Tok, AK to Dawson City, YT

We headed east on the Alaska Highway just 12 miles before turning north onto the Taylor Highway, which leads to Chicken, AK. Chicken came highly recommended and we had to see it. The road was mostly paved with some gravel breaks along the way. Along with long steel grate bridges, hitting 4 inches of loose gravel at 60 m.ph. has made it on to my list of "least favorite things related to riding a motorcycle" in the last couple of days.

Chicken is a pretty funky place. They wanted to name it Ptarmigan, but nobody knew how to spell it (and I am not even sure if I do), so that is how it got its current name. It is an old mining town, complete with a huge old dredge. Lots of mining implements are scattered around. Mark's powerful shopping gene got the better of him here, and he purchased a baseball cap, a t-shirt, and a thermometer, all carrying the Chicken signature.

Outside of Chicken, the Top of the World Highway begins. I think it was made for the express purpose of making motorcyclists happy. It is a dirt and gravel road, with some pavement here and there, and it generally runs along ridges, so you really do feel like you are on the top of the world. Unfortunately, there have been a bunch of forest fires burning, and our views were limited because of the smoke.

We ran into some reindeer on the road. Mark said, "Oh, there's Donna and Blitzen." The only Donna I know lives at Whitney Ranch back in Idaho. Let's all help Mark this next winter during the holiday season and teach him the proper names of Santa's team!

We reached Dawson City in the afternoon, at the confluence of the Yukon and Klondike Rivers. After setting up camp on the banks of the Yukon River in West Dawson (where people lived to escape the intermittent typhoid outbreaks in the main town back in the day), we took the little ferry across to Dawson, as the locals call it. This place is GREAT--tons of cool old buildings and lots of history. Robert Service and Jack London both lived here in the early 1900's.

Robert Service's cabin is pictured above. Tomorrow, we will go on an informational tour and attend a poetry reading at this site.

The bikes continue to run well. We are both about to ditch our knobby tires, as they have served us well and they only thing that now identifies them as knobby is the Dunlop 606 moniker on the side.

Odometer: 7107 miles