July 10th & 11th

Today we decided we had come this far we might as well head to the Arctic Circle. We left the trailer behind and headed north. It was/is a 400-mile trip on paved and gravel roads but after doing it, I can tell you it was worth it! I think I prefer the gravel roads as they seem to be better maintained - that is smoother than the paved roads. The paved roads have a lot of bumps, dips, and heaves in them so they are much more difficult to repair. On the other hand, if the gravel roads were wet (as in raining) they would be like greased pigs! The roads were slick where they were working on the roads and put water down to hold the dust down. In any event, there were a lot of things to see along the way.

We saw a motor home and a car upside down in the ditch. The books warn you that the shoulders are soft and it was easy to tip-over. Both these vehicles (miles apart) had been there for weeks to months as I suspect the cost of towing them out was more than the value of the vehicle.

We crossed a number of creeks and rivers and all the bridges had wooden decks. I am not sure why except they would be easier to replace than poured concrete or asphalt. If anyone knows why, I'd be interested in hearing from you.

We drove through a lot of forests and burned areas. One such burn area started via multiple lightening strikes and burned over 100K acres. The fire fighters just monitored the fire as they let it burn so the forest would be rejuvenated. It burned for about 2.5 months before the July rains finally extinguished it.  The purple/pink Fire Weed seen below is part of the renewal process.

Of course, there were lots of places to see the pipeline as the Dalton Highway (why do they call every road a highway up here?) was so they could build the pipeline. We saw places where the pipeline went above ground heads and places where it went underground… not sure why except when crossing a road. We also saw place where the pipe was straight and places where it zigzagged up a hill… more questions to Google.

By the way, a head-ache bar is put in place anywhere the pipeline is above-ground, near the road so that no one can "run into the pipeline".

At one place, there was a sign on the road that said, "Road closed for aircraft". A runway ran right along the side of the road so they had to close the road in order for planes to land/take-off. Guess there weren't that many planes… at least today. There was probably more when the road/pipeline built.

We finally made it to the Arctic Circle. We had planned to have lunch there but the mosquitoes were so numerous, we ate in the truck – a real picnic. There is no shortage of mosquitoes in Alaska and they are hungry with all this fresh meat around!

On the way home, we had to stop several times to let large trucks pass us. The first 2 were only 14' and 16' wide but the roads are narrow. The last truck was a monster… 25' wide/214' long. It had taken them 4 days to travel from Anchorage to Fairbanks and they expected it would take a minimum of about 3 days to reach Prudhoe Bay.

We did add to our animal watch… 4 additional moose plus a Lynx. Unfortunately they were too fast (or we were too slow) to get a picture of any of them.

Talk about gravel roads… apparently we got a small stone chip about the size of a squashed mosquito in the driver's corner of the windshield. Arda spotted it and then within 15 minutes we had 2 more from passing trucks. These were bigger – about the size of squshed June bug on the windshield. I think we will wait until we get home to get it repaired but I will get the mirror replaced Monday (I hope).

Saturday is a day of puttering around fixing the water (again) in the trailer, charging the generator starter battery, haircuts, etc. and Arda went for a bike ride. We are heading to church and afterwards to a comedy theater.

Take care and keep the loops open.