Friday night we stayed at a paved rest area with fewer mosquitos.. when we set up. It rained overnight and the screen was covered with them, and we still have stowaways in the van that we couldn’t wisk out the window or smoosh.

There was also a lot of construction Friday, all day, stop and go. We had some confusion about gas, as it appeared we had used no gas since filling up at a pump in Beaver Creek that gave me over 10 gallons when i only had been down what appeared to be 1/4 tank, which should have been no more than 30 litres. I stopped pumping at 40, as the pump was VERY slow, and it took almost 10 minutes to give me that much, while the man pumping diesel ended up pumping out fuel to the ground next to me because his pump didn’t click off. so yesterday, after leaving Fast Eddies for dinner in TOK, we decided there was no way the full fuel gauge was accurate, and we went back to top off the tank at a tesoro. MEENY took 2.7 gallons only.

By the time we got to Delta Junction, it was around noon. We had used a little bit of gas, and it was time to stop. We went to a little farmer’s market selling local goods and jams and baked goods.

We picked some Rhubarb jam and zucchini from a booth and found some interesting antiques at another.

The woman we bought the rhubarb jam and zucchini from also had these for sale:

We got our little fuzzy adorable animal fix by holding a couple of bunnies. Miraculously, we were able to resist temptation to get one of these adorable little guys. But they were just the sweetest, softest, little baby bunnies!

We got to Fairbanks about 2:30 pm, and were going to stay and park in a parking lot of a hostel and use their showers, but when we got there, neither of us had the greatest feeling about stying there, both because there was Zero privacy, a dirt parking area, which was sure to have mosquitos and a gross time going onto the premises for the rest room in the morning, and traffic from the major intersection. We decided to see about a hotel for some showers, and got one fairly cheap, considering it was last minute on a Saturday night.

When we arrived five minutes later, they told us Priceline overbooked them, and there were no rooms. A booking that took me about three minutes to book online from my phone took almost three hours to correct. We ended up staying at the Pioneer Best Western, which is pretty nice. The bed was comfy, we got showers, hooked the iPad up to their “broken” TV and watched a little Netflix, and ordered Thai food on door dash.

This morning, we got free late checkout and that gives me a little time to catch you all up on our travels.

The breakfast downstairs was good, and now we need to plan our trip.

I think we made MUCH faster progress than anticipated. We are already in Fairbanks in just three days. at that rate, we could go all the way north to Prudhoe Bay, and still have time to spend a couple days in Denali. Once we get out of this central region, I suspect there won’t be much cell coverage. We have done pretty well, able to get it when we stop in any town with gas.

But continuing south and west making the loop down into Denali means we may end up waiting a few days early to get on the ferry and be stuck in Haines waiting for space to go home. We have a return booking for the van on the 28th. I’m sure we could find a place to make camp, it hasn’t been difficult so far, as there are plenty of pull outs, and so many RV’s, so there are paved rest areas and parking areas without prohibitive signage where we could camp. But I would rather go someplace new and see more instead of wait around close to home like I ended up doing last year in Skagway. I made some friends there, and had a relaxing time, but it was also a little boring just waiting around to return home.

Time to plan the trip and tear Mellie away from the wifi connection to her game.