6/15/18 – End of the Alaska Highway

We’d been on the Alaska Highway since Dawson Creek, British Columbia. We’d been in Alaska almost 200 miles. The official End of the Alaska Highway is posted in Delta Junction, where it meets the Richardson Highway, even though we've still got a long way to go.

We stopped for pictures at the Visitor Center, but I got distracted by a couple of other things first, like this thermometer with record low temps in Delta Junction.  I can't believe the winter temperature was -72 degrees in 1975!!!  My mind can't even comprehend that kind of cold. 

We’ve heard lots of warnings about the size of mosquitoes in Alaska, but I didn’t expect them to be quite this big.

And here it is—another picture of the End of the Alaska Highway, from a slightly different angle.

MP 1422 stands for “Mile Post 1422”, the distance of the original road built by the Army in 1942.  They’ve rerouted the road a few times since then, so actual distance 76 years later is less, only 1,351 miles.  But in many places, people still identify the Historical MP number to refer to their location.

We went inside the Visitor Center--they have a natural history study of Alaska animals hanging on the wall.  I wanted the muskox head, but got the certificate instead.

I'd like to find a t-shirt for George that says “I Survived the Alaska Highway—Kicking & Screaming All the Way”, but apparently they don’t make them.  Surely he’s not the only one who drove it with such trepidation.  

We had lunch at the Buffalo Drive-In, invited a couple from Arizona to sit with us, and continued on our way.  When we crossed the Tanana river, we got our first glimpse of the Alaska Pipeline.  Now it's on to Fairbanks.

Some more pictures:  End of the Alaska Highway