FYI: Tok is pronounced toke and
Valdez is pronounced Val dEEz.
Change of plans again. It is a good thing Andrew had plenty of
wiggle room if we wanted to change plans.
Actually the weather changed it for us.
Rain again so we opted to just keep on driving vs stopping. Our Sirius radio was back!! It went out ages ago as we moved north into
Alaska – assume Sirius satellites not aimed that far north. when we crossed over and went too far
north.
We crossed into Canada with the hope of kayaking
at Destruction Bay (on Kluane Lake). The
water was the most amazing shade of blue, sort of like the blue you get on the
Gulf of Mexico BUT with HUGE mountains as a backdrop! We knew we may not get to go when we saw the
flags flying straight out from their poles, and the water was very, very
choppy. It would have launched us right
back onto the beach! We drove a bit down
further and drove through a campground to use the restroom (too much
information, sorry!) and the outhouses were labeled #1 and #2. I kid you not. :) Others were labeled #4, #5, etc.
Same campground closed their tent camping
option due to bears! We haven’t seen
many but we keep getting warned about them.
We did head to another access road to walk on the beach hoping for a
calmer spot to kayak. The beach walk was
lovely, except when we were returning to our truck and I took us on the
sandbar. The sandbar was pretty soft and
I sank to my ankles in sandy water! YIKES!
Andrew nearly had heart failure. I
fell forward but got out and kept on walking, albeit a bit faster. Andrew decided perhaps to backtrack was a
better option so that is what he did.
All in all a beautiful time on the beach, even if we didn’t get to
kayak.
As we were driving away from Kluane, we
saw what looked like smoke drifting over the lake. It wasn’t dark enough for smoke or rain
clouds for that matter. Andrew thought
perhaps it was dust from road construction and we’d most likely have to drive
through it as we have encountered that quite a few times over our journey. Well, it was dust but not from road
construction but from the dried part of the lake! It was really weird! The lake on that end was completely dried and
the wind was pretty hefty and literally blew dust over the road and out over
the lake to where you couldn’t see through it!
Nature.
We encountered a dead porcupine on the
road and that prompted a discussion on the fact that we didn’t see much road
kill; in fact, that porcupine (which is really weird to actually see dead on
the road with all of their quills standing straight up) was only the 2nd
thing we’d seen, and the 1st was something earlier in the day we
couldn’t identify as birds had already gotten to it. The signs alerting drivers to moose accidents
show there are road kill incidents, but I guess they don’t remain on the road
for long. I do remember that Alaska (and
maybe Canada??) has a roadkill hotline for if something gets hit and you don’t
want the meat it provides as many depend on it for winter survival. There really is such a thing! Really!
We also then talked that we have hardly
seen any kind of police or patrol officers of any kind. The roads are pretty scarcely populated so
you think you’d see one once in a while just to check on travelers stranded or
to make sure we are all following the rules for road construction crews. We finally saw one today that pulled over the
car behind us. We think it was because
said car did not have its headlights on and that is the law in Canada.
We have arrived in Haines without seeing
any wildlife at all today, except for some eagles, and that is good enough. We had originally planned on stopping
somewhere in Canada to spend the night but, with the rainy weather, we decided
to just head here. This is where we will
catch our ferry tomorrow evening. We are
at a campsite that takes tents, has laundry, and showers so we can get
organized for our next 4 days. The kind
lady offered us a site under their canopy and we have a magnificent view of
Lynn Canal. A cruise ship just sailed by
and eagles are soaring overhead!!
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