Day 6 (Saturday, June 11, 2016)

The temperature last night was much warmer.  We still layered up some but it only dropped to about 50.  We were glad to leave the mosquitoes behind!  But, alas, you can’t really leave them behind!  They are prolific and persistent buggers!

Quote of the day by Andrew:  The scale of everything just blows you away! And it really does:  WIDE open spaces, TALL mountains, and even TALLER mountains.  You drive literally next to rock faces, and look UP forever!  You see mountains far, far away.  One of our first days of driving I mentioned the swath of pasture in a field of corn.  Here there were swaths of forests in the mountain ranges!  The trees and undergrowth are green, green, green, the flowers very colorful and vibrant, and the air cool and crisp.  The rivers and creeks flow in a hurry, full of the snow runoff so they have that interesting frosty green color.

After we left Fort Nelson, we drove a bit of a distance and realized we could have stayed at the Tetsa campgrounds…they advertised the “best” cinnamon rolls!  Cinnamon rolls! It looked less commercial so mental note if we drive this again. 

Question of the day:  There are signs (!) that remind semi rigs to check their brakes before descending these massive hills.  Why just semi rigs?  What about those GIANT campers and RVs, usually hauling some other vehicle?  What about regular cars and trucks?  Any brake could fail.

Over a hill and around a turn and there is Muncho Lake.  It is so pretty, with water a beautiful blue/green color.  Andrew and I commented:  Should we stop and kayak?  Our goal is really to get to Alaska, but this water was calling for us.  So we actually stopped by the side of the road in a small turnout, got out the kayaks, inflated them (we left our hard-shell ones at home since these inflatables actually store under our truck’s bed cover) and kayaked for maybe an hour.  Check out the Map embedded below to see our trail.  It was really surreal, with the water’s color and surrounding scenery.

 

Just a few miles down the road we stopped and hopped into some Hot Springs.  You can’t really stay in them long because they are really, really HOT. It brought back memories of our trip to Italy with Alessio and his family and their taking us to their native hot springs.  This one had cool water coming from the hills, and hot water coming up from the ground and it mixed to not quite too hot.  While walking back to our truck, we saw people pointing and we saw our first moose.  It brought its head up and just looked at us.  It wasn’t close but it wasn’t far away either.  It looked massive with a huge rack.  I wasn’t looking in the right direction but Andrew saw one just cross the path behind us!  We met several nice people, one gentleman and another woman (not together) actually from Fort Nelson that just came to sit in the warm sulfur water, another from the Netherlands traveling Canada and then the USA on his motorcycle (which they could ship on plane!).  He was traveling until September/October.  We didn’t think to ask what he normally did for a living.  He took off running to get a picture of the moose crossing the boardwalk. 

Bears, bears, more bears-probably a dozen or more, bison, bison, and more bison—some were HUGE, sheep –the little ones were so adorable, one porcupine, and one brown bear!  We had a remarkable wildlife sighting day. 

Canada is repairing their portion of the Alaska Highway so there are huge areas where they spread gravel and then apply a seal coat.  The dust that is stirred up when driving these areas is amazing.  Andrew did get yelled at by a “Pilot car” driver.  There are some big stretches of highway they appear to be rebuilding and you have to wait to proceed, one lane at a time, but following a truck that has the words “Follow me” on it.  They are specific instructions that say not to pass said Pilot car/truck.  They let the motorcycles go first as the dust is atrocious, and we were behind two semis.  So Andrew passed one, then the other.  Apparently the sign that says not to pass the Pilot car also means to not pass at all.  It really didn’t say that but she was furious and dropped a few F bombs letting us know we shouldn’t have done passed those trucks.  There wasn’t traffic coming the other way, except for one work truck, which was where her concern lay.  Needless to say, we were speechless after her probably justifiable tirade. 

We drove through Teslin to find our night spot and chose the historic Johnson’s Crossing campground.  It sets right on the Teslin river (short walk), has been around since the 1940s, and also boasts cinnamon rolls and beer. J The campsite itself is very natural but a tight fit to back in to!  The temperature is still really nice so we should have a good night’s sleep.