Back at Jojoba with side trip to Mexico

We have been at Jojoba, our home base for a few months. We have spent time working on our lot, storage and motorhome, getting together with friends here in the park, doing some voluntteer work. Joe has been gong to doctor's appointments and we went to a memorial liunch for Brock's mother who passed away when we were up north with Kristi and Brock taking care of Mom and Dad's wishes. As life goes on with the passing of our parents generation, the latest generation continues to grow as both Heather and Kori are pregnant. Such good news!!!
We did take off for around 10 days to go down to Puerto Penasco with Larry and Orene, as they needed to take care of some last items for our Mexican Connection trip there which will be in early Febrary. We stopped one night at American Girl Mine, a boondocking site near Yuma that we have stayed at a number of times. We then met Larry and Orene at Organ Pipe National Park at the campground where we will stay for the pre rally. It is a lovely park with lots of desert plants.I didn't take many pictures this tirp as we have been here a few times.We got there just as it started raining. It had rained the night before and Orene had called us at a place right before the campground where the water was running across the road and they had to wait until someone checked it out before they could cross. It was okay when we got there.  We just spent one night here before heading over the border. The crossing was easy both coming in and gong out with few questions which was nice.

Border Crossing

We arrived at the Reef and met with Gas who runs the place. He is a great guy and has been very helpful to Orene on arranging some events for the Rally/ This is a wonderful place to stay and we wouldn't mnd coming back here on our own sometime. Orene and Larry also like it a lot and are thinking of spending a month here next fall.
The front rows were almost full but we got a beach front site and Larry and Orene one right behind us. Thanks Larry and Orene for letting us having a beach site!!  The views are great and we had some awesome sunsets and absolutely lovely weather.

One night Gus's family had a birthday party for one of his family's kids next to our site. Plus we got another great sunset.

Ella, Larry and Orene's dog

We ate out a number of times. We had to check out some places for the rally. Yeah, someone has to do it. :)

We met several nice couples. One, Mike and Tanya come down here a lot. They took us to one of their favorite places for breakfast. The first one, in Chola Bay, was closed that day but we went to their second favorite, Rosey's right in town. It was delicious. It will certainly be one we will recommend to those going to the rally.

One day we drove over to a lovely hotel outside of town wher Larry and Orene stayed before. I should have taken more pictures. It is on the water and there are a number of pools, outdoor bars and a few steps down to the beach with lots of seating both on the patio and the beach. The inside was very nice as well. I did get the one picture below of the lobby area.

Along with some other restaurant outing including the Wreck which is right next to the campground , we shared a few meals at our sites. Larry cooked breakfast one morning, I made Jambalaya which included some of the shrimp we got from a fish market in town. Larry also steamed some clams he got in town. It was definitely a foodie trip.

All and all it was a great trip and we are looking forward to the trip in Febrary. Orene and Larry are doing a great job of setting up the trip and I think everyone who is going to this sold out trip will have a wonderful time.
We are back in Jojoba and will be busy this month. We have three Ducks games this month and hope they will be turning around their losing streak to a winning one. There is a birthday party for Amber, her second on the 21st. We are thinking on staying at ONeil Park for 5 days as it is close to Kristti's and not far from Anaheim as we have a game on the following Tuesday. Then of course Thanksgiving the following week. We couldn't get any reservations anywhere but will go to Kori's and Nick's on the 28th for the family thanksgivng holiday.

Stay tuned

A Visit to Chicken and we are on the Top of the World

I am catching up on the blog as we are now back in the lower 48. No internet or cell while in Canada and the WIFI the few commercial campgrounds we went to was a joke. You got only 25 or 50 mb's and that lasted about 15 minutes. Anyway back to the adventure. We left beautiful Blueberry Lake and started our trip back to the lower 48. We made an one night stay at Tok which everyone goes through on the way into Alaska and the way out.We then headed up a new route for us up to Chicken, Alaska. Chicken was a big mining town but now has a popular of 7 according to the 2010 census. Why the name Chicken you may ask.

 In the late 1800's, early miners traveled far in search of gold. Food was sometimes scarce, but a particular area near the South Fork of the 40-Mile River was abundant in Ptarmigan, now the state bird which bears a resemblance to a chicken (Ah the foreshadowing is thicker than steel.) The miners kept themselves alive with the help of the Ptarmigan (if you consider being eaten as helping.)

In 1902, Chicken was to become incorporated, the second town in Alaska to do so. The name "Ptarmigan" was suggested. Many people liked the name, but felt the quotation marks were too presumptuous. The name was shortened to Ptarmigan.

The only problem was that nobody could agree on the correct spelling. They didn't want their town name to be the source of ridicule and laughter, so they decided on "Chicken."
The down town area consists of 3 buildings, a small restaurant, bar and gift shop.

We just stayed there for a short time and then continued a short way on the Taylor Highway to a nice BLM campground called Walker Fork Campground.

We just stayed one night and then continued on the Taylor Highway to the Top of the World Highway. The Top of the World Hwy isn't that far in miles/kilometers but is slow going due to unpaved sections and twists and turns, We actually though the section from Tok to Walker Fork was the slowest. I think we were going only around 20MPH most of the way. The Top of the World Hwy is something to see. The pictures I took don't really show the grandeur. There are sections where you are driving on a narrow section where you can look down both sides of the road to the Valleys below.
The distance to Dawson City of the HWY is 79 miles but it took us about 3 1/2 hours.

 There was a tiny border crossing on the Highway. Pretty easy crossing.

We didn't really see any wildlife in Alaska. However, we had barely crossed the border into the Yukon and came across some Caribou in the middle of the road. Pretty cool!

The highway ends at the Ferry Crossing which we took to get to Dawson City.It is a short ride across the Yukon River.  Our first ferry ride with the motorhome.

We stayed at a commercial campground in Dawson City for another one night stay. We got set up and went into town. Dawson City is a small town with a population of 1,500. During the Gold Rush days there were up to 35,000 people. It is a fun town to explore and is definitely set up as a tourist town. We even did some shopping. We bought a small paddle decorated with a Native American design which we will hang in the MH and I bought an amber bracelet. We stopped in a Saloon for a drink and then over to a nice restaurant for dinner. Someone we met in our travels told us Klondike Kate's was the place to go and it was very good. They are known for the use of fresh ingredients and herbs. I had Alberta slow cooked lamb which was really tender.

We had a long drive from Dawson City and headed up at a nice Yukon Gov Campground called Fox Lake. We had a lovely spot overlooking the lake.  

We made another one night stay in the Whitehorse area. On our way to Alaska when we stayed in Whitehorse we had dinner at the Wolf's Den. It was right next to a campground, The Caribou RV Park. It looked nice set among the trees and so this time we decided to stay there. We set up and as it was early evening walked over the restaurant for some good Swiss/German food.

Next stop is the Cassiar Highway.