Little coffee shop with GREAT Cinnamon Rolls
Wonderful Frost HeavesThursday August 12, 2010. Left Tok, AK at 9;15 headed toward Destruction Bay. We had a beautiful day for traveling as the sun was shinning and it was very warm as well. This is such a boring part of our trip as the roads are just so bad all the way from about 15 miles out of Tok to Destruction Bay. I think it is only 225 miles that we drove but took us forever as we could not drive very fast with all the frost heaves.
We drove about 95 miles to the Canadian Border and stopped at the 'Duty Free Store' -- if you can call it a store. It was just a small run down building that sold liquor, cigarettes and a few souvenirs. The road was nothing but dirt for probably 30 miles or more going to the border. When we were waiting to pull out onto the road again, a truck spreading water went by and turned the dust to mud. Our beautiful clean motor home is dirtier now than before we washed it in Valdez. What a mess the roads were today! We got to the border and waited about 45 minutes to cross. I have no idea what the hold up was as they were not letting anyone through. While we were setting in line they were searching a semi inside and out. When we finally crossed, they did not ask more than three questions, looked at our passports and waved us on.
As we were driving through the 100 miles of frost heaves, the semi came roaring past us and several other vehicles. We could not believe he was driving so fast. About five miles down the road, two Canadian Mountie cars came flying past us and the others ahead of us. We thought they must be in pursuit of the semi truck. As we were almost into Destruction Bay, we saw the semi setting in a pull off area but did not see anyone around it. We were wondering if they arrested the driver.
The scenery through the frost heave area was really beautiful. The mountains still had snow on them in areas and the sky was a beautiful blue. We noticed that several of the deciduous trees are turning a brilliant yellow, so the fall has started here. The ranger in Denali Park said that the plants and trees would start turning around the 15th of August and they normally only have about a month of fall weather before the snow starts.
Driving along the last few miles of Alaska and into the Yukon we saw five different pairs of swans on the lakes in the area. I could not believe they were swans but we got a very good look at several of them. I, of course, never had the camera at hand for a picture. If you can't snap a picture will driving down the highway you never would have pictures because Larry is not going to pull off the road for that. I forgot to mention that yesterday we saw a red fox zipping across the road in front of us coming from Valdez. We have seen very little wildlife recently which surprises me as the areas we have been in seem like the right places for wildlife.
We drove by the little coffee shop that we stopped at on the way up to Tok. It is out in the middle of BFE! We stopped again today and had a cinnamon roll and coffee. The people who own the shop do not speak much English, however, today she told me that they have two children. Their daughter is married with two children and lives in France, and their son lives in Whitehorse, Yukon and is dating a Japanese girl. She also told me she is from France. She had pictures on the wall of her daughter's family that she showed me. She really makes WONDERFUL cinnamon rolls. I also bought myself a slice of quiche. I believe I spelled it correctly this time. In my previous posting, I'm sure I misspelled it. I have not had my quiche yet, probably tomorrow while Larry has his gourmet hot dogs!!!Ha!
We ended up staying at Destruction Bay at the same RV Park we stayed at going up to Alaska. The guy who runs the place is a really nice guy and I think he said he has 27 spaces and tonight, again, they are all filled. There is a caravan here with about 21 RV's. We were setting outside after dinner and a guy was walking his lab and then a lady came walking up with another dog. She had a Chicago Cubs shirt on so I asked her where they were from --She told me either she or her husband was from Quincy, IL. I thought she looked kinda familiar and then I looked at her name tag. We met her in Tok on our way into Alaska and she is a sister-in-law to John Alms, whom I worked with for many years. So anyway, just seems we run into the same people over and over. That really is amazing because there are thousands of RV's on the roads and in the RV Parks everywhere we go.
We have two RV's next to us and they are both from Kankakee,IL and are traveling together. They are planning to go to Hyder tomorrow so Larry was talking with to them tonight. I guess we are going to take a day and stop at Hyder and go to the bear viewing platform. Might not get another chance to come to Alaska again! I am going to miss all of the cool weather here when we get home. I cannot imagine how I will function again in the heat of Illinois!
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