TW0 DAYS LATE, BUT BETTER THAN NOTHING ...

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DAY 11

… yesterday was fabulous … driving in the mountains of British Colombia all day … the roadside vegetation has been cut back about 50 yards from the center line … this was done, we suspect, for the major purpose of protecting wildlife … our three eagle eyes only spotted 1 caribou yearling along side the road eating dirt … perhaps they salt the road in the wintertime as we figure the yearling was really after salt …

Last night we camped at laird hot springs provincial park … it is a 600 meter walk back to the hot springs on an elevated wooden walkway … the water ranged from hot 130 degrees in the hot end to a comfortable 105 below the waterfall … I hope to post pictures … if we have a super slow wi-fi connection today with a blog with few pictures come back at a later date as we have the capability to add pictures at a later day …

Speaking of pictures …, yesterdays photographs will show dark skies … for your sakes we had hoped for clear skies, however, when traveling we experience the present moment, and though yesterday’s moments may have been cloudy---our souls were basking in glorious sunshine …

we stopped twice along the highway yesterday to buy gas at café-gas stations along the way … at the first café your observant explorers discovered hot “Dutch’ blueberry and current cakes made by Hilde, she and Chris run this little outpost of civilization about 50-100 miles from any other human habitation … if you travel this way stop at rocky mountain logde at mile 397 … while nibbling on Hilde’s delicious current-blueberry cakes we started watching a video presentation on the area … Hilde finally confessed she indeed was the artist/videographer. To our delight she provided a copy for the unbelievable amount of $12.50 … I suspect if you wanted a copy and wrote to “alcan397” at “yahoo.com” Hilde would be more than delighted to send you a copy, especially if you added $12.50 and a couple of bucks for postage …

…on the Alcan we do not ever want the gas tank to be less than half full (you never know how far the next station might be) … so we stop when we are about at that point and get 25 liters and say “thank you, susie …” our second gas stop of the day was at moncho lake … I went in to the café and said we needed gas … the owner was drinking coffee with his buds and said, “pumps on, when your finished come in and tell me dollar amount” … we did as instructed and he did a charge slip for the amount I quoted … he accepted my word for the amount and didn’t check the pump … this was a low tech gas station and he had no way of knowing if I had quoted him the correct amount …
life along the Alcan is different from the city and difficult to adequately describe … the people possess great spirit, trust, and resilience. It is an inspiration to be amongst these great mountains, rivers and the people who make their home along them.

Late evening, while on our walk to the laird hot springs we discovered Saskatoon berries .., actually we spotted a family picking berries from a bush. As we approached the lady faced us and pretended to protect the bush from the advancing potential berry poachers … with only the slightest inducement, she revealed that the joys of the Saskatoon berry. The Saskatoon berry grows on a large bush whose berries that look and taste somewhat like Michigan wild blueberries … there isn’t a person in Alberta or BC who when asked about the Saskatoon berry wont respond with the words, “they make great pie. Saskatoon berry pie . . .” We believe them but have yet to verify this assumption.

Last evening we sat beside a camp fire and learned about Kodiak island from two school psychologists who are based out of the village of Kodiak, Alaska … evidently there is the village school and 6 or 8 outlying village schools that thy have to fly out to … they told great stories …

As we continued our journey, we were reminded of the greatness of this land. …

shalom,
shaloms ...

-thankingsusieforeverymomentofthisadventurerichard

p.s.
i'm about two days behind on this blog ... it's late afternoon on wednesday and we are blogging from a fabulous bakery in haines junction in the yukon

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