Delta Jct/Tok

I'm in Tok right now. Same routine as other places: arrive early, park strategically, wait awhile, then go inside and see what develops. Right now Ralph is chatting up a few people, probably about hunting and fishing, and I'm in the corner with internet and power. It doesn't get any better than that.


Delta was a lot of fun. Poor Boy Restaurant rocks in the diner food department. Alden has a giant smoker next to the front door and whenever the temperature rises above 20, he goes out and smokes up some delicious meat. I had the barbecue sandwich which was out of this world good. They also serve the biggest hamburgers in Delta.


I snapped some pictures of mountains from the Poor Boy parking lot. It's such a different view than what I'm used to. With no leaves on the trees, you can really see the mountains much better, plus the weather has been OUTSTANDINGLY sunny.


On the drive from Fairbanks to Delta to Tok, we keep seeing vehicles obviously headed to the Arctic Man Ski and Sno-Go Classic at Summit Lake. I say obviously because they are trucks or SUVs towing covered snowmachine trailers. Arctic Man is an annual race where a skier or snowboarder begins on a 5,800-foot summit. They drop 1,700 feet in less than two miles. At the bottom of a narrow canyon the skier or snowboarder meets up with their snowmachine partner, grabs a tow-rope and races to the finish line reaching speeds up to 86 mph. My kids' junior high gym teacher is a perennial winner, he's the skier of his team. Everyone around here says we should go, there are hundreds of spectators, but Ralph's schedule wouldn't allow it. The joke along the road system is that this year's Arctic Man should be called Mud Man because there is very little snow right now, it's so warm.

We are off toward Glennallen in awhile. Political conversation is heating up right now at our table. Better go.