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20050618 Whitehorse, Yukon 53/73 Mostly cloudy, warm.
After I wrote last night's notes, the disaster happened.
Mosquitos.
Hundreds of mosquitos invaded the trailer. How, we don't know. The air outside was full of them as well after the sun went down.
We sat in the trailer and killed mosquitos. We killed over a hundred.
Finally, Dolores ran to the bedroom and closed the door and got under the covers to escape them. I finally followed just after midnight.
At 5:16am, Dolores was up swatting the damn things again. I tried to get a little more sleep, but they'd invaded the bedroom and got after me. I got up.
Dolores said that when she went into the living room, the whole room was buzzing.
We had coffee and flyswatters. Finally we packed up everything and were on the road by 6:45.
We got to Whitehorse safely, if tired. Dolores saw two red foxes on the way. It was a relief being in the truck with no mosquitos.
We drove straight to the Walmart in Whitehorse and bought various bug-things, notably the Raid Flying Insect Killer. We filled the trailer with that, then drove to the campground (High Country RV Park - again). We pled for an opening site and got one not much later. We drove into the site and looked inside the trailer. No live mosquitos. None. Not one.
Then we finished setting up the trailer for a three (or four) day stay. Dolores swept out the little corpses while I set up. We vacuumed the joint. Then we went out for lunch.
On our return, I went out to get tires for the truck while Dolores tried to nap (not very successfully). I returned with two new tires and new wiper blades, then I took a nap (successfully).
We finished cleaning the trailer. I looked at and re-installed the cover over the heater in the trailer, on the thought that it was loose last night and might have let in bugs. We still don't know how they all got into the trailer - or if we let them in earlier in the day as we went in and out. But others in the park also had the same experience - our Florida folks next door said it was the worst night they'd ever spent anywhere.
I grilled a steak outside for dinner and got away with it. Good dinner. Then we went for a walk around the park. We came to a guy with a very small dog whose cap said LASD. We asked him how he was doing and he replied, "Old, fat and ugly, but not too bad." We met him again later and had an interesting talk - LASD stands for Los Angeles Sheriff's Department.
Sunset will be at 11:36pm and sunrise tomorrow at 4:27am.
There are mosquitos in the park here, but nowhere near as many. We'll see tonight if they come in or stay out.
Wow. What a day.
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20050619 Whitehorse, Yukon Mostly cloudy, cool.
We slept like logs, now that the mosquito hordes have left us alone. Through the day we spoke with others who had been at Teslin and they all had similar problems. Most concur that the damn things come in through the window screens when the windows are open.
I dropped Dolores at church while I went to Canadian Tire to get screening material to put into places mosquitos might come through. Probably futile, but.... I installed it into the house heater outer door where the holes were large and where they could possibly enter through the external air feed into the heater.
After church we did our grocery shopping for the week in the boondocks ahead of us. We brought it back to the little house and put it away.
Then we did nearly nothing for the rest of the day. We read. We got computers onto the internet via Wifi. We watched TV. We read. We walked around the campground when we got really energetic. We read.
We printed out instructions from the bear-walk tour operator on what to wear, etc. We'll buy some of those things tomorrow.
Late in the evening, "The Slammer" struck. A couple in a large motor home towing a dual-axle trailer with a car on it came in and parked next to us. He took the car off the trailer and washed it. Then he put it between our trailer and his motorhome and started moving things back and forth between the two. Slam. Open. Slam. Open. Slam. That continued till midnight.
Then the motorhome owner on the other side of us got out his ladder and bucket and started washing the windows in the front of his rig. He wasn't very noisy.
So goes life in the big campground.
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20050620 Whitehorse, Yukon 48/61 Mostly cloudy, cool, steady light rain late & into the night.
When we got up (late) in the morning, the window-washer was gone. The Slammer left shortly afterward.
On the way here, we had a chip pop out of the glass on one side window of the trailer. The trick is that it was on the inside. We called a glass guy who regularly fixes glass in this campground. He came by, and declared himself to be amazed and that he'd never seen anything like it before. His advise was to do nothing but to have some material and duct tape at hand so we could plug the large hole if it shattered.
