Holland America Cruisetour - Day 6

August 24, 2013

           Departing Tok set a new record for early wake up. We had to have our bags outside our hotel room by 6:30am. Marc, our tour concierge, said he felt my glare when I told the group our wake up time. He has quickly learned I’m a little slow in the mornings. Since we were back in the States and had phone signal I was buzzed out of my sleep by a text around 5am…apparently someone at home forgot I was 4 hours behind them. I was awake early enough to get in a little souvenir shopping before the bus departed at 7:30am.

          As we set off toward Fairbanks, Eric played a PBS movie for us about Alaska’s history. The Holland America tour directors and drivers have the schedule down to a science because soon after the movie ended we arrived at our morning coffee stop. We pulled off on a dirt road toward Rika’s Roadhouse. The roadhouse was set on the banks of the river and had a café, gift shop, historic cabins, and views of the Alaska Pipeline crossing the river. Marc and Eric planned a game of Moose Migration once we got on the bus. This bus game everyone starting with a piece of paper and drawing a body part of the moose that Marc called out. Once that part was drawn each person passed their papers in a specified direction and then another part was called out. Eventually we ended up with complete, but crazy looking animals!

 Our next stop was a surprise and is not included on every Holland America cruisetour. We went to the North Pole! North Pole Alaska is right outside of Fairbanks so we made a brief stop on our way in to Fairbanks. The town has truly embraced their name and created a children’s dream town. The street lights are in the shape of candy canes. There is a road called Santa Clause Lane. We stopped at the Santa Clause House where there was a 3 story tall Santa to greet us outside. The shop had an enormous variety of Christmas ornaments and decorations and plenty of gifts from the “North Pole”. I finally took my first picture with Santa Clause. As a kid I refused to sit on Santa’s lap each Christmas so finally, at age 24, my Mom will have a picture of me with Santa. They had a post office where travelers can mail post cards back home from the North Pole. I could have spent hours inside the Santa Clause House browsing all the Christmas goodies, but Marc limited us to 25 minutes. However, that was plenty of time to buy Christmas presents for friends and a few other souvenirs!

 

We arrived at the Steamboat Discovery in Fairbanks just in time for lunch. There were 8 busloads of hungry people waiting in line. We were seated family-style and ate a “miner’s lunch” of soup, pasta salad, biscuits, and blueberry crumbcake. We boarded the Discovery III steamboat with all 8 busloads of people and paddled our way down the Chena River. I have heard many a client say the Steamboat Discovery is their favorite part of Alaska aside from their time in Denali National Park. The paddlewheel tour was 3 hours and the narrator gave great insight on the Fairbanks culture and life along the Chena River. They had a float plane demonstrate take off from the river and landing alongside the boat. As we moved further down the river, we stopped in front of David Monson’s house. David and his late wife Susan raised and trained Iditarod dogs. Susan won four Iditarod races in the 1980’s and today David and their daughters continue to train dogs and compete in Iditarod races. They demonstrated how they teach the new puppies and then they harnessed some of the older dogs and the dogs pulled David on an engine-free four wheeler around their property. We paddled on down the river and stopped at the Chena Indian Village. We actually got off the Discovery III at this stop. They recreated an old Indian village and had native Alaskan employees talk about what life would have been life a hundred years ago in a fish camp village where temperatures can get to below 40 degrees. Back at the base of the Steamboat Discovery we browsed the visitor center and gift shop and I braved the “40 Below Room”. I think I had brief moment of insanity! Group by group we stepped inside a smaller room and then into a freezer –like room where they maintain a temperature of below 40 degrees. You go into the room without a heavy coat, just “as is”. I will admit that I lasted all of 1 minute in there! Long enough for the lady outside to take a picture of me shivering! I don’t know how the Alaskan’s deal with those extreme temperatures! It was such a dry cold that it was almost painful. Roy just laughed at me when I walked out of the room. At least I can say I tried it! We transferred to our hotel, the Westmark Fairbanks. This was the nicest hotel since the Fairmont Pacific Rim in Vancouver. We grabbed dinner in the hotel and talked to my Mom and headed to bed early.

