Day 7 Dawson City, BC to Tetsa River Campground, BC 561 km

4 July 2015

Mile 0 Campground in Dawson City was very nice with a grassy tent area separated from the travel trailers and motor coaches.  Showers were clean and the laundry was convenient. Also, the WiFi was nice in the morning when people weren't competing for it as in the previous evening.  Definitely RECOMMENDED for $20.00/night.

Moving on from Dawson City, we began to fill 'bucket 1' by  starting our journey on the Alaskan Highway, which was built  by the US military starting in 1942.  Shortly out of town we drove over one of the original curved timber bridges built in 1942, now maintained as a monument to the original highway builders/designers.

Continuing on, we ran into a little rain and the temperature dropped to 55 degF for a couple of hours.  Running low on fuel at Pink Mountain we got gasoline and had lunch at the Buffalo Inn across the street where the spousal unit an I split a Buffalo burger and soup/bread combination.  We should have stopped at the burger, which was two 6-ounce beef patties + Canadian bacon + egg + the usual fixins and a mound of french fries.  We should have known what to expect when we walked in and saw the 'No Muddy Boots' sign, below which were tubs for muddy boots and rubber runways on OSB flooring.  Yes, this place definitely caters to the outdoors working man.

Keep yer guns and muddy boots at home, boys

There is absolutely no reason to leave hungry from this place!

Finishing lunch we continued north where we saw more YAFLs and YAFRs, as well as new YAFVs (Yet Another Fabulous View)s.  The sheer vastness of the landscapes continues to amaze me.  After about 1:00 pm, the weather cleared and started to warm up.  In a little while it reached 75 degF and we again started shedding clothes as the day turned into a beautiful one for motorcycling.

In Dawson City the landscapes were primarily agricultural.  As we moved north, we saw more pine timber with logging and oil/gas extraction operations dotting the roadside.  Continuing north, now all we see is forest and more forest, with the pines becoming more mixed with deciduous trees. 

We wound up at a lovely campground next to the Tetsa River, complete with mosquitoes at no extra charge.  At 8:30 the sun is still quite high and dinner is complete.

We had a nice conversation with a guy, probably in his '70s riding solo on a Kawasaki dual-purpose machine.  He said that he has made the trip to Alaska from California a number of times.  Good to see these guys on the road.

Things learned today:

* My jacket, zipped to the pants with a fleece is good to 55 degF, and with the hand warmers on (the Spyder comes standard with hand warmers) even my hands were comfortable with just leather work gloves on.

* Canada is vast!

* The people who built the Alaska Highway must have been very resourceful

Day 6, Clinton, BC to Dawson Creek, BC 803 km.

3 July 2015

The mosquitoes this morning were horrendous!  On the upside (that's me being Polyanish), this provided us an excellent opportunity to test out our new mosquito head nets.  Let me tell you that they worked admirably, but we still made a hasty retreat to escape the hungry little buggers.  For the first time we left w/o coffee by 6:00 am!

We quickly packed our stuff and headed down the road to find a Tim Hortons, where had coffee and the promise of Internet access.  However this was a broken promise, as their system did not play nice with Google.  Giving up, we moved on down the road.

This was our first really good day from a temperature perspective as it was mostly in the mid to high 70's. Cool enough to be comfortable to ride with a coat on, but not so hot as to be uncomfortable.

What can I say about today?  More spectacular lakes.  More spectacular rivers. More spectacular scenery.  Just more YAFRS and YAFRL (Yet Another Fabulous River and Yet Another Fabulous Lake, respectively).  One can't take pictures of them all.

We did actualize some wildlife sightings today though:
1 bear, color brown, possibly small grizzly
3 moose: two cows + one calf
1 coyote
3 bald eagles, male
1 deer sans antlers

Things to ponder:
Do birds everywhere start making noise at 4:30am?
Why do I always thing of something to add after posting?

One more thing.  We are now at the official beginning of the Alaska Highway:

At 10:15 it is still twilight, and now time to hit the sack.