Ever Make a Promise? – Tok to Haines

Six weeks ago we hit the hardest, toughest, most un-RV friendly road ever…the road between Destruction Bay and Beaver Creek in the Yukon Territory.  There were times we could not go over 15 mph, and even then the RV felt like it was going to shake apart…literally shake apart.  By the time we crossed into Alaska, Marcia let me know that there was “NO WAY” she would go through that again.  People with MS cannot take brain shaking, cut wrenching, butt crushing type of things like that ride was.  It was 45 miles of pure HELL!  And that is where the promise came in…  “Honey, they will have 6-8 weeks to finish all of that before we pass over it again, I PROMISE it will be better…”   Well, Sunday was the day of reckoning…

The construction six weeks ago was broken up into three distinct areas along the 100+ mile route between Destruction Bay and Beaver Creek, I will call them the Eastern, Middle and Western Sections.  More precise, the construction started about 25 miles west of Destruction Bay, and 25 miles east of Beaver Creek.  I am pretty good about remembering roads I have traveled before…when I was just shy of turning 8 years old, I walked from school to our new home in South Sacramento, a trek of 2 1/2 miles, crossing over two very busy streets…and the kicker was, I wasn’t suppose to do that…but to this day, I still feel like I was following the directions that mom gave me.  Anyway, that whooping is behind me, if you know what I mean, but it does illustrate just how good I am at directions, and at remembering how to get somewhere.  But on our drive this past Sunday, I just could not identify where the Western Section of the three constructions zones was…until we passed over the fresh rough pavement of the middle section when I told Marcia, “I think we already passed over the western patch and we are just now finishing up the middle patch…”, they indeed had put pavement on two of the three rough areas.  YES!  My only clue was that there was no road markers…not that other sections had good road markers…sometimes you are driving on pavement with a faint yellow line separating the two sides of the highway that looks like it was painted back in the 70’s!  Then we hit the worse section, which went by Lake Keethmark (picture above)…section one, the most eastern section of the construction when we were on it six weeks ago.  And you know what, it was not that bad.  Even on Sunday they were working on it.  It now had three of four bad areas which only lasted a few tenths of a mile each.  And there was a road crew working on these areas, and we were being escorted through them.  They did open up some new work areas, but they were short areas, and again, not nearly as tough to go over.  Thank you Lord Almighty, that was one promise I did not know how I was going to keep!

Soon we were along Kluane Lake again, and it was like a mirror…and the bad road was behind us.  And Marcia still had her nerves intact.  And the motorhome handled what harsh areas there were very well.  We both finished the trip tired, but happy.

    

The only wildlife we saw between Tok and Haines Junction was some Trumpeter Swans…about three or four pair in total, and…

    

This Yukon Raven, (Yukon’s Official Bird) which tormented poor Skruffy at our RV Park in Beaver Creek.   Honesty, we saw lots of Ravens…but this one here was sure giving Skruffy heartache. 

      

Hey Bubba, you want to come and see the Raven…yep, that’s what I thought.

It was two real good driving days.  When we got to Haines Junction, we stayed at the FasGas RV Park ($25 Canadian) and had a good dinner which I brought back to the motorhome from the Village Bakery and Deli.  Since we had already blogged about our trip from Haines Junction to Tok six weeks ago, and even though we took another 100+ pictures along that route coming back, I decided to devote most of this post to the trek from Haines Junction, Yukon Territory, to Haines, Alaska, which was new ground.  For this portion of the trip I will let the pictures tell the story.  (Remember, you can click on a picture for a larger version)

    

    

    

    

    

    

 

 

 

    

    

     

And that brought us to within just a few miles of Haines.  What a wonderful drive.  We loved the drives to Skagway, to Valdez, to Seward, to Homer, (actually, all of the Kenai Peninsula), to Anchorage, to Denali, and now to Haines…let alone much of the drive along the Alaska Highway.  It is all so amazing.  Tonight we are at the Hitch-up RV Park in Haines, but tomorrow we move over to the Oceanside RV Park for 6 nights, providing us views of the Chilkoot Inlet.  Unfortunately, we are going to be faced with some rain over the next 4-6 days.  But that is part of the adventure.  More from Haines soon.