Day 76 - Wednesday August 2/17

(Written on Wednesday August 16th, in the trailer, boondocking (free camping on public land) in British Columbia just below the Northwest Territories border; Posted on Thursday August 31st at Battleford, SK)

A travel day today (after not nearly enough time at Denali National Park), from the Park to Fairbanks (the trailer is booked for wheel bearing service tomorrow at TrailerCraft in Fairbanks, so we really have no choice - although we HAVE begun, more recently and more frequently, to deviate from our previously planned itinerary and schedule!). (map)

Note: the reddish quality to the light is due to the sun shining through the smoke haze in the sky at Battleford,
from the forest fires at Pelican Narrows, SK

We woke at about 8am, got dressed, had scrambled eggs with sausage and toast (toast made on the gas stove using the heat diffuser!), did the dishes, and tidied up. Nancy talked with her step-sister Dawn about Audrey’s death. We then prepped the trailer for departure at about 10:30am. We thought we were on the road, but several delays made it feel that we would never get going: finding the garbage bins, writing and mailing a postcard (the post office counter was closed!), taking the wrong road in the wrong direction to get out of the park, going through the commercial strip of ‘Denali’ (the ‘town’), and then highway construction**(see note below) - we were finally underway by 11:40!! It was windy and cloudy, 14degrC.

The drive from Denali to Fairbanks was straightforward; the weather was overcast, and scenery viewing was poor to non-existent - so very few ‘photo stops’.  We certainly were thankful that the weather yesterday was so clear and pleasant. We moved from driving through a broad, flat valley or plateau to more hilly/mountainous terrain as we approached Fairbanks. As we travelled, we located, using ‘maps’ on our phone, a trailer park that was fairly close to TrailerCraft where we would be taking the trailer tomorrow for wheel-bearing servicing.

We found the campground without difficulty, and got situated, keeping the trailer hooked up to the truck for an easy departure tomorrow morning. We had supper, showered in preparation for the morning, and went to bed relatively early.

(** A note about highway construction: As of this writing, on August 16th, we have determined that we should have kept track of the days (if any!) when we DID NOT encounter highway construction of at least some lesser, and quite often of a greater sort; we are convinced that there has been, what we have come to call, the “requisite highway construction” each time we come across it - from sections of loose gravel with blowing dust due to surface patching, to bridge re-construction with single lanes and traffic signal lights, to major re-surfacing with signal people, to full road-bed re-construction with single lanes and pilot vehicles, to one of the most recent complete reconstructions with horrendous single-lane detours for 15 kilometres with no signal people or other traffic controls on a Monday as it must have been a statutory holiday in the Yukon!)