktop. No, no…the blacktop only lasted about 2 blocks and for the next 5 miles or so we alternated between gravel and blacktop. That is sort of the pattern here in Alaska. When the highway gets severely damaged from permafrost they just dig up that section of blacktop and put in gravel. Then leave it that way until the whole road needs to be redone. We had many miles today of these same kinds of road conditions. Please notice the raquet the girl in the last picture has in her hand. It is for zapping mosquitoes!! Some places they are that bad. We bought one recently but have not needed it so far. Some places we were at we really did need one for each hand. We are between 2 mountain ranges and the valley between has many ponds and small lakes. The wild flowers are gone and the road side is drying up. As we arrive in Tok we have made a complete loop through Alaska. We stayed at Golden Bear CG in Tok, Alaska. We were waiting on our mail from the states. We hope the mail will be in tomorrow so we can get on the road but it may be later in the week.