Day Thirty - Teslin, YT to Dease Lake, BC

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We woke at 6:00 to be on the road by 8:00. Today would be a long day. Yesterday while we were at the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Center, Dave and Teri brought up concerns about staying where we had originally planned. The campground had high reviewer ratings, but we would be dry camping, meaning no water, no electricity and no sewer hookups. We decided to change our reservations and book the night at a place with lower ratings, but had full hookups.

Our drive would take us down into BC for a short while before arching through YT and down into BC again.

The lake we drove by yesterday was nothing compared to the lake we drove by on our way through Teslin. Teslin Lake is really long. I swear it was next to us for an hour! It probably wasn't, but it was there for a long time. According to the Googler it's 78 miles long, but looking on a map we only passed about half of it before the road and lake parted ways.

There wasn't much to see for the first couple of hours. The distant mountains were a pale palette of gray-green, the trees between the mountains and us becoming darker and more green. Patches of pink-purple fireweed added the only bright color to the otherwise monochromatic landscape. Large lakes and small creeks could be glimpsed between the tree trunks and below the bridges as we passed.

We stopped at the Continental Divide for fuel. There was a cafe, an RV park, a small motel and various small buildings scattered around the property including what looked like a small greenhouse. Out in front of a log house sat a portable lumber mill with several board feet of rough cut lumber of varying dimensions on a drying table next to it.

We passed a "sleeping" porcupine in the middle of the oncoming lane. Does that still count as a wildlife sighting?

Mike was told that Highway 37 was a very pretty drive and we would have a high chance of seeing wildlife. One guy he talked with said bears would "jump out in front of you." We'll see if all that is true.

It didn't look like they do much fire prevention here. Grass, weeds, bushes and trees grew right up to the road which explained the blackened trees on both sides.

All of a sudden the road surface changed from chip-sealed pavement to smooth-as-silk asphalt. The truck and trailer loved it! Alas, all good roads must come to an end. 20 miles later we were back to the rougher surface again.

We had been walled in by trees for a long time. Shortly after the road surface changed, so did the scenery. There were now mountains nearby and many more bodies of water.

Mike likes to drive with the window down rather than running the AC. On a mild day like today it was nice to have the fresh air. One of the hazards of driving with your window down is things flying nearby, minding their own business, going about their day, suddenly getting sucked through your open window and bouncing off whatever is in it's new trajectory. In this case, as in similar situations in the past, that object was Mike's arm. I caught a glimpse of the latest casualty as it hurtled through the air, but I didn't see where it landed. I searched between, around, and under things on the seat between Mike and me, on the floor by my feet, behind the trash can on the transmission hump. Nothing so far. I picked up my fluffy lap blanket and carefully shook it out into my foot well and saw something soar toward the door. I looked into the cubby at the bottom of the door and there it was - a ginormous fly or bee or something that would fly no more.

We had zero sightings of any wildlife bigger than a raven. Bummer, but that's been our experience lately.

Near the end of the drive today we met up with another long lake. This one was 19-mile-long Dease Lake and we followed it from one end to the other.

We arrived at the campground about 5:00. The non-potholed roads helped us make good time. Upon check-in Mike and Dave were told to just go pick a site. There was no assigned parking here, or at least not today. The campground was pretty open. There were a few trees and shade around the bathroom and shower house but otherwise you were on your own. The site we chose was angled such that we could actually put our awning out and sit in the shade it created. This would be a first on this trip. There were very few bugs to bother us which made it even better.

Okay, so when you're trying to eat a cheeseburger and drink root beer and eat a few chips, the bugs will come out just to bug you and they'll call their buggy friends to join the fun.

This place may have full camping hookups, but it has zero technology hookups. There would be no posting tonight. We'll see about tomorrow. I'll talk to you then.

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