Alaska P 13

MATC ALASKAN TOUR 2007

21 JULY 2007 GLENNALLEN TO PAXSON

Short ride today and as “Tail End Charlie,” we got up late, packed our bags, put part of them in the car and walked to the Caribou Café for breakfast. I had an enormous bowl of oatmeal and an even larger home made sweet roll.

Dennis and I went “up town” to Radio Shack where I purchased a couple of batteries for my voltmeter. He bought a few things and then back to the motel and I finished loading the car and we were on our way to Paxson 70 miles away.

About halfway, we stopped at Sourdough Creek, a trading post, where a number of Model A’s were parked and which had a couple of picnic tables. We cooked our lunch on the little camping stoves we had purchased for such an event before coming on the tour. I had a beef stew soup and was surprised just how fast the little “Pocket Rocket” stove heated the soup. Before I knew it, it was scorching the soup in the pan! A leisurely hour later, we were back on the road with Dennis in the lead. About 15 miles south of Paxson, Jim Baker intercepted us and lead us into a nearby trading post at Mieir’s Lake. There we got this story: The Garwoods and Frazers, who had started out earliest of all, had reached our hotel in Paxson to find it in terrible disarray and said that it wasn’t fit to stay in. Checking further, they discovered that the current owner had purchased the hotel just one week ago and that the previous owners had gone with all the deposit money paid by the travel agent! They reached our guide, Pat, and told her the story and Pat had made arrangements for us to stay at Mieir’s Lake; however, they only had 12 rooms, so Bakers, Garwoods and Frazers are staying elsewhere. The café here will be taxed to serve us all, so we are going in in shifts of three couples every 30 minutes for hamburgers or “basket” diners. The café doesn’t open until 9 o'clock in the morning, so we will either have to eat in our rooms or do without until lunch at Big Delta, 100 miles north! Tomorrow will be another adventure as we have about 200 miles from here to Fairbanks.

I tried to call our host in the Model A club in Fairbanks to confirm that we would be there for a picnic tomorrow evening, but no cell service and I couldn’t get the pay phone to work! I asked the clerk at the motel how to get a hold of the operator. His response, “That’s a good question. I have been trying to do that for 12 years!” That’s all I could get out of him. The management is very independent. They have us and they know it!. We'll have to see how all this plays out.

PS We had dinner with Pat Richardson tonight and she got in touch with the Fairbanks Model A people, so they know that we are coming as planned. She also bought us some muffins for our breakfast in the morning. The dinner was passable, so we are primed for an early start tomorrow.

We picnic at Sourdough Roadhouse

“Pocket Rocket” heats soup!

Gerald Thiele tells tall tales with Old Sourdough while our waiter looks on

Motel at Mieir’s Lake where 12 couples spend the night

GO SOMEWHERE ELSE?

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