Days 5 and 6 were largely travel days for our clan, but we did see some interesting and exciting things along the way! On Day 5, Wednesday, we moved from Johnson’s Crossing, BC to Toad River, BC. We had a nice stay at Johnson’s Crossing, where we had a properly sized cinnamon bun and enjoyed some good coffee at the local roadhouse. After hitting the road pretty early, we had a nice drive into Watson Lake, where we stopped, of course, to look at the famous Watson Lake signpost forest. After taking some pictures and regretting the fact that, even though Char and I had seen this forest at a previous time, we forgot to bring a sign with us, proceeded to make our own mark on the signpost forest. We scribbled our names and destination onto an “Alaska Grown” bumper sticker, and slapped it right on the back of someone else’s sign. Eli, after all, is about 99% Alaska grown at this point.

After Watson Lake, on our drive to stop for the night, we encountered a bison on the side of the road. Of course, he was a ways away, but we photographed him endlessly anyway. Then, we saw two bison on the side of the road that were much closer. So, we photographed them. Not but a half hour later, we saw an entire herd of 150 or so bison on either side of, and crossing, the road. The herd had quite a few calves and yearlings, so this made for a few more pictures. Needless to say, we have approximately 3,457 pictures of bison, of which you will see 0.02%. Believe me, you’re getting the best shots. I’ve been through them all.

We were going to stop for the night at Muncho Lake, but the roadhouse there, albeit a nice place, wanted $49 for an RV spot (really -- $50 for a parking space with a plug??), so we moved on to Toad River. Toad River was quite nice, with clean, free showers and a nice view of the river.
The next day, we again got a decent start at it, and mostly had a driving day. We travelled through the Northern Rockies as we made our way past Fort St. John toward Ft. Nelson. We ended up Day 6 at Lake Charlie. We are at one of the same stops Char and I made over three years ago on our trip up to Alaska from Oklahoma.

We settled in for the evening at about 5:00 PM. I started putting the camper together while Char and Carol made a quick run to the grocery store for some pretzels and sandwich supplies. Lake Charlie (the town) is a good sized town—they have a pretty large Safeway Grocery (so I’m told). Carol cooked stuffed bell peppers in the camper, and they were quite good. Eli enjoyed a good round of play before he sacked out for the evening. Now, I’m going through pictures and looking forward to retiring a little early.

--Mike

We're at Toad River, BC, and have a decent internet connection again, so the pictures for Day 3 & 4 are up on the pictures page. I'll be working on today's progress notes and pictures here shortly. --Mike

We started day 3 with what will henceforth be known as "The Coffee Incident of 2010." Char, for some unknown reason, grabbed a half-full coffee pot and dumped the thing upside down all over herself, shaking it to remove all the grounds. Then, she dove onto the couch in a fit of panic trying to keep her legs from burning off. It was very dramatic. So we got off to a bit of a later start than planned.
We stopped by Jack London's cabin on the way out of town, and proceeded with a LONG day of driving and ended up at Takhina Hot Springs.
The next morning (Day 4), we decided to start the day with a dip in the pool fed by the springs. Very refreshing and relaxing. We then made our way about 20 miles to Whitehorse, which is a wonderful town with lots to see and do. We spent the better part of today in Whitehorse.
We started with the Visitor's Center, grabbed a picnic lunch, and headed to the park. We saw a Royal Canadian Mounted Police there (at least, it was a guy dressed up like an 1800s RCMP for the museum), who was riding his horse all around very enthusiastically.
From there, we moved over to see the S.S. Klondike - an early 1900s era steam ship. It was quite impressive and they have all of the actual artifacts on board the ship.
After that, we explored the Yukon brewery (yum!) and packed up to continue moving. We drove another 80 miles or so until we got to Johnson's Crossing, where we are for the night. Tonight, we're cooking some Green Chile stew and putting Eli down a little early--he has been a bit of a crank today.
Off toward Watson Lake tomorrow--we'll see how far we get! We're having a blast and missing you all!
Check out the pics!

Well, we woke up this morning at 6:30 so we could get going toward Chicken. As it turns out, the Top of the World Highway, from Chicken, AK to the Canadian border was washed out, and they are only taking caravans through at 8 AM and noon. So we booked it and arrived in Chicken (yes, Chicken is the name of the town) at 11:50 AM, enough time to get Eli a diaper change, grab tuna sandwiches, and get back in the car. We had to go straight through to Dawson City, since there is no other stop after Chicken. We pulled in at about 4 PM. What a long day.

Needless to say, we are exhausted. We had a beautiful, but dusty, trip over the top of the world highway (all dirt) and an easy border crossing. I'll have to update more tomorrow, now it's time to see Dawson City a little bit before we doze off to sleep.

I posted some pictures. Talk to you soon!

Day 1 ... and we're off. We left a little later than planned, but not late enough to prevent us from getting a 200 mile start on our trip. We finished cleaning the house, packed up the camper, and pulled out of town at around 10:30 this morning without too much trouble.
We were able to say goodbye to Chad and Anne one last time before hitting the road, while returning their broom, vacuum, (fill in the blank) ... they have been very good to us and we will miss them, and the rest of our Anchorage friends, very much.
The drive was nice ... after 26 consecutive days of rain in Anchorage, we didn't encounter any rain on the way out. We had beautiful weather and great views of Mts. Sanford, Drum, Wrangell, and Blackburn as we drove up the Glenn highway.
We stopped for the night at Gakona, a small town about 20 miles north of Glennallen on the Tok cutoff. Looking forward to an early day tomorrow to see if we can catch a "convoy" from Chicken eastward .. they have blocked the road due to heavy rains and washouts. We'll see how that goes.

check out the pictures under the "Pictures" link above ...