Alaska 2009 - Day 4

We both knew that Day 4 was going to have to be a day of hard driving. We have spent too much time finding the things that we did not pack, and fixing the problems along the way. I figure that we have lost about a day’s worth of traveling just dinking around. I awoke a little cold, must be because of the wind coming off of the lake directly at us. I spent a little time marveling at how beautiful our site was, and then I began breaking down camp. This awoke my companion and we both hustled to get moving, we needed a hard day’s drive to catch up. No hot coffee, just day old warm coffee from the thermos.

As we head down the highway we are moving away from the Rockies and heading more west than north. Signs say watch for buffalo on the road. Yes, real wild buffalo that roam the area. I have seen buffalo before in Yellowstone and on a ranch in North Dakota, but never a free roaming buffalo. So I was not expecting to see anything, I thought that they were almost extinct. Around a corner we see a funny looking rock, turns out it was a big bull buffalo, we cannot stop because of the cars behind us. We are both a little disappointed that we could not stop and watch him. We motor on, and as we come over a hill, there sits a whole heard of buffalo. In the road, and on both sides of the road. There are young ones and then there are the huge ones. I get some pictures, but they are from the car. I am too scared to get out because they are so close. We spend some time watching them and head on our way. It is not too far down the road that we see two that are dead. It looks like somebody has hit them. Man that must have messed up their vehicle.

We begin a decent down out of the Rockies and we see a bunch of clouds in the valleys. Pretty soon we are in the clouds and we cannot see anything. The windshield is wet with bugs from yesterday and the moisture from the clouds. We drop our speed to about 25mph for about 30 minutes because we really cannot see anything. This happens off and on for awhile, and is a little frustrating. We are in a beautiful area and we cannot enjoy it.

Running low on fuel we stop at a gas station that has the old school gas pumps. Not the real old school ones, but the kind where you watch the numbers go by on a wheel. They gas is the most expensive that I have seen. We have been paying about $1.089 per liter, and this gas is $1.499 per liter. We do not have much of a choice and we fill up. The attendant says that they have coffee and they will fill up my thermos. We fill up the Stanley thermos and I buy a couple of overpriced memories. Now for more driving.

We cross into the Yukon Territory at around 10:30am, take some pictures and head to Watson Lake. They have this cool place called the Signpost Forest. The forest started back during the creation of the Alaskan Highway when soldiers started adding signs with mileage to their hometown on the post that showed distances to local towns. This morphed into people bringing signs from their town and posting them on the trees surrounding. Now the area has posts(not trees) where people from all over the world bring their hometown signs to put up. It is really amazing how many there are. The closest that I find to home is Everett and Mont Lake Terrace.

Now on to Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon Territory. We drive and drive some more. We stop in Teslin for gas, barely making it, and wondering if the guy really did fill our tank because we should be getting about 50 more miles out of LC. Oh well, more gas and a quick tour of a museum of stuffed wildlife. The coolest thing there was a picture of two Moose skeletons with their horns locked. The skeletons were in great shape, and the picture was in black and white. It looked old. The Moose had died because their horns were stuck together. Then we looked down and there were the horns, still locked and attached to the skulls. Pretty wild.

We arrive in Whitehorse and fuel up. No more pushing the size of our gas tank. We hit the Visitor center, and find out that there are two places with wifi. We choose the coffee shop. We luck out and after five minutes we have a table with power. All of our electronics come out and we charge them. I spend some time posting the last two days writings and begin the frustrating upload of pictures. It seems that Skydrive (MSFT online storage) does not work in Canada. I get some weird error and then it kicks me out of the upload. I fiddle with it and I lose my patience. I go over to google and use their online photo share, like I did for my trip to China. I do not like to use the competitor’s product, but I am stuck. While uploading I instant message my wife at work. For some reason our phones do not work here. People are talking on phones, even the same phone that I have, but mine does not work, no signal. IM will have to do. I tell her that I am fine and more importantly, LC is doing great.

I spent entirely too much time on the wifi, drinking coffee and having a Panini. We must now bust butt and get more miles. We need to hit 600 miles so that we can be in Fairbanks tomorrow. Leaving Whitehorse, the roads immediately get worse. They are bumpier and pitch LC from side to side. I want to get new stiffer shocks. Maybe if I have time I can get them in Fairbanks. The drive is pretty flat and there is not much to see. It looks like the drive to Mt. Rainier, but just a lot longer. The trees and other flora look the same. We find the campsite, it is around 10:00pm, but it is still light out. It is also really cold, so we decide to push on. The next camping place is 80 miles ahead, which will bring our total miles today to 682, not bad with a 75 minute stop for internet access.

Remembering the words of the Whitehorse gas attendant; yes they all want to pump my gas, either I am a celebrity or this is Oregon, whatever it is, it is stupid. Back to the attendant, in response to my inquiry as to how long it is to Fairbanks, he told me to grab a couple of beers, find a couple of whores, watch for porcupines on the road, they come out at night, and I will be there in no time. The beer and whore comment made me think the guy was pulling my leg about a porcupine popping my tire. Guess what, the porcupines are huge up here. We see one on the road and it is about the size of two five gallon buckets. Heck yeah they will blow your tires. I guess we should have grabbed some beers and whores because I would now be in Fairbanks. Instead, I am in a campground that is nothing special (as far as I can see in the dark) writing about my days adventures. Man this is a great trip. Alaska tomorrow, and then Fairbanks and prep for the Dalton.