While waiting for him, I mounted our full-width rubber flap to the rear bumper of the truck. It'll keep rocks from banging up the trailer or people behind us.
We headed downtown to spend money.
We headed first for the used-book store we're familiar with here. We brought some books there to trade in, but we left with a whole bag of books, so the owner gave us a nice labeled tote bag to take them away.
We went to Home Hardware and bought a big sheet of plexiglass to plug the hole if needed. We went downtown and bought waterproof hiking shoes for Dolores, sturdy slacks for both of us, and wool socks for both of us.
We strolled up and down Main Street, looking at things. We bought some fudge, like good little tourists. I got a tee-shirt.
We stopped in a photo shop to see if they might have a battery for our camera. They couldn't match it by model number, so we'll take it there tomorrow to try again. We mentioned our tripod's missing knob; the owner said we might try Northwest Metallic. Sure enough, they found a bolt that fit and charged fifty cents.
Then I went to the plumbing supply part of the joint and bought a length of one-and-a-quarter inch galvanized pipe to act as a persuader or lever in conjunction with the lug nut wrench or torque wrench. I'd decided to get one of these after seeing the tire guy torque the lugnuts on the truck.
I needed some more #8/18 x 3/4 sheet metal screws to mount the bug deflector. I found them all over town, but they all used Richardson screwdrivers (the square type used in Canada). Finally I stopped at the Dodge dealer here and told him I needed more like the guy gave me in Prince George. He got out three more (just right) and handed them to me. I offered to pay, but he told me to put them in my pocket and have fun.
We returned to the campground. After putting things away, I installed the bug deflector while drinking a Yukon Gold pale ale (good stuff).
We didn't dress up, but we did put on slightly better clothes and went out to dinner at our favorite place, and in our minds the best dining experience north of the 49th parallel. We found Pandas on Main Street on our way to Alaska in 2001. It was so good we stopped again on the way back out. Then we stopped there again on our way in and our way out in 2003. We'll do so again this year.
I had roll-mops and Madagascar Schnitzel; Dolores had lobster bisque and King Crab. We had cocktails before dinner and wine with it. Sorbet was served between the appetizer and the entree. Then we settled in with coffee and port. We chatted with Lizz (the owner with Rudy) until the crowd came in and she had to tend to others. Dolores hadn't intended to get a port - she was going to take a sip of mine. Lizz gave her a port so she wouldn't have to sip mine. The price was still quite reasonable. If anyone reading this comes to Whitehorse, come here for dinner.
We returned to the little house. Then we saw a big black cloud that looked ominous and heading our way, so we took a quick walk around the campground. We got back just in time; the rain started, with occasional thunder. That's ok - we're inside and quite comfortable.
Only a few chores for tomorrow.
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20050621 Whitehorse, Yukon 41/52 Steady light rain, cold. Picture Link
The high temp of 52 was set last night. Today was just rainy and cold.
It wasn't the sort of day to take a ride and look for picture subjects. So we lazed around the trailer through the morning.
About 11:30 we got active and went downtown. I picked up flat washers I needed. We went to Main Street's Good Buddy restaurant for lunch. We went to the grocery for Dolores's bananas. We looked into a yarn store near the visitor's center. We bought a mini-tripod for the camera.
Then we came back to the campground and took several pictures to show that some days can get pretty bleak up here. I called in a reservation for tomorrow night's stay.
Later in the day, I'll get off the notes to this point. We'll have porkchops & pasta for dinner.
Then we'll read and continue our loafing. Actually, it's been sort of a vacation from our vacation. We didn't do much, but we certainly took a respite from our dashing around.
Tomorrow, we'll run up to Mayo and set the trailer down there. Then we'll take the truck to Keno and look around, and return to the trailer. Mayo and Keno are both old mining towns.
Now for the rest of the chores and then take it easy.
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