“Slow for frost heaves” the Milepost warned us in red letters as we traversed the Tok Cutoff and the Richardson Highway. We needed no warning as we bumped and bounced and swayed for at least half of the 270 miles we covered yesterday. Lily gave up sleeping on the sofa after she was tossed off of it several times. Cabinets flew open and items inside them clanged and jiggled as we rode.  I would have been thrilled to have found a chiropractor and a masseuse waiting for me at the end of the ride. The saving grace was the magnificent mountains, gorgeous lakes with ice still on them, the winding rivers and the trumpeter swans.

Gulkana Glacier

Rainbow Mountain

Summit Lake with ice on it

According to our Audubon bird book, the trumpeter swan, one of the largest birds in North America, numbers around 6,000 with 4,500 of these in Alaska. We saw 4 and I was lucky enough to catch 2 in flight. Their honking sounds were amazing as they flew across a lake and past snowy mountains. That experience alone was worth the misery of the ride. However, riding past Summit Lake, the Gulkana Glacier and by Rainbow Mountain overhsadowed all the unpleasantness of the day.

2 trumpeter swans

The past 2 days were spent in what we both felt was one of our favorite campgrounds, Sourdough Campground in Tok, Alaska. The camp sites were treed and large allowing for comfort and privacy. The owner was delightful and the reindeer chili and sausage were excellent.  There was something about the atmosphere and the people we met that made the place so enjoyable. We met a young man from Anchorage who was beginning a bicycle trip to Argentina and two bushy bearded brothers from Phoenix who were on their 8^th fishing trip to Alaska. They were right out of a Norman Rockwell painting. I so wanted to photograph them but they took off before I had an opportunity.  In fact, there was even “entertainment” on Friday night. The main attraction was a tall, white bearded singer by the name of Dannylee Whittle.  Attired in black pants and shirt, string tie, boots and black cowboy hat, he presented a Johnny Cash night with recorded music he sang to. The 20 or so campers in the audience applauded his renditions and seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves. Dannylee  even had his own “June Carter Cash” join him in a couple of numbers.   He also does weddings and get this – funerals!

Dannylee Whittle singing

"Johnny & June"

I guess I won’t be shooting any spectacular sunrises and sunsets since there aren’t any. It is virtually light out 24/7 with the sun setting around 12:30 am  and rising somewhere around 3:30 am. It has been a bit tough getting used to, especially when it comes to going to sleep, but we seem to be adjusting. I have been told that people gather in Fairbanks on the 21^st to celebrate the summer solstice.  It’s supposed to be akin to Mardi Gras. Hopefully we’ll be somewhere else at the time. We now sit in a campground in Delta Junction on our way to Fairbanks.