Looks like we made it ???????????

I think the pictures say it all. We made it to Alaska, one of my longtime dreams.
Unfortunately we only made it 10 miles inside the border, when the engine on the new 2008 Ford truck blew up. We were stranded on the side of the road for 5 hours waiting for the tow truck to come from Tok, the nearest town, about 90 miles away. Then it was a 3 hour ride back to Tok, in the tow truck, pulling our truck with the camper attached. 30 mph all the way except where the road was gravel and then we had to slow to 15-20 mph. We got into a campground around 11 PM just before sunset.

You really can’t appreciate the 19 hours of sunlight until you have been here. We have trouble sensing when it’s time to go to bed or get up unless we black out the bedroom. Often there are people out walking and conversing in the campgrounds until 11 pm.

As for the truck, it has some exhust cooling valves that are bad as well as needing to have the biggest part of the exhaust system replaced and will be towed to the nearest Ford dealership which is in Fairbanks, about 212 miles away. In the mean time we are in a nice campground in Tok and have the motorcycles to ride. Too bad there are only 2 roads! The one from Whitehorse to Fairbanks which we came in on, and one that intersects it, going from Chicken to Anchorage. Fortunately the town has a grocery store, good cell service and 5 cable stations. There are reportedly 1400 residents! They must be counting tourists.

We convinced our travel partners to continue to the Kenai Peninsula as planned, and we will catch up with them as soon as we get our truck back. We will have to shorten our stay most places but we had allotted 5 weeks to see Alaska. Too bad 2 weeks will be spent looking at Tok.

This really is the last frontier.