Monday, June 23, 2014

Watson Lake, YT to Whitehorse, YT 6/23/14

Monday, Day 52 of our summer trip.

We spent yesterday cleaning inside the trailer, doing laundry and we washed the truck.  While I was doing laundry, some new people arrived at the campground and parked next to us.  They noticed our geocaching trackable travel bugs on the truck and trailer.  They also geocache and have a similar travel bug.  Well, Earl and the man talked quite a bit.  While they were talking, Earl mentioned that there were a couple geocaches in the Sign Post Forest.  We had planned to go there after we finished all of our chores.  He said that he already knew about them from a part of the geocaching program that lets you plot a course and  the geocaching website will list all of the geocaches within 5 miles of your route.  Earl said he had heard of that, but hadn’t been able to get it to work, so the man took us into his motorhome to show us what to do.  Later in the afternoon. the Fantasy Tours Caravan folks started to pull in.  They had been in Watson Lake at the same RV park where we were staying while we were there.  One of the caravan members was parked on the other side of us.  He let us know that one of the caravan members had travel bugs, too.  Earl got in touch with that person and they exchanged geocaching numbers.  So, by the time we found the two at the Sign Post Forest, we had gotten 5 new caches recorded.

Today, we are on our way to Whitehorse, YT.Once we get there, we will find out what the road out of Dawson City is like and decide which way we want to go to get into Alaska.  It started to rain during the night and has continued to rain off and on.  We were traveling along and started seeing all of these names and words, written out with white rocks, along the side  of the road.  It reminded me of when we go across the Salt Flats in Utah.  People write words with dark rocks there.  I read in one of the descriptions that this is called rock art in these parts.
Another rock word along the side of rhe roadRock words along the roadside

Guess what.  We were stopped by another construction zone on the way to Whitehorse today.   There was a long 20 minute wait that turned into about 40 min.  Then we got to follow the pilot car for another 20 minutes or so VERY SLOWLY through the construction zone.  I took a picture of the line of RVs and others who were waiting for our turn to be lead through the construction zone..  The pilot car finally got to us  so we could creep along behind him.
Following the very dirty pilot car through the very dirty, dusty muddy construction zone.Stopped at a flag stop in a construction zone

We passed all of the trucks filled with gravel, then saw what was happening.  What they were doing here was putting down a really heavy layer of tar then topping it with gravel.  Dusty dirty gravel which turned into mud where it was raining.  So much for having washed the truck yesterday. By the time we got to the end of the construction and we were allowed to drive on our own without the pilot, that cleanliness was all gone.  At least it was only one layer now instead of the many layers before the washing.
Hot tar being applied to the road then the gravel applier goes to workDump trucks lined up ready to dump gravel onto the oily tar base being applied to the road

We saw some pretty scenery as we traveled through the Yukon, but no big animals today.
Closer look at the mountains in the YukonSnow capped mountains in southern Yukon

This is the Nisutlin Bridge where it crosses the Nisutlin River and into Teslin, YT.  It is the longest expanse for a bridge over water on the Alaska highway.  It has a grate decking and is 1917 ft. long.
Nisutlin Bay Bridge over the Nisutlin River has a metal grate deck.  It provides the longest water span on the Alaska Highway at 1917 ft.

Here is where we camped at the Pioneer RV Park in Whitehorse, YT  You can see how much dirt got onto the truck.  Even more is on the trailer which hasn’t been washed at all, yet.  This is a very nice site, wide, deep and a nice buffer of trees between the sites.  They had a lot of amenities, including a gas/diesel station and propane for sale. 
The trailer is even worse because we haven't washed it at all since we left home.This is our campsite at Pioneer RV Park.  Dirty truck

It was almost 9:30 PM when we got to camp, so we just set up, ate dinner and relaxed before bed time.  See how light the sky is?  It stays light all night.  Even though  the sun has officially set, there is always an after sunset or dawn type of twilight all night.

We will explore Whitehorse  during the next two days.

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