Monday

  

We drove off through the morning mist.

 

As we cross into Yukon, signs advise us to drive with headlights on at all times and to disable radar detectors as they’re illegal in this province/territory.

 

We pass notices that particular lakes have been stocked.  It strikes me that we go to so much trouble to harvest eggs from fish, raise the young in hatcheries, transport them to remote lakes and release them, so people can drive a thousand miles to a wilderness lake and try to catch them.  The cynic in me observes they could just give the fish away and save everyone a lot of time and money.

 

The bug splats on the windshield might look the same, but I swear I get a bucket and brush out each day and rearrange them.

 

I do a lot of switching; cruise control off and on, exhaust brake off and on, but good speed; 100 kph.  No construction patches; great road.

 

On the road alone again.  We drove 45 minutes until we encountered the first other vehicle going our way.  It was a small class C RV and easy to pass.  We drove the entire two hours to Whitehorse without encountering any traffic from behind.  Of the vehicles going the other direction, a surprising number of them are RVs.  The ones we’ve talked to at fuel and rest stops have been people heading home from their Alaska adventures.  They’ve already been there, had fun, and are headed back home.

 

Driving the Alaska Highway is like wilderness kayaking in the Pacific Northwest or sailing the British Virgin Islands.  You’re out on your own all day long hardly encountering another soul, but every evening you find yourselves bunched up in RV Parks, anchorages, or designated wilderness campsites.

 

Plans change.  After all this driving to get to Fairbanks, we decided to change our first Alaska destination and make a diversion to Skagway.  After a refueling stop in Whitehorse, we backtracked a little, and turned south on the Klondike Highway.  It does an out and back to Skagway.  We can go there for our first coastal stop, then pop back out and rejoin our route along the Alaska Highway.

 

And a surprise along the way.  Friends from Sandpipers!  Lou and Alma are from upstate New York.  Frank and Sandra are Canadians.  They took their RVs on the ferry, up the inside passage to Skagway.  We’ve kept in touch with them and met up going opposite directions in Carcross for a quick visit.

 

Cold and rainy outside, we bunched up in Frank and Sandra’s trailer.

 

The quick visit took an hour, then we were back on our way.  The drive to Skagway involved crossing rugged coastal mountains.  The scenery was spectacular!

 

 

 

 

Back through customs, into the United States, and down the hill to our campsite.  It’s just a back-in, with water and electric, on asphalt.

 

But we’re just fine with the view.

 

 

Halibut fish and chips for dinner.  Judy had grilled halibut stuffed with king crab.

 

We’re doing just fine.

 

The Great 2019 Alaska Trip map

 

Sunset tonight 10:22.  New time zone.  Alaska time.  We’re an hour earlier than Pacific.

 

Last light 11:55.  697 miles to Fairbanks.