Not everything goes according to plan

Not one of our better days, but it still ended up with a glass of wine, so it wasn't all bad!

The plan was to go for a drive up to Quiet Lake on the old Canol Road. There would not be any internet access up there, so we figured we would pay for internet access at Johnson's Crossing before heading into the boonies.

An interesting place, and a worthwhile stop

Hit the road again at 6:45am Thursday morning. This time, we wanted to make it to the community of Teslin, 130 kms (81 miles) west of where we had parked for the night. The Alaska Highway to Teslin crosses the border back into British Columbia for one stretch before heading back to the Yukon for the last time.

We stopped at a couple of scenic pull offs along the way, and it was after 8:30am by the time we pulled in to Teslin.

Beautiful, rugged Yukon scenery

We woke up at the Watson Lake airport and headed into town to use the free wifi at the visitors center. There's a cell signal around Watson lake, but for some reason my phone won't connect to the data. It shows a UMTS connection with no data, but the calling features work fine. Not sure what's going on there, but it's frustrating. (And then for no reason it started working later in the day. And now, in Teslin, it's not working again. Arg!)

Before leaving the airport though, we had a couple of things to do.

Made it to the Yukon!

Yesterday morning we arrived in the Yukon! We can't believe it took us 56 years to get here!

We did the drive first thing in the morning, almost 200 kms. We stopped a couple of times along the way, once to get gas and a couple of times to see the animals!

I would say this was worth the extra effort...

Once again, we got up at 6:30am Monday morning, fired Sherman up and hit the road right away in the pouring rain. It wasn't a far drive to Muncho Lake and the Northern Rockies Lodge where we stopped to have breakfast. I should clarify... we didn't have breakfast at the lodge. We simply stopped at the lodge to have our breakfast in the motorhome!

And, the lodge has wifi internet... a rare commodity in these parts where there is no cell service.

This is why we came here!

On the road before 7:00am again yesterday morning. We find it's better to get some driving done early. There are a lot fewer vehicles on the road, plus the odds of seeing some more wildlife are higher.

There are a lot of roadside pulloffs on the Alaska Highway. Obviously you can't stop at them all, but there are so many photo opportunities and things that we don't want to miss. We simply can't figure how anybody can drive right through, and yet many people do exactly that.

No overnight camping allowed at the dump station

We woke up at 6:15am Saturday and got Sherman ready to hit the road. We figure that we might as well use the engine heat to warm things up rather than wasting propane by using the furnace.

It doesn't take us very long to get going... we have done this so many times that even when we aren't ready at all, it only takes us 15 minutes to get things packed away and secured for travel. We both know the drill and what has to be done, and before you know it we're on the road.

Scenery along the Alaska Highway

We actually drove 205 kms (127 miles) yesterday! We're trying to average about 200 kms (124 miles) a day, but we haven't been able to that very many times... there is too much to see along the way.

Lots of oil and gas activity up here! In fact, it's amazing how they get so much equipment and manpower, and be able to house and feed all the workers. Especially the 300 kms or so north of Dawson Creek.

May Expenses

Not a bad month considering we flew to Ottawa and back, and we rented a car for a week. But, we also spent two full weeks working at the park, and we hardly left the park during that time so we didn't really have much opportunity to spend any money.

In total, we spent $1,591 CAD ($1,250 USD) for the month. Here's how it all broke down...

A great first day on the Alaska highway!

Okay, bear with us... long blog post today with lots of pictures because we saw lots of neat stuff!

We said goodbye to Wayne and Karen, and thanked them for their hospitality. Great to meet people along the way! Forgot to get a photo of Sherman's overnight spot... we had parked in the storage area of the little community where Wayne and Karen live. Their motorhome was in for service work, so we were able to use their spot.

On the way into the center of Dawson Creek, we saw something interesting!