Wednesday, August 10: Chicken

The chickens 


Our campsite by the Walker Fork gold panning area. 




 We’ve been to Chicken before, but the trip on Top of the World Highway also takes us past Eagle and to a real frontier town, Dawson City. 


Along the way we stopped in Tok for gas. Along with a fill up comes a free sani dump ($20 elsewhere in Tok), car wash ($2 or $3 for four minutes), and potable water ($1 for 24 gallons). So, for 3 cents more per gallon we saved at least $21.00: we didn’t need a car wash. 


Chicken was the typical tourist waypoint. Still, it’s cute. We patronized the Chicken Cafe by ordering homemade chicken noodle soup, homemade bread, and cherry pie. All very yummy. We each came away with a souvenir, but resisted the “I got laid in Chicken” T-shirts, cups, and other paraphernalia. 


Mid afternoon we stopped just down the road to camp at the Walker Fork Campground. The caretakers here have done a marvelous job mowing and manicuring the spaces. Not your typical Alaskan campground, maybe because it’s run by the BLM. They even had free firewood! At $5/night it’s the best bargain in Alaska. It’s also right across the road from an 8.5 mile tract that is open only to small scale gold planners. If you can pan gold by hand it’s here for you. 



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