Let’s spend Canada Day in the U.S. and the 4th of July in Canada…

I took this photo near the Canadian border from On Top of
the World Highway

We awoke to rain in Tok. The Amish gremlins were still camped out, but the coffee was fresh and good straight from the jet boil French press… life was good. This holiday has every RV in Alaska headed towards Eureka to camp in a gravel pit (at least the locals), but all the tourists seem to be wandering aimlessly. I suspect we will be in that camp for the day.

From Tok, just down the line, is the junction to the Taylor highway – the trail to Chicken and the U.S. Customs.

Not long after turning onto the Taylor the road deteriorated enough that I got a smile on my face… soon pavement turned to broken pavement… broken pavement to gravel, gravel to dirt… dirt to dirt and potholes filled with water…. To the final outcome… mud! I declared with joy… “YES! Mud”. Jaz declared… “shiiit”.

Jaz and her rear end slid consistently over the course of several hours… she also got very good at pointing out where the deepest water filled potholes lurked… by hitting them. She claims this was all in the spirit of marking the way for me. I missed the ones I wanted to and plowed through some of them intentionally… nothing makes you smile like a kid than dirt…

Later in the day the mud dried to dust… and Jaz proceeded to dust me out for the rest of the ride. I arrived safely to the Yukon River with a nice white sheen. No issues from the nice folks on the Canadian border… this time. Perhaps they had their hands filled with the holidays?

The scenery over the Top of the World was spectacular as always… and I thought about the last time I came through in my truck. This is definitely one of the most gorgeous places on the planet.

Once we ferried our bikes across the mighty Yukon, we rolled into town where folks were cheering on the conclusion of a very long kayak race from Whitehorse. We found out hotel… a refurbished ATCO trailer hidden behind the gorgeous building pictured on the website, dusted our boots off and headed to Klondike Kate’s for a beer.

We should have been suspicious of local beer (BC) called Black Death Porter and Angry Scottish Ale… the alcohol content was much higher than amerika pisswater… and boy.. one beer later, with all that travel… and we were both toast!

We both fell on the bed and slept like babies until the morn.

Good thing… today the real trip begins. 450 miles straight to the top of the world. Who knows what connectivity and the Amish will bring. I have no cell phone connectivity anymore… the Iphone has become a paperweight.