Thursday, June 12, 2008

We started the day at the Northern Rockies Lodge and Campground.  It is right on the shore of the Muncho Lake.  The Muncho Lake is known for its fishing and blue-green waters.  The weather is beautiful today and the sun came up very early.  I am not sure how early because our clock’s battery is dead.  There are two floatplanes at the campground and they both took off before 9:00 this morning so we got to see them take off.  Deaune got to run and oh was it nice after sitting in the car for so many days.  Sarah fished with her cousins and they got some bites but the fish got away before they could get a fish to the shore.   They said it was great to get to fish even if they didn’t catch anything.

We have gone 3000 miles since we left home as of 10:00 am PST today.  Not all of those miles have been on the highway driving to Alaska but most of them are.  WOW, we have never been this far away from home.  It really doesn’t seem like we could be that far from home. 

After a delicious breakfast of Corn Flakes and juice we went to Liard River Hot Springs.  It was only about 15 minutes from our campground where we stayed.  Chris saw a little bear in the ditch beside the road right after we left the campground but we didn’t stop and the rest of us didn’t see him. 

The water at Liard River Hot Springs is very warm so we got out our swimming suits and went for a dip in the springs. We had to walk ½ mile on a boardwalk to the hot springs. The boardwalk went over some marshy land with very clear shallow water, which reminded us of Yellowstone.  There were little minnow-sized fish in the shallow marshy waters.  After we got to the springs everyone got in but the water was so hot that it took some time getting used to it.  Aleesha wasn’t too sure she wanted to be in the spring water because it is a sulfur spring and smelled like it.  She didn’t want to smell like that for the rest of the day and they didn’t have showers.  She finally got in and had a good time with her family. There were three different pools each had water a different temperature but all were hot. The hot springs had water that was about waist deep and had gravel on the bottom. The length of the springs was probably less than 50 yards and the width was less than 20 yards.   It had the hottest water on one end and a little creek that was cold on the other end. I don’t know how there could be such extreme water temperature changes in that small area. There was a log that spanned the width of the hot springs and we took turns playing “king of the log.”  One area of hot springs was so hot that it was hard to stand in it.  The tradition of these springs is that you get a rock from the spring’s floor and place it on a rock pile on the far side of the hottest area.  You have to cross the hottest area to accomplish this great feat.  Everyone in our group put a rock on the pile except Aleesha.  Sarah swam in the coolest pool like it was a swimming pool.  We all had a great time.

We had lunch at the Hot Springs and put our wet things on the picnic tables to dry.  The humidity level here is so low that our things dried quite a bit while we ate our lunch.

Just outside the gate of Laird Hot Springs we encountered a problem with the camper’s tire.  Some of the lug nuts were loose.  The weather was beautiful so it was a good day to be broke down for a bit.  We have had some rainy days that would have made changing a tire a mess with all the traffic passing us and throwing up dirty water.  An old mechanic named Homer helped us out fixing the lug nuts so they were tight against the tire and he only charged us $20.  We were so blessed today that our breakdown was not serious.  It did make us think about how bad a breakdown could be out here in the middle of no-where.  When we broke down, the next repair shop was 150 miles away and that is only a town with a population of 1,500.  Our Milepost recommends getting repairs down in Whitehorse, which is, a bigger town but it is 410 miles away.

Since there are not any towns on this section of the Alaska Highway, we are paying a small fortune for gasoline.  In a stretch of highway maybe 100 miles or more long there might only be two or three places along the side of the road to get gas.  These are little spots in the road where you could camp, lodge, gas up, and get a bite to eat.  The costs for any of their services are very high, as they know that they have no competition and can charge what they want. 

It is interesting to note that we have seven children in our two families and we have not seen hardly any other children in since Calgary, Alberta.  We have seen a few people with little toddlers and babies but the school-aged and teenagers have not been in the areas where we have been.  Canada’s schools are in session until the end of June but we thought we would see children from other areas traveling in Canada.

The Alaska Highway is about as wide as 24 Highway and it is mostly asphalt with gravel on top like our street back home but the scenery is very different.  We have been driving the last two days in the Northern Rocky Mountains of Canada and they are beautiful.  We have seen 4 black bears and 1 cub, 1 brown bear, 4 horses, and several buffalo as we drove today. 

The drive from Dawson Creek to Watson Lake has been so pretty.  We have driven through the Rocky Mountains some covered in snow.  We have seen beautiful lakes, creeks, and rivers along the side of the road.  The area is heavily treed which we would call forests but we haven’t seen signs saying that we are in a forest.  And of course we have seen animals that we don’t usually get to see except at a zoo.  Most days we have had both rain and sun.  It has been nice that when we have had rain it hasn’t caused us too much problem.

We stopped at the Sign Post Forrest, which is also the Visitor’s Center in the town of Watson Lake.  The Sign Post Forrest is an area where there are thousands of signposts from all over the world.  Anyone can put up a sign from his or her hometown. The Sign Post Forrest began in 1942 during WW II and the construction of the Alaska Highway. The American Army posted directions for the soldiers to various points of interest in the Yukon and then added signs for New York, Chicago and Tokyo.  A homesick soldier added his own signpost with the distance to his hometown.  Since then thousands have added their signpost naming places all over the world.

We ate supper at Watson Lake at a little restaurant/convenience store across the street from the Sign Post Forrest.  Their hamburgers were $9 or $10 so we had chicken which was a little less expensive for our family, $32 for all of us. We had fried chicken and mojos.  Mojos are potato wedges that are deep fat fried and seasoned.  They were very good.  Since we are no longer around any sizable grocery stores, our food expenses are very high.  When we do find a grocery store, the prices are about twice what they would be at home.  The store we went to last night had dusty boxes and cans of food on the shelves. It made us wonder how long they had been on the shelves.  We are all healthy and eating pretty well.  No one is complaining about the food which is nice because everyday it is cereal for breakfast and sandwiches for lunch.  As we try to travel and see as much as we can, there is just not time for preparing hot food.

The road north of Watson Lake is lined with hundreds of stone messages on the sides of the road.  There are people’s names and messages like “Will you marry me?” made out of stones for many miles down the road.

We drove a little more than an hour down the road to Continental Divide Campground where we stayed the night.  They had a place where we could was our vehicles so Tim and Doug took advantage of that.  Even though we are driving on pavement, it has gravel patches in places and sometimes it is very dusty so our vehicles were covered in dust.

The campground was nice and had a playground that our kids enjoyed.  They also had free firewood but we were ready to call it a night so we showered and then went to bed in daylight. 

Driving today was from Muncho Lake, BC to Continental Divide, Yukon

Mileage for the day: 261

Temperature high: 70

Camping fee: $25.00

Price for gasoline: $1.42.9/liter to 1.66.9/liter