 

 

 

Holland America Cruisetour - Day 5

August 23, 2012

             We packed up a new bus with a new driver named Eric. Holland America motorcoach drivers cover a certain territory so they become a master of the road and the history of that particular area. We waved goodbye to Chris and our blue whale bus and settled aboard our orange (!!!) moose bus with Eric. Poor Eric gets the short end of the stick with the routes because he had to navigate the dirt and gravel of the Top of the World Highway. We left Dawson City and crossed the Yukon River by ferry. We were amazed that our large motorcoach could fit on a little ferry boat! We didn’t even sink it! The Top of the World Highway is not for the motion sick traveler. We bounced and twisted up the mountains so we were well above the tree line. The roads were not paved so our bus quickly became as dusty inside as it was outside. Holland America truly has their travelers’ safety at heart because we learned at our first picture stop that we were actually following a “pace car”. Holland America hires a tow truck to lead the way for 2 motorcoaches when traveling from Dawson City to Chicken, Alaska. The tow truck radios to the motorcoach drivers about upcoming blind curves or hazards in the road. We stopped a few times for pictures since it really did look like we were on the top of the world. I have never felt as isolated as we were out there. You could see for miles and miles but there was nothing but trees and hills.

          We crossed the Canada/Alaska border at the most northern entry station in North America (bragging rights!).  As we made our way down the mountain we came to the little community of Chicken. Chicken Alaska has approximately 7 year round residents. I told you the towns keep getting smaller! Chicken had all of the necessary makings of a town…a café, a saloon, a liquor store, and a gift shop. It was a fun roadside stop that makes fun of it self! By day 9, the other travelers were warming up to each other so I chatted with an agent from Missouri for a while from Chicken to Tok. I really enjoy meeting other agents especially since I am so much younger I always learn so much from them!

 

We arrive in the crossroads of Tok, Alaska early evening to find that it is a larger town of 1200 people, but it is truly a crossroads! The town makes the shape of a T and that’s all there is. Most of the residents live in the mountains around Tok. We had 2 dinner options in Tok, the restaurant at our hotel or a truck stop a mile down the road. Guess which one we picked? The hotel restaurant! Home of the 40oz margarita! Roy chose to eat out of the fancy vending machine, but I went to the lounge with some of my new friends from the bus. We sat around until the bar closed and they kicked us out at the late hour of 10pm. They are big partiers in Tok!

Holland America Cruisetour - Tour Day 3 & 4

August 21 and 22, 2012
        
          My favorite part of Dawson City has to be the fact we didn’t have to be up and at the bus by a certain time. The whole day was at leisure. Roy decided we needed to get a wakeup call in the middle of the night if the Northern Lights were out so our phone jolted me from sleep at 2:15am and we layered on sweats over our pajamas and trekked outside in hopes of getting a glimpse of the Northern Lights. Thankfully we were not the only crazies wandering the dirt roads in the middle of the night. We recognized a lot of people from our group shivering with their cameras in hand and staring up at the sky. The Northern Lights were dim but we did see streaks of light green. I can only imagine how vibrant the colors will be in a few weeks. We were told that we would have a good chance to see the lights again in Fairbanks too.

Westmark Hotel - The Rainbow Row of Dawson City

 

                Since we were awake for a while during the night, we each slept in and then went our separate ways for the day. Roy went to Belinda’s, the Westmark’s restaurant, for breakfast then set off to explore the town of Dawson City. I move a little slower so I eventually set off for the only full service coffee house in town on Front Street. I sipped my chai latte as I walked along the Yukon River to the end of town. I then decided to walk every street of Dawson City and go in every store along the way. Dawson City had a great Visitor’s Center that told the history of the area through films and local workers. I signed the guest book and grabbed some useful pamphlets to take home. Dawson City is full of unique shops…they have everything from jewelry stores, a video rental store, cheesy gift shops, clothing stores, and an outdoor supply store. There are only 2 grocery markets in town and they were incredibly expensive compared to home! Dawson even had a mortuary! Would you like to know how long it took me to go in every store and walk every street in Dawson City? Two hours. Yes, two hours to slowly wander and shop. That should tell you what a metropolis Dawson City is!

 

         I spent most of the afternoon walking the town (again) and along the Klondike Millennium Trail by the Yukon River. Roy let his adventurous spirit take over and he followed the phone lines up and over a mountain and wandered in the woods until he found the Dempster Highway and walked back to Dawson City. We reconvened for dinner at Sourdough Joes, famous for their (you guessed it) Fish & Chips. You would think we were in the UK as much as we have had fish and chips on this trip!