Big Delta to Chicken, AK ~ The Gold Fever Begins!



Real Gold Nugget in Helen's hand!!

Driving 188 miles today seems like a short ride to the grocery store. In Delta Junction, we spent half the morning getting caught up on emails and posting three days of blogs. The library wasn’t opened but the parking lot had three cars (not tourist, but locals) who, I know were using the WiFi. I’m getting to love the libraries!

On the way to Chicken, we stopped at Tok Junction to gas up. The price there was $4.09. I also filled one bottle of propane. The good thing about the fill-up was that we could have a free car wash. We did this and the truck/camper seemed happy to get washed behind the ears. There was a camper from England (not New England).They washed there camper three times. I said three times!! At Tetlin Junction, we took a left and started to climb into the mountains towards Chicken. The road was narrow with little traffic and 90% paved.

Chicken is a “one  horse” town (actually only three businesses) and is noted for its Gold Rush days. Gold is still found here every day. We actually watched a couple of guys pan and every pan had gold in the bottom. We did see a few large nuggets in the store that were discovered here.

The town with gravel roads took us to the airport to see if any moose were dinning in the two ponds next to the gravel runway. None were found! The next stop was to the General Store and Bar. I bought another hiking stick pin that caught my eye. Helen bought a “Chicken Alaska shirt”. The last stop was at the gas station. We missed the last call for “Halibut and Spare Ribs”, so we had steak on our still “new” Webber grill.

Kris Valencia & Biscuit

Our ¾ mile tour of the town was complete and we headed for campsite number 19 (home for the night). I packed our grill after the steaks were eaten and has I was putting the chairs away I noticed this truck camper coming down the mountain in a distance. It sort of looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Five minutes later the camper came into the campground and parked. It was the famous Mile Post Truck Camper that truck camper magazine had mentioned in one of their articles online. The article said,” if you see the well graphic Mile Post truck, go and introduce yourselves.” We did and took pictures, and Kris Valencia (Managing Editor) took pictures of us also. She said they would post our pictures on their website. www.themilepost.com I just don’t know when this will happen. I don’t remember if I had mentioned in a previous blog, but my truck modification (front bike rack) made it onto online Truck Camper Magazine. I think it was issue number 642 (not sure of the issue number, no WiFi at the moment).

We are contemplating whether we will head south and then west to Oregon, possibly extending our journey another month and a half. We will have to decide in a few days when we arrive at the start of the Alaska/Canada highway. We will let the canoe decide which way the current bring us.

That is what we did and saw