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20030708 Open new window with today’s pictures.
July 08, 2003
Tuesday
Start: Downtown RV Park, Watson Lake YT
End: High Country RV Park, Whitehorse YT
Miles: 269
Hi Temp: 68.4
Lo Temp: 50.9
Currently 59f at 9:00pm in bright sunlight.
It was cloudy when we packed up and left Watson Lake. We banged right along on this segment of the Alaska Highway; it's relatively level and the road is good. The speed limit is 100 kph and we generally did 110. The wind was dead in our face, so we probably got lousy mileage (kilometerage?).
Again, Dolores spotted a black bear on the side of the road. We didn't get a picture of this one - it was pointed into the woods, so all she saw was the aft of the bear.
We stopped for fuel and lunch in Teslin, a native town on a long lake that feeds into the Yukon River. It has a museum and other things; we're considering stopping for the night there on the return trip.
Then we pushed on to Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon. We checked into the campground and went to our site. I damn near hit a tree with the trailer while backing in (the tree slants into our site). This tree has many battle scars from other people scraping against it. The tree is unharmed from all these encounters. Jeez.
Downtown Whitehorse doesn't appear to have changed in the two years since we've been here last. We decided to get some chores out of the way today so we can play tourista for the next two days.
First, we stopped at City Hall and got our three-day courtesy parking pass; now we can park at any meter or in any lot without paying during our three-day stay here. Then we had the truck's engine lube oil changed (my oil and filter); we also changed the air filter (using mine, again) and changed the fluid in the differential (standard 80/90w with Mopar lubricant for the limited-slip clutches).
After that, I stopped at the liquor store for wine and beer. Then we went back to the little house in the scarred pines. We got the books we have read and the shopping lists. Then back downtown to trade the books for others in the "used book store", and we did a full grocery shopping session.
Prices are hard to judge here when you're looking at them on the shelf. The unit pricing is in Canadian dollars per kilogram, which gets you into two conversions to make sense with what we're accustomed to. For instance, extra lean hamburger today was $9.90CDN per kilogram. A kilogram is about 2.2 pounds, so that makes it about $4.50CDN per pound, times 0.748 (conversion to US$) to get to $3.37US per pound. Beef is inexpensive in Canada right now with their single-mad-cow problem and the fact that the US and Japan aren't importing Canadian beef, so this isn't too bad.
Chicken was higher, about $16.90CDN per kg. That's about $5.75 per US pound for skinless boneless breasts.
Iceberg lettuce was $1.64US a head.
On the other hand, good micro-brew (Yukon Gold, brewed here in Whitehorse) is $8.20US per six-pack, while good Canadian merlot (Jackson-Triggs) is just under $5.00US per 750ml bottle. Hmmm...
Diesel fuel today was $2.07 and $2.35 US per gallon at the two places we bought fuel (Watson Lake and Teslin, both kinda boonie-ish). It's about the same here, according to the signs. We haven't bought any here yet.
We returned to the little house next to the scarred pine and put things away. We took a hike around the place so Dolores could take pictures of various flowers. We bought a miniature bear for the curio shelf in the trailer.
Then we made up chicken in dill and thyme, noodles, and salad. With white wine, it made a nice dinner.
Dolores caught the Canadian weather channel a moment ago. It's supposed to be nearly 80f here tomorrow. Wow. Also, sunset is about 11:15pm and sunrise is about 4:26am. We're getting farther north. Lessee now, 61 degrees north is 12 degrees north of the Canada-US border, or 720 nautical miles, or 830 statute miles.
The Conley's have told us their building of the ark is on hold at home, so the weather there must have improved.
Tomorrow we'll do some of the following: hike, museum (1), museum (2), shop the main drag, eat at our favorite place here (Pandas), hot springs 15 miles outside town.
20030709 Open new window with today’s pictures.
July 09, 2003
Wednesday
Start: High Country RV Park, Whitehorse YT
End: High Country RV Park, Whitehorse YT
Miles: 0
Hi Temp: 72.5
Lo Temp: 48.7
We rose late after reading until midnight and going to bed then, when one could easily walk around outside without a flashlight.
We went for a ride into the boons, up Fish Lake Road to its end at Fish Lake. Interesting nothingness on the ride, but Dolores got several flower pictures. A Trans-Canada trail bisects the road; it goes south and connects to other trails.
Then we went to the Beringia Interpretive Center, where they present things and beasts that affected the Yukon due to the bridge across the Bering Straits 10,000 years ago. They have fossils of wooly mammoths, and giant beaver, and so forth, as well as the records of man's transit across the bridge. Very interesting.
