For our fifth and final trip of the summer on the ferry M/V Columbia we spent four nights sailing from Juneau, Alaska, to Bellingham, Washington.

After leaving the Nabesna Road section of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park we drove west towards Anchorage. It was getting late when we arrived in Palmer, the first city in the greater Anchorage region, so we got some pizza to go and ate at a great city park.

We stayed at the Matanuska River Park Campground in Palmer, which we liked so much that we stayed two nights.

After our long drive from Dawson City we camped at Kendesnii Campground on the Nabesna Road in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. It was a spectacular setting, but the mosquitos were terrible.

After two nights we decided that we couldn’t stand the bugs anymore, so we packed up and headed out towards Anchorage. On the way out on the Nabesna Road we stopped to hike the Caribou Creek Trail. It was beautiful, but hot and buggy.

We left Dawson City, Yukon Territory, Canada via the Top of the World Highway. The first few hours of driving were in very dense fog.

After the fog lifted we crossed back into the U.S.A. at the very remote Poker Creek border station.

We didn’t get a picture of it, but the border station had a signed taped up in the window that said “Yes, we live here” and another that said “Yes, we like it here.”

After crossing the border we made a brief stop in the tiny community of Chicken, Alaska.

We stopped for expensive groceries and gas in Tok, Alaska, on the Alaska Highway. Even though it had been a long driving day already, we decided to press on all the way to the Nabesna Road portion of Wrangell – St Elias National Park.

After driving back down the Dempster Highway we spent three nights at the Yukon River Campground across the Yukon River from Dawson City, Yukon Territory.

A short walk downstream from the campground is the “Paddlewheel Graveyard.” For decades steam riverboats plied the Yukon River during the summer. Each fall they were hauled out before the river froze and then put back in the next Spring. One year they weren’t put back in and were left to rot.

One day we took the ferry across the Yukon River to walk around town and get some ice cream.