Canada Southbound

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We are back in Dawson Creek, Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway. We have completed the round trip and we were able to give ourselves big high-fives for a successful up and back. We already have the tee-shirt. Let me tell you, Canada looks much different in August then it did in May, and we have had a great streak of warm weather that makes it even better. In fact, the farther we get from the coast the warmer it seems to be. All those mountain peaks that wore a vail of white in May are now naked and exposed to the sun. All those road sides that were composed of sparse vegetation and a few yellow wildflowers are now 5 foot tall with sea of red flowers everywhere they can grow. The hillsides that were punctuated with grizzly and black bears are now pretty bare of wildlife. Where we spotted 8 bears going up we have seen only two black bears coming down. The buffalo still roam up by Munchu Lake and the sheep still share the road near the cliffs but most wildlife has moved away from the road for now. Speaking of Munchu Lake, we hit the lakeshore road on an ideal summer morning with no wind and broken clouds. What a photographer’s fantasy. The still waters of the lake perfectly reflected the surrounding hillsides and clouds and we took dozens of amazing shots. Not wanting to leave but needing to get moving I finished up with an iPhone panoramic that will make a great mural in our den. Hope you enjoy the pictures. We also spent an extra night in Whitehorse, treated ourselves to dinner and visited the Beringia Interpretative Centre. This centre focused on Alaska and Canada during the time when the land route existed with Russia. Kind of complicated to explain but if you’re interested look it up, it was pretty fascinating. We also stopped in Watson Lake long enough to hang our sign in the forest with the rest. Kind of a rite of passage for the Alaska Highway. Overall our trip south has been good with the exception of the road repair delays which kind of comes with the territory (get it, Yukon Territory….comes with the territory…oh never mind). My take on it: you can’t bitch about how bad the road is and then bitch about it when they’re fixing it, so you just wait it out, have a cold drink and take a few more photos. One other thing has changed, yesterday we actually had a sunset and a sunrise for the first time in months. I suspect the stars were shining but I was zonked out and missed that part. All I know is the night light was on about 3:00 AM when I journeyed down the little hall and it was dark when I made it back to bed which has not happened for quite a while now. Something else is different to: two and a half months ago we were excited and full of energy, couldn’t wait to get up in the morning and head out, won’t be long now, we only have a few more days until we reach Alaska, can’t wait, let’s GO. Well I will be the first to admit that this little roadshow is gettin’ kind of tired. It has been a long haul and these two old travelers are about worn out. We make it from spot to spot in good time but it is harder every morning to get up and get out. We gave ourselves a rest day here today and it was sorely needed as we have a long next couple of days until we reach Washington and load up the bike. We may spend a couple of extra days resting in Lynden before we tackle US90 Eastbound and the Rocky Mountains again. We are now at our 41’st RV Park and have logged 15,386 miles of windshield time since 21 Jan. It will be good to get home and get some rest but we still have a lot to see and more miles to go so we will take our time, enjoy the final push, and keep a steady pace. By the way, we have been in the Canada cell phone dead-zone again for the last four days so if anyone has tried to call we are not ignoring you (wink, wink) we are just out of range.

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