At mile 0 of the Alaskan Highway in Dawson Creek, British columbia:
We saw a lot of signs to "Beware of Avalanche" but fortunately, no avalanches. But at one point Randy had to stop the RV in the middle of the road, get out, and move a big rock out of the way.
The forest of signs at Watson Lake:
And the town's big department store:
A lone buffalo. . .
The black bear
Stone Sheep on the highway:
Caribou:
Friday April 23 When we woke up early in the morning, the temp was cold, air was clear, and the outside water line was frozen. Randy and John had to work a bit to free up our respective water lines but soon we were on our way. It was 272 miles to Whitehorse, and along the way we finally saw a moose! He was standing on the road but moved out of the way long before we got to where he was. He moved with a loose, bouncy trot, probably because his legs were so long. At least we did get to see one! Our path took us over the Continental Divide in the Yukon. When we got to Whitehorse we headed to the local Wal-Mart. John and Diane had some last minute shopping to do and we had already decided to boon-dock in the parking lot. Randy checked with the Wal-Mart folks and confirmed it was OK for us to park there overnight. We even found there were 20 amp outlets we could plug into.
Saturday April 24 We were anxious to get to Skagway today. Breakfast was English hot tea, followed by Tillamook beef jerky later in the day. We changed roads from Canada’s highway 1 to highway 2, and views suddenly changed from beautiful to amazing – full of white mountains and frozen lakes. Highway 2 is a also a paved road but it is a little rougher and bumpier. Another first for this trip – we drove the RV over a wooden bridge! We also passed a lot of avalanche gates – they look like railroad crossing gates and they come down to block the road when necessary.
One of the most beautiful areas was Titshi Lake. It was frozen solid and surrounded by tall mountains and green forests.
There were other wonderful views all along the road:
When we got to the Canadian border nobody was there so we drove on through. A few miles down the road is the US border control station, where we were drove up to a red stop light. A guy came out of the main building and went into a small checkpoint building by the road. We waited probably 5 minutes before he changed the light to green, so we could move forward to his location. When we got there he explained that the computer hadn’t been turned on since last October and it was taking awhile to boot up; Apparently they don’t get much traffic through here. He asked about what we planned to do in Alaska, and when we told him we would be working for Corrington Industries, he said they always got good people - “They arrive on time and the women don’t get pregnant!”
So we pulled into Mount Vernon Estates, where we will park for 5 months. It’s not as formal as Quail Run in Arizona. The ground is all rocks and the RVs back up to brush and trees. But it’s surrounded by mountains and the people seem very friendly. It is only 2 miles from downtown Skagway so we will probably ride our bikes to work sometimes.
We went into town and found the office where we met Jerry Epps and Micki. After filling out some employment papers, we were given a short tour by Jerry. He showed us the 4 stores that Corrington will run this year. When we were done with the tour we decided to walk around the town. It is a quaint little town and much of it looks like the old-time towns. We had lunch at Sweet Tooth Café where the food was good. (It is nice to know we have a good restaurant). We also visited the local Health Food Store.
Sunday April 25 Today is dedicated to getting settled in and straightening out the coach a little bit. We spent some time working on the site and cleaning up the Jeep. Went to the town recreation center to see what type of facilities they have – they have a really nice place with some good equipment. Later Randy drove us out to see what the locals call the flats, where they say that the salmon will run later this summer. We followed a couple of dirt roads to see what was there. We went toward a historic town called Dyea bit we don’t know much about it yet, as it was closed for the season. During our drive we were able to see the ocean inlet and there were a couple of harbor seals and an otter in the water. Bacl at the RV park there was an Ice Cream social for one of the manager’s grandchildren, and Dennis Corrington was there. He is a very interesting person. He came to Alaska as a history teacher and has ended up owning quite a few buildings and store in Skagway.
Before the end of the day we both did some more work on the site to get it into shape.
Monday April 26 Randy went to the recreation center and joined, then cleaned up the bicycles and the hitch. Diane and John invited us to dinner at the Red Onion Saloon. This restaurant is housed in a very famous building - it was the House of Ill Repute during the Gold Rush days. The menu is mostly pizza and each is named for one of the “Working Ladies”. They have a museum in the upstairs but unfortunately that part was closed for some repair.
We ended the day again by doing more work on the site and planting a few plants.
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