July 25, 2007
To Tok: Sourdough Campground
The owner of the B & B and RV parking place comes home after we already settled in our tent. We meet her next morning. She is German and ended up in Tok 25 years ago when she was hitchhiking and could not get a ride out of town. She got a job as a waitress and stuck around. We pay her for the camping, fill the water bottles and have a quick breakfast. We forgo a cooked breakfast offered here and instead get to Tok early enough for a meal. It's about 27 miles to Tok first some gradual up and downs, then an endless straight flat road. We get to the junction with the cut off towards the Richardson Highway just before ten. A little beyond is Fast Eddy Restaurant. Japanese tourists snap pictures of us as we pull into the parking lot. It's been awhile since we felt like a tourist attraction as when in Asia.
Half an hour later we have downed our bacon and eggs, hash browns, toast and biscuits and gravy. Rachel calls her mother. We are thinking to just take an RV park site on this side of town. A lady in the next booth hears our discussion and recommends the Sourdough Campground that a bit on our route, about 1 1/2 miles down the Tok cut off. It's the second recommendation we have received for this place so we head back into town. The visitor center is right at the junction and has lots of information on Alaska, it's just we are headed the other way.
We head out to the Sourdough CG set up in a nice secluded tent site. Our stuff dries while Rachel takes a shower. An hour later we ride back to the junction. After visiting several tourist shops with "made in China" Alaska souvenirs we find a carved walrus jawbone with an eagle head that is a cribbage score board. Only natives are allowed to carve bone and ivory. Then to the post office to mail a couple of mugs from Rika's roadhouse, the Alaska book and maps and flyers and the jawbone.
They have entertainment at the Sourdough every night. At 6:30pm the band starts up, there is Reindeer Chili in Sourdough bowls, coffee and apple pie. The campground owner joins the band for awhile, then does his own pancake toss gig that makes for a good time.
As this is from our paper journal, taped on this page in the journal is a mozzie, killed by Patrick at the picnic table.
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Today's ride: 53 km (33 miles)
Total: 11,161 km (6,931 miles)
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