This morning, M and I rotated the truck’s tires with our brand new bottle jacks while Trish and B did some food shopping:

On our way out of Tok, we took advantage of the “free car wash with fill up” at the Tesoro station.  After a couple hundred miles of dirt and gravel roads, we really needed it:

Continuing West, we crossed through 144.77 degrees West Longitude, the “Jewish International Dateline”.  The secular international dateline is 180 degrees from Greenwich, England, but the most widely accepted international dateline in the Jewish world in 180 degrees from Jerusalem, which is at 144.77 degrees West, about halfway between Tok and Delta Junction.  This means that even though it’s still Thursday on the secular calendar, it’s now Friday on the Jewish calendar.  Shabbos starts tonight and ends early Saturday morning.  Of course, if we continued West for another 45 degrees of latitude, we would cross the secular international dateline and then it would be Friday on all calendars.

Continuing on, we arrived at Delta Junction, where the AlCan terminated at the pre-existing Richardson Highway.  The visitor center there has a pig from the Alyeska Pipeline on display:

This display shows the various pipe diameters used to carry oil in Alaska.  The largest one is the current pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez:

Mosquitos, they do grow them large here:

We planned to stop for Shabbos at Quartz Lake, but it was quite full for the 4th of July weekend, so we continued on for another 10 miles or so and stopped at a secluded pull-off.  Good Shabbos from the Richardson Highway between Big Delta and Fairbanks!  See the trip map for driving details and our current location.