At the end, we got to try our skills in throwing a spear with a hand-held launcher that accelerates the speed of the spear. About all I can say is that our spears hit the ground like everyone else's.
We went back to the little house next to the scarred pine for a light lunch. Then we took off to look at the Miles Canyon road. Miles Canyon was a very narrow place that the Yukon flowed through. Many gold-rushers lost their lives in the rapids at that point.
We looked at Miles Canyon from the high viewpoint, then drove down the road and took the turnout for the lower viewpoint. At this place, you can take a pedestrian suspension bridge to the other side and take hikes, etc. A person was having trouble turning his RV around in the parking area at the end of this spur, so I decided to back the truck in.
When I backed in, the small lip on the step bumper that is provided for rigidity just hooked over the guard rail. I tried to pull forward, but that only dug the rear wheels into the soft gravel. I had to get out the bottle jack, and jack up both sides (one at a time) and put boards under the wheels to raise the rear end. Then I could go forward without hooking onto the guard rail. Then I could put back the bottle jack and its handle, and the boards.
We went back to the trailer so I could wash my hands. Then we headed out to the Yukon Transportation Museum near the airport. There are things there commemorating the White Pass & Yukon Railway, and the steamboats, and the early aviation in the Yukon. It's quite nice, if small.
Then we went downtown to walk the main shopping district, and got out of it after having bought nothing. Then back up to the trailer. We rested for a bit, then changed for dinner (clean shorts, short-sleeved shirt with collar).
We went to Pandas. The wife of the owning couple recognized our faces and welcomed us back. We ordered a bottle of Pinot Gris and looked at the menu. Dolores wound up with a lobster bisque and halibut, I had pickled herring and Madagascar Schnitzel (schnitzel in brown gravy with green peppercorns). All of it was delicious, so we stayed for coffee and dessert. I pigged out on strawberries with Bavarian cream and a chocolate shell. Dolores had a crepe filled with ice cream and covered with chocolate sauce.
After paying and telling them we'd be back later in the season, they gave us a discount coupon to use on our return. Then we waddled down to the railway station (no longer used).
There, we found some of the local boys hopping off a platform into the Yukon, which runs 5 or 6 knots at that point. They'd plunge in (about 8 feet drop) and swim to the bank downstream, then run up to the platform and do it again.
We came back to the campground after our waddle and started the process of downloading photos into the laptop, and getting the e-mail, and that sort of thing.
It was a good day (O, by the way, the temperature got to 80f; I'm typing this while waiting for the modem and our high-low thermometer is in the trailer). A warm, clear, sunny, beautiful day.
20030910 Open new window with today’s pictures.
July 10, 2003
Start: High Country RV Park, Whitehorse YT
End: High Country RV Park, Whitehorse YT
Miles: 0
Hi Temp: 79.9
Lo Temp: 49.3
We read late into the night and woke up late in the morning. The temperature was already 67, and the sky was clear. Definitely a shorts day.
We must be running down. It was hard to get started today.
We took the truck downtown to look at the fish ladder. This cute device allows salmon to go upstream around the dam on the Yukon at Whitehorse. The dam furnishes most of the power for this corner of the world - 80 megawatts out of four turbines; there are seven diesel-generator sets for peak loads or low water.
Then we went west of town on the Alaska Highway to look for a unique place pointed out in Dolores's guide to looking for animals. We found it (salt flats just east of Takhini Crossing), but it didn't amount to much, so we returned to town. We made a quick pass through Walmart, then got groceries and returned to the trailer.
We did hamburgers for an easy meal in late afternoon, then read for a bit.
Then we went into town to the MacBride Museum for a lecture on "Whitehorse in the 50's and 60's". Joyce Hayden, a resident of Whitehorse since 1953, gave her impressions of life in Whitehorse in those days. She told many stories of the local characters and lots of local flavor (like the one about Murphy, the honeybucket man, and the day his trailer unhooked from his pickup on Two Mile Hill in the middle of traffic).
She remembered the steamboat era and told that she always thought them so beautiful and graceful. She still remembers the whistles they'd sound as they rounded the bend into Whitehorse.
It was nice to hear her stories; many of which could have happened in our town or any town in that time (except for the 50-below Celsius temperatures in winter).
Now I'm finishing these notes and we'll go to bed fairly early, despite the daylight.
Tomorrow we head for Dawson (or Dawson City) in the Yukon - the home of the big gold rush of 1898.