CHICKEN TO TOK, AK

Driving the Taylor Hwy to Tok, AK

From Chicken we followed the somewhat better highway #5, the Taylor Highway, south to Tok (pronounced Toke) Alaska which seems to be the crossroads that everyone hits as they come into Alaska from the south (we came from the north – so were heading the opposite way of most people!).

We left Chicken after filling up with gas (the cheapest in Chicken! At $4.49/gal … and then off on some more crappy roads until the West Fork Campground which is a BLM (Bureau of Land Management – looks similar to our provincial recreational sites & territorial campgrounds – the fee is only $10/night for a basic site). We stayed there overnight. So site is located on the edge of a river and wetland, so lots of bugs … I think we’re finally getting into the mosquitos we’d heard so much about. We lathered up with bug lotion, set out some mosquito coils and finally put up our ‘bug tent’, which worked like a ‘hot damn!’ Quite warm and sunny out so we sat in our ‘tent’ till about 8:00 pm then in for a bit of TV and early to bed.

Wetlands at the West Fork Campground BLM – pretty to look at, bad for bugs!

With nasty mosquito levels our screened room came in handy at the West Fork Campground BLM

It has several very large RV parks, grocery stores, restaurants, gas stations … and lots of souvenir shops. We stayed at the very large, but well-appointed Tok RV Village for the night to hopefully use some wi-fi. The first thing we did tho was pay $12 to use their RV wash and sprayed and scraped off, what felt like, was half of Alaska. No wonder the roads are so bad … they mostly end up underneath RV’s!! After that we walked around – mainly on the highway that goes through town – all the ‘shops’ are on either side of the highway.

Main St Tok

Tok RV Village

We had a supper of wings & veg, then took a ticket we had gotten at the Tourist Information Centre next door to Fast Eddy’s to see a free ‘bluegrass’ concert. It wasn’t quite what we’d envisioned … but it was pretty good … and free! There were 4 in the ‘band’, one older guy Dave Stancliff and 3 young people – 2 guitars, one banjo and one fiddle. They were selling ice cream (we’d hoped for beer!) and the concert lasted about 1 ½ hours and it was good entertainment!