Week 2, Alaska (US)

13/6

Rose at 6.40 after again another good night of sleep.
Left before breakfast with Bijan, Didi, and Norman to do a nice  2h hiking, starting from the visitor center. Bus of 7.40.

Had breakfast at the Visitor center, hiked for 1.5 h and took an extra route to the showerblock and then back to the visitor center.

Next the sledge dog training center. Nice, but not spectacular.

Then we had to wait for 2 h in the sun (weather was beautiful , all day long (even got sunburned)) over a beer and some good conversations. Checked FB in a wifi environment. Then took the bus back. 2nd beer now at the truck, still in the sun. Great day (so far).
Chicken wraps for dinner.  Lovely. Tired now, waiting to go to sleep. One more game of sudoku, then maybe an episode of fringe.

On the road for a week now. It seems like it was 3 weeks ago since i left Holland. So much happens each day.

14/6

Rose at 7. It had been freezing, 5 degrees and i hardly noticed. Good gear and thank you mariya, for a really good body warmer!

Fried egged for breakfast. Coffee over a nice conversation  in the sunshine (again!, we're really lucky with the weather) and off to the access center for ... a hot shower.... oh yeah, what a luxury! Nice discussion afterwards with Ross. He's a conservative, but has good properties too.
Oh yeah, we encountered a moose. Really close. Scarey, but still...

Hiked back to the visitor center, to do some wifi related work (updated blog, answered email, read the dutch news and the daily trump related blunders).

Then visited the science center. Really interesting. Why nobody else went there... don't know.

Took the bus back to the camping site, updating this blog now. Laterz...

Evening: food, campfire, guitar, tea and a beer.

15/6

It had froozen even harder. I woke up in an iglo. Both parts of my tent had a layer of ice on them. Managed to sleep well though. Anyway, woke up at 6.45 or so. Breakfasted, broke up and away we went for a long drive up north. Shopping ar Walmart, and drove on to this wild camping spot, where we are right now.

Beautiful scenery on the way. Take a look.

8.15 Late dinner.  And then.. the sun came through and while everybody was prepared for another cold night, temperature rose to 25 degrees. Sleeping on top of my 2 sleeping bags now. Gonna do an episode of fringe. Too much daylight to sleep. Till tomorrow.

16/6

Slept good, rose at 5.40, breakfast , toiletted in the wilderness,  and on our way again further nort.
I accompany will, who otherwise had to drive alone in the front cabine. Quite comfortable i must say. Nice chats too.

Stopped several times for pictures: "fingers rock", take a look.

Then we reached the arctic circle. Time for pics again of course.

We now have 24 h of daylight ...

Continued to the next sceneric spot ...

After 200 miles we did lunch in a place called "cold foot".

12.45 on our way to this little town "Dead horse". The names up here ... ;-)

On the way we visited an old goldminers town, called "Wiseman". It really breathes history. The remainning inhabitants love to show of their old stuff. Watch ...

Then onwards to Deadhorse. 200 miles to go on dirt tracks in a truck. It wears you out.
Found a campground at 8 pm. A few degrees below zero and i had still cookgroup duty to do. But with the help of italian Laura, aussie Laura and dutch Didi it was done quite quickly. Bless those girls!
Slept like a log, despite the freezing cold. No beers, since i did not want to have to go out for a pee.

17/6

5.40 Rose and left my froozen iglo tent to help cookgroup to get breakfast started. They already had done it! Oh yeah, lucky me.

Set for Deadhorse at 7 and arrived at 8. Drank coffee at the meeting place for our tour. Tour started with a ride through Alaskan oilfields.  Basically a small town of oil wells.

They pump up 500.000 barrels per day and transport it over the trans Alaskan pipeline. We followed that pipeline to get here.


Then ... the Arctic (froozen) ocean. 500 K above the arctic circle (but still 2000 K from the geographical north pole). I have never been more north.

Stepping on that ice is a really special, kind of "end of the world"-ish feeling . See pics...

After 1 hour back to the meeting spot for another coffee.
For the next 6 months it will only go south.

12.30 lunch on the tundra (the "arctic plains" as its called here).
On our way south now. A few 100 miles to do. Laterz...

17.00 Back in the mountains (Brook Range). Rain, lots of it. Worse than cold. Hoping for sun shine behind the next mountain.

And it did clear. Sun came through the clouds, we found this marvelous camp spot, near a river, with a splendid view on a massive rock. Take a look at this scenery:

And with a great spaghetti with meatballs in my stomac i couldn't be happier (unless Mariya was here).
Cleaned the truck (as good as it gets, cause it's so incredibly dirty). See you all tomorrow.

18/6

Slept good, rose at 6.00, breakfasted, and on the road. Long day of driving ahead of us.
Stop every now and then for pee or lunch...
At 16.xx flat tire, changed it ... the a lot of help from the oldies, Norm and Ken.

at 17.30 we found a nice camping spot near a river. Dinner, some guitar, plenty of sunshine, nice evening (except some irritations wrt ... never mind). Tried to sleep from 10.00, but still alot of noise... oh well ...

19/6

Overslept almost. But... 7.30 on the road again: first to Fairbank to do shopping, then to Chicken (another silly named town , near the border) ... see you there.

9.30 Truck wash (the outside that is). No luxury ... see pic...

Gave us the opportunity for a decent cup of coffee (Starbucks) and some chitchat.

Then 1 mile further: Santa's house. Another commercially exploited place. I think Edwin would have loved it ;-) See pics...

Made myself a sandwich (in stead of going to the so many-th fastfood) and discovered a beverdam (forgot to take a picture, sorry)... Laterz.

Last part of the trip to Chicken. Kiwi/Aussie girls took shots and started singing ... hmmm ... bit annoying.
Anyway, arrived at chicken at 20.00 or so. No cookgroup, just put up tent in the bushes (a bit of a struggle), grab a burger and a beer.

We were supposed to get drunk, but after 2 beers i stopped and called it a night. Most of the others got drunk and kept on partying untill 2 am or so.