Dunfey Alaska Journey

We visited with our Son’s extended family for 3 days in Foster City. We stayed at a RV Park in Half Moon Bay.

One day, we toured wine country with our daughter-in-law’s parents, Geoff and Dianna Wood.

Our daughter, Kim, joined us for 3 days at Yosemite. We came into Yosemite from the south. We stayed at Crane Flat National Park Campground.

We visited Yosemite Valley several times. We hiked to Taft Point which had quite exciting views looking down into the valley far below.

On our final day at Yosemite, we traversed the length of the park to go to Mono Lake. Mono Lake is very similar to the Great Salt Lake in Utah. We went from forest to arid desert. The limestone formations in and near the lake were fascinating to see. On the way back to our campsite, Kim and Fred kayaked in a Yosemite mountain lake.   We also hiked down into a sequoia Forrest and back out.

Yosemite and Mono Lake Pictures

Kayaking in Tenaya Lake at Yosemite

When we got back from Yosemite, we parked our camper for 4 nights in an alley behind the house where Kim lives. We stayed at Alex and Elena’s apartment for 3 nights. Our new grandchild, Evelyn, seemed more active when we got back. She really is a delightful baby!

Family Pictures..

Fred got a chance to hit some tennis balls with Alex one afternoon.

Our last night in San Francisco we had dinner in Mountain View with our daughter, Kim. She took us to a Japanese Sabu Sabu restaurant. We ate beef and various veggies cooking them “fondue style” in a mild spicy broth. We noticed that almost all the customers were Japanese.

After breakfast at Kim’s on 9/28, we headed for Tucson to visit Milly’s cousin, Art.  We spent the first night boon docking in Mojave Desert. Then we stopped at 2 pm at Lake Havasu State Park for an overnight stay. Lake Havasu City was much larger than we expected. On our way to Tucson, we travelled along the Colorado River. We saw many small retirement communities along the Colorado nestled in the mountains.

As we post this, we are south of Phoenix on Route 10 within an hour of our Tucson destination.

San Francisco, Lake Havasu Pictures

We drove all day down the Cassiar Highway from Watson Lake to Stewart-Hyder. We started and ended in the rain with periods of partly blue sky in between. This highway has many beautiful spots to stay overnight and relax. The whole trip was scenic with the last 40 miles down canyons to Stewart, BC  being especially spectacular. The canyons were narrow with craggy rough mountains raising up on both sides as the road wound down to sea level. We passed Bear Glacier as close to the highway as any glacier we had seen.

We travelled on 8/17 from Fairbanks to TOK on our way to Dawson City, Yukon via Top of the World Highway.

In the morning of 8/18, we headed up Taylor Highway to “top of the world highway” which goes from Chicken Alaska to Dawson City. We arrived in Chicken for lunch, toured the town and headed towards Dawson City. Chicken was somewhat interesting but not worth going out of your way to visit. It is a good stopping point on the way to Dawson City. Only 4 people live in Chicken year round. It grows to 24 in summer. There are a couple of RV Parks, a Restaurant Cafe, a couple of Gift Shops, a gas station and a few historical points of interest.

After lunch, we drove he first part of the “Top of the World Highway” through Boundary and to the Canadian/US Border. The scenery was great. The road winds its up up to the top of ridges and runs these ridges across the top of the world. The views are beautiful! Much of the time you are above tree line looking over the valleys below and across to the mountains near and far. The road is called gravel but resembles hard packed dirt. The trailer was bouncing a little.

We came to a scenic viewpoint about a half mile past the border. We could see the border station on a neighboring mountain peak. We went for a short hike on the tundra and walked up a road out to the end of the canyon top. We spotted some caribou. We met another couple there. We all decided to stay the night high up on top of the world. It was wonderful. We took our chairs, wine, cheese and rice crackers out to the edge of the canyon. We enjoyed each others company while taking in the breath taking views.

In the morning, we finished the trip to Dawson City. The rest of the trip across the Top of the Work highway was much more pleasant. The road was in much better condition with half of it paved and the rest seemed to be coated with oil that made the unpaved sections very smooth.

We stayed in Dawson City for two nights. Dawson City has a large permanent population of about 1800. The Canadian National Park Service has guided a historical restoration activity here. Dawson City has wooded sidewalks on a huge downtown area. The Dawson City museum is a must see! There are a couple of movies about the Klondike Gold Rush. There exhibits was well done. In Dawson City, there is a mix of historical tourist type activity with the life of the town. It is a very pleasant place to just walk around.