Day 47 - Valdez, Alaska to Tok, Alaska

BLOG – Sunday, 7-25-10 Jeff and Noreene Totten #11

The words from the song, “Oh Susanna” reflect the start of the day: “It rained all night the day I left, the weather it was dry”. The end of the day would reflect songs more along the line of hymns of thanksgiving.

 
As we turned in last night, it was raining and it rained all night. “It rained all night the day I left”. Rain continued in the early morning but shortly into our drive, the rain stopped. Half way through the drive, the overcast sky changed to scattered clouds and sunlight producing another great sunny Alaskan day. “The weather it was dry”.

Our trip back along the Richardson Highway started with an opportunity to view the beautiful Bridal Veil Falls and other spectacular falls. The river running alongside the road seemed to be higher than it had been when we passed this way a few days ago. Perhaps rain the day before had been heavy at higher elevations and had contributed to an increase in runoff.



Continuing down the road, we came to an area of Diamond Willows and stopped to cut one. Now comes the fun of turning that piece of Willow into an attractive walking stick. It will be interesting to see if these untrained eyes have selected a good piece.

Next stop: Wrangell-Saint Elias National Park. This park has a beautiful visitor’s center and shows a very informative film on the forces of glaciers and the other forces contributing to geological change over time spanning millions of years. In the center, we even found a book about Valdez during the Gold Rush that had Jeff’s Grandfather’s name in it. We had been looking since the beginning of the trip and finally struck our gold.

Our last stop before Tok RV Village was Mentasa Lodge and a Burl wood shop offering beautiful pieces of furniture. Taking home a nice piece of furniture in a motor home was tempting but we passed on the idea.

When we arrived at our park, Jim Northup came by and mentioned to Noreene that the connection between our tow vehicle and the motor home had come loose. Three hours later, starting before and ending after a dinner of Lasagna, salad, garlic bread and desert prepared for us by our wagonmasters and tailgunners, Jim along with Spence Schaaf and Gary Johnson with assistance from Jenks Jenkins and Darrell Marshall, had removed the tow vehicle grill and bumper, searched and found extra bolts, retightened the connections and reassembled the grill and bumper. In my days I have done numerous jobs around the house from changing electrical plugs to building a small outdoor staircase but automotive mechanics and I never came together. For the efforts these gentlemen gave on our behalf, Noreene and I are truly grateful! If we were not on a caravan; this problem would have cost us not only a repair bill but at least a day of vacation time and quite possibly problems in rearranging reservations for the balance of the trip.