Top of the World Hwy and Friendly Clouds, Dawson City to 15 miles from Chicken, Walker Fork BLM, 95 miles, June30, 2010

About 8:30, in the Explorer, we checked out the ferry crossing, basically no wait, so back we went to button up the coach and head out after fueling up. Bob had asked the RV staff where the cheapest place to get gas and diesel was and was told about a mile back up the road. So when coming back from checking out the ferry we drove there in the Explorer, finally figured out their cardlock system where you could charge with a credit card, but first needed a pin number that the system issued. We did NOT figure it out, until a helpful neighbor came and filled us in on how it worked. The price was $1.18/liter CND, other places in town was $1.24 & $1.46/liter. When we went back to fill up the coach, it was so slow we stopped after about 5 liters worth and went to the $1.24/liter station. Oh well, sometimes you just can’t win.

Here we are in line at the ferry crossing, only took two round trip ferry crossing before we got on, only about a 20 minute wait. Finally we got our signal to advance, Bob did an excellent job of boarding and following three fellows giving him directions, he can multi-task!

After getting off the ferry, we installed our rock guard, this time under the tow bar. We are now ready to drive the Top of the World Highway.

The drive started out with overcast skies, progressed to light showers and then we were greeting the clouds, looked just like fog, heavy thick pea soup fog!

Here we are stopped at a rest stop, it was double ended and we ended up pulling into it from the exit end as the clouds were so thick we didn’t see the entrance. This is about a mile from the US and Canadian border and also the highest point on the Top of the World Hwy. We wanted to walk the short trail to the cairn indicating the elevation was 4515’ but we could not find it, to “cloudy”!

At least the yellow posts were wider at this border crossing than most. Usual questions, (any firearms, liquor, tobacco, cash over $5,000) then the pleasant border agent welcomed us into the US! (While we were waiting for the green light on the yellow post, the agent had his binoculars out reading our license plate number, also ran our passports.)

Now the roads up to this point were gravel, ‘bout 40-50 mph good, but when we crossed the border, the gravel turned into mostly dirt with washboarding and potholes.

Our speed slowed to between 15-20 mph with Bob dodging many holes. Sometimes he drove like the British, on the left side of the road, it was smoother.

Our plan was to stop at a BLM Campground called Walker Fork, with old Bob’s Senior Pass only $5 per night. We plan on driving about 80 miles tomorrow to visit Eagle AK, all on dirt/gravel road.

These folks were out for a drive today on this bumpy dirt road. We met three of these Model A’s.

The camphosts were cleaning mushrooms when I went and asked them about the drive to Eagle, so after some conversation, they showed us what to look for even loaned us their book on what to pick. Here is our find, Birch Boletes and Orange Birch Boletes. Yes they were delicious!!

Look at these babies we also found- beautiful, called Fly Agaric but not what you want to eat. Glad our hosts checked our finds out before we ate them.

We enjoyed our fire with free wood until the mosquitoes won.