Driving up to Tok

On our third day, we did our first "road trip", which lead us to the famous city Tok. Since the roads in Alaska aren’t as crowded as the german ones we’re used to, we had to prepare for every circumstance which could occur. So we packed all our stuff, loaded the Excursion and got on Glenn Highway. We were heading into the direction of the next big city of Alaska, Fairbanks. Driving through Alaska is pretty scenic. The road led us through a variety of countrysides and we could experience the diversity of what Alaska can provide. The landscape is so beautiful and we had some really amazing views...

Local speed limits and especially the condition of some of the roads here force you to drive rather slow – which is great for viewing the landscape – but it also makes those long trips even longer. The ride does get rather bumpy sometimes, since the roads are built on top of the permafrost and therefore really suffer during wintertimes. After a road trip here you get to understand why all Alaskans seem to drive huge cars, and why everybody in the US is so amazed about the german autobahn, with no speed limits. Therefore, even though I could have stopped quite every minute to take some pictures, we didn’t, because those interruptions would have taken way to much time. So we only got some – but the ones we got are pretty decent and we’re going to return with plenty of images stored in our heads. We even got the chance to see a *ginormous glacier tongue, which is pictured on the following image.

Later in the evening we used the burned down coals to make smores. That gave us another very alaskan experience: bugs. We weren’t attacked by mosquitos though, but rather by some black bugs that were coming out since the fire was started, and seemed somehow attracted to the smoke and fire, but nobody could tell what they were. Our hoodies prevented us from getting eaten alive though.

Here you can see our sweet little journey. No navigation system needed.