~Saturday, July 16, 2022~
Day 762
Day 26 of Alaska Trip
It was nice to wake up to company in our gravel pit area of a campsite…..2 vans about 50 yards from us. We’re only about 15 miles from Valdez, yet feel hundreds of miles from anywhere. The reason we chose this boondocking spot in the first place was to be surrounded by this incredible scenery. But the weather had other plans, enveloping the landscape in dense clouds and rain, which lingered the majority of the day; not one peak, not one glacier view. So we’re hoping tomorrow will reveal something different on the Richardson Highway.
We definitely wouldn’t be conserving any propane today, trying to keep the trailer above 50 degrees.🥶 Hmmm…maybe staying on a summit in Alaska wasn’t the smartest thing after all. It’s kind of funny to think that there are people elsewhere in the U.S. enjoying a deliciously warm 85 degrees while we freeze our petuty off. Let’s hope this rain puts out those fires in the state and clears out the smoke north of us. The air index level a few weeks ago was around 250. Today, it’s 20…..much better! Evidently the southern portion of Alaska is quite rainy and cooler during the summer months, so it looks like we won’t be experiencing much of a “summer”. The temps we had in Chicken, Dawson City and McCarthy were unusually warm, which we got a little used to. At least the cooler weather and precipitation keeps those mosquitos at bay.
For today, it looked like just hunkering down at the campsite was a good plan since these driving conditions were not the safest.
In fact, we saw 2 firetrucks and an ambulance fly past us, hoping all involved got the help they needed and are o.k. This kind of hit home, making me think about what WE would do if we had some emergency on our travels, especially since much of what we’re doing is in remote areas. The best we can do is stay safe and vigilant!
So what does one do on such a rainy day? You wash a vehicle! While I stayed in my warmer environment of the trailer, catching up on paperwork and writing, I was entertained by Jeff’s task of washing the trailer. Because of those dirt roads to Chicken and McCarthy, it’d never been this bad. In fact the dirt was starting to turn yellow. It was quite funny watching him in the rain with his bucket of suds, his Yeti cup and bottles of water for rinsing (remember we had no hookups), to get the trailer back to something we’d recognize again. An hour later, we could see Billie Jean’s real “skin” all over again thanks to Jeff enduring the elements.
We topped off the day with a game of dominoes that I was so close to winning. Within minutes, the game changed from being in my favor to Jeff having the perfect combination of numbers to win the game and by 8 points no less. It must have been luck! 😉