Alaska - Day Twenty-Six: 5947.4 miles to Chicken, AK

Camping with no wifi means a stop at the visitor's center before leaving town...

Driving back to Tok also meant driving through North Pole and seeing Santa!!!

And his reindeer...

We also saw a moose, sort of...

We also saw two real moose on the way to Tok.

The adjuster called and declared the van a total. It took him about 20 seconds to make that determination. We weren't surprised...

Following the Tanana (TAN-uh-naw) River means lots of bridges...

Including the 1200 foot Tanana River Pipeline Bridge...

There was TONS of fascinating facts about the pipeline and moose...

Delta Junction is the official end of the Alaska Highway, so we stopped at the visitors' center for our certificate.

Unlike most other places in Alaska, the economy in this portion of the state is dependent largely on farming...

They also had fun pipeline stuff... :)

Ranching is also popular in the area, and we stopped at Delta Meats to buy bison beef sticks... Mmmm!

We'd been in Tok before, but we stopped again to get gas.

And enjoy some views...

Stopped at the Tanana River Bridge, one of only 5 truss bridges built in Alaska in 1943...

It was time to head east on the Taylor Highway towards Chicken...

The weather was a roller coaster all day, ranging from 57-78 degrees.

We stopped at the Mt Fairplay Wayside to take pics, but didn't stay long with thunder and lightning seeing how we were the tallest thing around...

Unfortunately the weather didn't get better the closer we got to Chicken...

In between rain showers we put up the tent, made dinner (ate inside the tent), and explored around Chicken Gold Camp...

I think it's possible that Chicken is the remotest town we visited on our entire trip. There is no cell service, city water, sewer or city electric service. The population is 23 in the summer and 7 in the winter. An historic mining town, it was supposed to be named Ptarmigan. But since none of the miners could spell ptarmigan, they settled for Chicken... LOL

This giant 12'x18' chicken statue is made from recycled high school lockers and next to a mile post with chicken-themed cities all over the world...

Pedro Dredge No. 4 operated on Chicken Creek between 1959 and 1967, after mining Pedro Creek outside of Fairbanks from 1938 to 1959. Gold dredges are an engineering marvel and impressive to see...

When we couldn't avoid the rain anymore, we just settled into the tent to read and play games until bedtime...