We were going to spend three or four days in Tok, Alaska which is the last town in the “mainland” part of Alaska on the Alaska Highway as you are heading south.  (As contrasted to the Inland Passage cities like Haines, Skagway, Juneau, etc. which are actually farther south but not on the Alaska Highway and are frequently visited by cruise ship passengers.)  We left Glennallen in a pouring rain a few days ago and arrived at Tok where it fortunately wasn’t raining.  That soon changed and it rained all day yesterday and the forecast wasn’t looking too good so we decided we might as well head south.  Sure enough, a few dozen miles into the Yukon the rain cleared up and I can actually see some blue sky as I type this (which turned out to be a rare commodity in Alaska this summer.)

We knew from driving north in early June the road from Tok to Destruction Bay was the very worst of the entire 1200 mile highway but we forgot just how bad it really was.  The road in some places literally looks like ripples in the water – ripples – I really meant waves.  These are called frost heaves and out of a 120 mile stretch of road I guess there are 100+ places where we need to slow down from 50 or 55 MPH to 10 or 15 MPH or risk damaging our coach or Jeep.  These heaves can be all alone or come in batches of six or eight.  The Yukies have repaired several stretches of the road but all in all, it is a total disaster.  Apparently the Yukon Province spent most of their budget on health care and there wasn’t much left over for road repairs.  Fortunately they had enough money left over to buy thousands of red flags to mark the road.