Because you may just miss the interesting town of Chicken, AK if you do.
Yup. That is the whole town. Told you not to blink.
So today I decided to drive up to Chicken, AK along the Taylor Highway, which is also known as the Top of the World Highway. I also checked out Mt. Fairplay where I plan to hike in the next few weeks!
Mt. Fairplay at her finest.
Chicken is pretty cool… it is a little odd and they really love their name but otherwise yeah, its cool. It is super small but this weekend it was booming because Chickenstock 2011 starts tonight. “Music on top of the world!” they boast and have all kinds of Alaska bands at the party. I was going to go but decided just to check the town out and call it a day. Basically it is eccentric.
Click on it to make it bigger. The door labels are funny. Also as I was taking this someone came out of the ladies room. Oops.
Everyone has a big metal chicken in their town... duh.
It started as a camp in the Gold Rush!! The equipment is still there and gold is still found sometimes!
Last year Taylor Highway and the Chicken Bridge which runs over Chicken Creek got washed out because it was a really wet summer… and heck you can tell on that road. They boast about being paved and all that but it is still Alaska and paved roads mean nothing. My Dad will totally disagree about this but I kind of like driving on these roads, it keeps me on my toes and I think this was the reason basically that trucks where made… this is what they live for. My favorite part is when they don’t mark road damage and you are going about 70mph and have to make a split decision on what to do…
This brings me to a list I compiled while driving. The 7 reasons I hate RV’s/Campers. If you have one and I “offend” you I am sorry… kind of… but at the same time I speak the truth and you might be a culprit of this but people have never been ballsy enough to tell you- so in all reality you should be thanking me to opening your eyes to the world. So here it is:
The 7 Reasons (no specific order) that I hate Campers/RV’s
1. They cannot seem to stay in their lane while driving- straight aways, bridges, turns… everything. I am sorry but me vs. you is going to be a fail on my part and if you can’t turn that partial semi of yours maybe you shouldn’t have one.
2. They NEVER go the speed limit. At least 10 under. All the time. I am going to KILL you if you don’t go the speed limit. It isn’t like that huge ass thing has a Prius engine in it… so get trucking and at least do 5 under so I don’t have a coronary while driving. And for that matter they make passing virtually impossible… move over so I can pass you. It is illegal in AK to cause a 5-car traffic jam (no joke)… MOVE OVER.
3. They throw up rocks. Okay they may not realize this. When they are towing whatever behind them, normally a car, they put a guard on their RV so that they don’t throw up rocks to hit their OWN vehicle and break its windshield, but they never realize that while the vehicle is bouncing around all over the place I am behind them suffering the asteroid game that we are playing. Move further back you say? I tested this theory… the rocks bounce for almost a mile behind that damn car. Also on this note if I pulled in front of them and attempted to throw rocks up, just to show ‘em how it feels, it wouldn’t do squat- their windshields are too high to get broken.
4. They camp. Pardon the French but bullllllllshit. Just because you park in a campground does not mean you are camping so do not refer to what you do as camping. You are in a hard sided vehicle, with heat, air conditioning, a tv, a microwave and a couch. You are not camping. If a bear comes you simply close your door. If you don’t want to cook on the fire you simply nuke some food in the microwave. You have never froze your butt off in a camper in the middle of a monsoon or had a windstorm collapse your RV on top of you. So do not tell me how you are camping.
5. Shut your effing generator off. I can hear it… so can the rest of the world that is not inside your RV with you. I would like to sleep to the hum of nature rather to the hum of your energy sucker.
6. They complain the MOST about road conditions and gas prices. Road conditions… well yeah if I dragged my entire house across the last 50 miles of the AlCan Highway my pots and pans would fall out of the cupboard too and shatter everywhere. But I thought maybe that would be a bad idea. And yeah gas is expensive when you drive something that could fit the entire offensive team of the Green Bay Packers for the two of you and the dog (who does not normally pool his money in for gas may I add).
7. Now let's discuss global warming. Now look at an RV. That is all, no more needs to be said.
Chicken was originally supposed to be named Ptarmigan, but they couldn't agree on a correct spelling so they just called it Chicken. :)
ReplyDeleteAs for RVs... well, we're one of the offending ones. After 18 years of tent camping and cross country road trips sleeping in nylon shelters, with numerous flooding events, collapsing poles in high wind situations, and even raccoon attacks as they climbed all over our tent to get to the sandwich stuff within (this was not in bear country, or the food wouldn't have been in the tent with us), we opted to buy a travel trailer to make the cross-country move from FL to AK in 2003. I really wasn't in the mood to do a 30-day tent camping trip across the US and Canada, with a dog and a cat in tow. Plus, we're old farts and our bones creak. :P
With that being said - we also despise the RVers who come up here and can't maintain speed limit, don't know how to move over and let others pass, hog pull-outs, and run generators all night long. We are conscientious RVers in that we rarely go slower than 65mph, we do pull over and let cars pass (RVs never pass us), and we don't run a generator.
As for complaints about gas prices. We never complain. We live for our summer camping trips and we save our pennies all year long so we can afford the cost of gas to get to our destination.
Does this mean we don't tent camp or truck camp? Of course not. There's no other way to see a large portion of AK if you don't get off the roads. But for trips to Seward and Valdez and Homer, where there are RV parks, we tow our trailer with all the comforts of home so we can have a nice place to sleep at night without having to pay inflated hotel rates.
And no.. I'm not offended. :) We complain about OTHER RVers the way you complain about ALL RVers. *grin*