Thursday June 26, 2014 Dawson City, Yukon Territory, Canada

The Yukon River

We were up by six and having our coffee.  This RV Park has better WiFi than we experience in most parks.  I'm sure we will miss it.  I thought of our friend, Alan Howeth, this morning. Unlike us he is an early riser and greatly enjoys the sunrise.  On the other hand we enjoy the sunsets more.  In this part of the world neither of us would be fully satisfied.  Alan would have to get up before three and we would have to stay up until nearly midnight.  Even then the sun only makes a brief dip below the horizon.  It doesn't get fully dark this time of year.

Yukon purple wild flowers

After the shop finished with the coach last night, the technician left me three gallons of coolant to top off the radiator as the air was purged from the system.  Before leaving the RV Park for the shop to settle our bill, Brad helped me open the reservoir and we put in a little over a gallon of coolant.  At 9 we went to Inland Kenworth to settle up our bill.  We have an extended warranty plan through Good Sam, but with a $1000 deductible.  Since the repairs cost less than that I paid the entire bill.

We were soon on the road, YT-2 enroute Dawson City with Brad and Susan behind us..  Gerri was busy trying to master the intricacies of the Milepost magazine and didn't tell me of a turn onto a different highway.  Brad let me know of my mistake.  We drove about 4 miles without finding a suitable spot to turn around.  I finally spotted a turn off to a fire station.  There wasn't room to turn around without unhitching the Jeep.  So, it was unhitch, turn and re-hitch.  We were soon on the right highway again.

At the Bonanza Gold RV Park

Our street in the RV Park

We had been warned of rough road and the possibilities of frost heaves.  Well, it was mostly rough road all the way to Dawson City. About the time I would get to 50 mph I had to slow down or change lanes to avoid pot holes or poorly repaired pot holes.  Most of the bad parts were marked in someway but not with much distance to react.  I avoided the worst of the roughness by either slowing drastically or changing lanes when I saw spots ahead that had been repaired.  Fortunately traffic in the other direction was light, so I could use that lane many times.  There was some consolation to the rough road.  Much of the way there were purple flowers lining both sides of the highway for long stretches.  Gerri tried many times to get a picture that did the color of the flowers justice, without much success.  There also were many views of lakes and rivers.  Although it was thick and went further than the eye could see the forest wasn't impressive.  The majestic big trees had given way to stunted Black Spruce and Aspens that were not much beyond a bush.  Gerri read in the Milepost that the stunted vegetation was attributed to the type of soil with permafrost beneath it.  There was also a lot of marshy areas.  It is hard to imagine how hard it must have been to build this highway in the forties.  There are a few businesses still operating along the highway, but many business that are closed are just tumbling down remains of buildings and someone's dreams.

We pretty much brought up the rear with the rest of our group ahead of us.  Of course our tail gunners were always present just behind us or just ahead of us.   There were several stretches of construction and it had been raining before we reached Dawson City.  As we approached Dawson City we began seeing great piles of rock and dirt.  These piles were the tailings left by dredging.  Dredges were used in this area to unearth the gold ore as opposed to hard rock mining in Nevada so the mine tailings look entirely different.

We pulled into the RV Park at 6:30,  8.5 hours to drive 330 miles.  We also used 1/2 a tank of fuel. There were few times during the day that we were driving at a speed that got us into the overdrive gears where fuel economy is best.  I had planned to fuel up in Tok, but now will fuel up here in Dawson City.

I hooked up the utilities and unhooked the Jeep but didn't do much else else outside as it started raining pretty heavily.  Gerri doctored up some leftovers and made a salad for dinner.  I was very tired and went to bed with a Sudoku Puzzle at 8:30.  I finished one before calling it a night.  Gerri was still doing puzzles the last I remember.