Chicken? Who You Calling Chicken?

7 Aug 2015--Travelling from Fairbanks to stay in Dawson City for a couple days, but we stopped at this little "town" called Chicken, Alaska...emphasis on "little"! haha  These first handful of pictures are at the RV park we stayed at...don't you love the performance stage in the last pic?  haha

  
 

And here, across from us, is the "little" town itself!  A woman named Susan Wiren owns all 4 stores, and apparently does a booming business.

  

I put this stitch so you could see better that the first 3 stores are all attached, and she only has to have one worker at a time manning the whole thing.  Now I call that some economizing!!!  There is a pass-thru door for all 3 stores, so the bartender in the saloon can back up into the liquor store and serve you at the door outside, or continue through to the emporium and sell you a postcard or t-shirt!  How enterprising!  All the guys outside the saloon are locals, drinking beer and shooting the breeze...watching the seasons go by!  haha



Check out some "Chicken" facts...population, you ask?  15-50, depending on the season...and we don't know where any of them live because there is nothing here for as far as the eye can see.  But wherever they live, we do know they are rugged individualists...and probably a bit weird.  haha



In the saloon were hundreds of ball caps left by previous tourists, and if you look in the 2nd pic, between Cathy and the bartender, is the open door to the liquor store.



Love these festive chickens for sale, especially the 3rd one!  Fiesta Chicken?  haha



And finally, the outhouse!  If you read any of the Chicken Facts you would have seen that they have no flush toilets here...yikes!!!  I told you they were rugged!!!  haha



So now the fun begins as we begin the unpaved, 105 mile long "Top of the World Highway" drive to Dawson City.  This is for the most part a very skinny, and high, dirt or compressed gravel road up over the mountains.  Our GPS didn't want us to go this way, but it's the only way we can go to both get to Dawson City and to avoid the 100 miles of Alaskan Highway we said we would never drive again!  haha  (It wasn't anywhere near as bad as the Alaskan Highway on our way into Alaska from Canada, so we were happy about that!)  The guy pulling the trailer almost took our mirror off he was so close in passing us...and check out the curves in the road!!!  Ellen, I don't think you would have enjoyed this ride.  haha


 

We couldn't have been 300 yards from the Canadian Border when we stopped at an overlook called Davis Dome Wayside.  I jumped out to get a picture and when I looked down there were maybe 75-100 Caribou running from behind the dark green hill prominent in the 1st picture.




This is the 1st video I got of them running.



Here one of the leaders seems to stop to look at me before taking off again.



These 2 videos are both of them seeming to leave Alaska and heading to Canada...like us!  They also seem to be tired, with mouths open and breathing hard.  haha



Probably the best video of all (I included all of these cause Ellen kept beating me about the head and shoulders when she was with us for not posting everything...haha).  They are coming back from their Canada trip and seem to have gathered a few friends...there are soooo many of them!!!  And no blurry parts either!!!



This video shows the Wayside much better than me trying to zoom to get the Caribou.  Just look at the colors!!!  Beautiful, even without the Caribou!!!



Unfortunately we had to press on, continuing on the winding, and as evidenced by the 2nd pic here, the very dangerous highway!  We stopped to check to see if anyone was trapped in there, but fortunately not.  We figured it hadn't happened too terribly long ago...I don't think that trash bag would still be intact if it had happened the day before, and a couple we met here in Dawson told us they had come along after us and there were warning signs on the road alerting traffic that an overturned car was ahead.



Welcome to Dawson!  And down the road we go to the ferry that will have to take us across the Yukon River.  You can see some people sitting and watching the ferry on the other side of the river in the 3rd pic, and then the 4th pic shows them delivering 5 vehicles to our side.  It seems hard to believe that our big RV is gonna fit on that ferry, but it did, towing our car right behind it!!!  They fit 4 other vehicles on there with us...took a video, but couldn't get it to post.

 




Here you can see our GPS that is sitting on the dashboard of the RV as we cross, and there is a guy in a skirt waiting to greet us!  haha Scottish???



So we drive into Dawson, find our RV Park, drive to our spot and see this trailer with metal roof up the "street" from us.  It says "security" on it, but somehow I'm not feeling  it!!!  haha



So we are here in Dawson, spending 2 full days before taking off again on Sunday...ttyl!