According to the plan, our mail had arrived at the Tok post office and we would be on our way today. There are so many beautiful mountain views in Alaska. This one is along the Alaska Highway as we headed toward Delta Junction.
This is the Robertson River as we were crossing the bridge and the Alaska Range is in the background. The ice hasn’t broken up completely yet, and there are some very pretty shades of blue in the ice.
We passed a sign pointing to Jan Lake Rd.
We made our planned stop at Delta Meat and Sausage and picked up some buffalo, reindeer and elk sausage.
We arrived at Rika’s Roadhouse where we ate our lunch and talked about possibly continuing on to North Pole, AK. We had watched an episode of Guy Fieri’s Diners Drive-In’s and Dives that featured North Pole and Fairbanks area cafes and thought it would fun to try some of them out. We checked out our Passport America book and there is an RV park in North Pole that would be a good place for a couple of nights. Following lunch, we walked around the grounds at Rika’s Roadhouse and took several photos, but I’m just posting this one of the actual roadhouse.
Yesterday I had sent an email to our friend Don who had driven the Dalton Highway from Fairbanks about 3 years ago to ask some questions. He called us as we were wandering around at Rika’s Roadhouse and suggested we would be better off waiting for warmer weather in August to try that trip. Considering that, our original plans went south and so did we as we are now traveling toward Valdez. Not too far south of Donnelly Creek Recreation Site, we looked out and saw this herd of bison. We counted at least 27 of them.
A little further down the road was view of Black Rapids Glacier. It is now retreating and very little ice is visible. It advanced more than 3 miles during the winter of 1936-37 and was nicknamed Galloping Glacier.
About 5 miles before our new planned destination we saw a caribou. The bugs on the window don’t make for a very good picture.
There was road work for the 11 or so miles before our stop and we wanted to inquire about camping at Sourdough Roadhouse. With all of the construction going on, it was no surprise to see their camping area filled with workers. We went in anyway and asked about dry camping in their lot. Due to more construction vehicles coming in, he suggested going over the bridge to the Sourdough Creek BLM Campground. We enjoyed a dinner at the roadhouse, then continued to the BLM campground and found a nice large pull through site for the night for $6.00 with our senior card.
Our wildlife sightings for the day included:
snowshoe rabbits – 2
moose – 3
bison – 27 +
porcupine – 1
caribou - 1
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