Journey to Alaska: 5th Leg - Canada and Alaska

I know I'm horrible! Here goes Alaska to Canada and back to Alaska...

We landed in Haines, AK on June 2. It was about 2:00pm when we got off the Ferry and we made the decision to stay in Haines for the night and make our way through Canada the following day. We found a hotel that was, not a normal hotel. It was old military housing turned into a hotel. However, this house was huge so it must have been the generals house or something. Let's just say it was interesting. The best part was the claw foot bath.

After checking in we went to a local restaurant and I had fish and chips for the first time ever. I know that's kind of a ridiculous, but those of you who know me, know I'm super picky and trying something new is not easy. However, I was sick of burgers and chicken from fast food restaurants so there you go. They were delicious by the way. After dinner we stopped at the Bald Eagle habitat (Thank Mom for mentioning it). The habitat turned into a museum of wild animals, which we got into for free (Thank you Military). We also got to see a bald eagle. It was in is cage but it was AWESOME! We didn't spend too much time there, just enough to wander around the stuffed wild animals and take a few pictures of the bald eagle and then back to our room. It was early but we were tired, you know from all that ferry riding ;).

Our plan for the 3rd was to get up "early" and drive through Canada and spend the night in Tok, AK. We finally got around and left the hotel around 9:00 (we planned for 8:00). The Canadian border was only about 30 min away so we thought we were making great time even with leaving an hour later than we wanted. However, it took us 2 hours to get across the border. Ugh! It took us 2 hours because they couldn't find the paperwork for Floyd's gun (a 1911) that he had sent to the Canadians probably 2 to 3 weeks before we left Kansas. They called and called and called and it took 2 HOURS to get to the right person to find out if they received the correct paperwork. It took so long I took a nap! Not to mention it was raining all morning and cold.

When we finally got across the border. We didn't have any hang ups. However, the posted speed limit sign on the Alaskan Highway through Canada is 95....kph. Its a good thing our truck can change to the metric system. We found out later there are a lot of people get speeding tickets because they are going 95mph. One thing that must be noted when driving through Canada on the Alaskan Highway be sure you see the orange flags flying because that indicates the road is horrible horrible horrible and you better slow down. The only time we stopped was to get gas but there was a lot of beautiful country to see, including a bear.

We made it through the rough roads of Canada and back into Alaska and spent the night in Tok, AK. We checked into our hotel and went to have a sit down dinner that turned into a to go dinner. We were so tired but just all the traveling that we didn't grab the diaper back, but didn't realize it until we sat down and lil man decided it was time to poop. The food was delicious tho. It was called Fast Eddy's and I would definitely recommend anybody traveling through Tok to try it.

From Tok, we had 3 more hours to drive in the morning to make it to our final destination, Fairbanks/Ft Wainwright. Our trip on Jun 4 to our final destination was very uneventful but awesome to finally get there. It was wonderful to know that we didn't have any more traveling to do. But scary because neither of us really knew what we needed to do or where to go. That first night we stayed in Fairbanks because our room on post was not reserved until the 5th. We did a little exploring of downtown Fairbanks near where we were staying but really just kind of decompressed from our travels in our room. Big Daddy BBQ was our dinner that night and it was AMAZING! Definitely another restaurant I would recommend.

Anyway, enough rambling. Here are a lot of pictures: