August 2 through 7th, 2008 from Pink Mountain, Canada to Tok, Alaska.
These pictures are the ones we took on August 2nd from Pink Mountain to Laird River where we camped for the night
Winding mountain drive from Pink Mountain, Canada to Laird River, Canada
I think Carolee just likes the floor in the motor home. This time she saw her laptop begin to fall and tried to catch it (which she did by the way) and she ended up falling in the floor........ Teeheehee
Black bear eating a carcass of some kind. He was so intent on eating it, he didn't even mind us stopping beside the road and taking pictures of him.
This Caribou didn't care if we were coming up the road or not. He was just intent on eating something?
We were all safe inside the motor home when we saw this herd of buffalo. Thank goodness.............................August 3, 2008 Laird River, Canada to Watson Lake, Canada
Snow capped mountains in Canada on our drive to Watson Lake
Chuck and Carolee at a Scenic Overlook on our way to Watson Lake
Merrell and I at the scenic overlook on our way to Watson Lake
View from the Scenic Overlook
Beautiful river on our way to Watson LakeAugust 4, 2008 Watson Lake Canada
This is the Sign Forest in Watson Lake that I got lost in!! Teeheehee
Another view of the sign forest in Watson Lake, Canada
It's no wonder I got lost in it, is it?
Chuck and Carolee with the sign Carolee made for them showing their name, the date and where they live.
Merrell and I with the sign with our name, date and where we live.
This is the black bear we saw on our way from Watson Lake, Canada to Haines Junction, Canada
August 5, 2008 Drive from Haines Junction, Canada to Tok, Alaska
It is amazing how many lakes, rivers and streams we have seen traveling through Canada and Alaska. I don't know what we expected, but none of us expected to see so many. It definitely was a pleasant surprise.
Merrell and I at one of the many stops we made on the way through Canada. This was one of the signpost telling about forest fires and their affect on wildlife.
This is a picture of the "Fire Weed". It's called that because it is one of the first things to re-establish itself after a forest fire. It was hard to get pictures looking out the windows of the motor home. None of them did the flowers justice. They are a beautiful color and they are everywhere along the roadways. Because Canada and Alaska have so many pine trees they have a lot of forest fires. You can see evidence of past fires almost everywhere you drive.
Another of the beautiful snow capped mountains. No matter how many of them we see, we still act like it's the first one we have seen when we see another one. By the end of the day, Carolee and I are both exhausted from taking pictures. :>)
August 7, 2008
I will have to post more on our itinerary later when I have more time. We didn't have internet access for the past several days, so I couldn't update you on our progress.
We arrived in Tok, Alaska night before last. We are staying at a campground there. We rested yesterday and Merrell, Carolee and Chuck did some grocery shopping while I straightened up the cabinets in the motorhome to make room for the new food. I also worked on transferring the movies of our trip to a DVD. I got about half of them done and put on DVD. I hope to finish them before I have another big batch to transfer.
What can I say about our trip across Canada except, WOW!!! I have never in my life seen so many miles of......................................Nothing. Well, it's not exactly nothing, but there are miles and miles of nothing except road, pine trees (skinny pine trees) and lakes and ponds and streams. It has an odd kind of beauty, but it sure makes me appreciate the mountains of WV and all of our hardwood trees. It was really nice the first couple of hundred miles, but it did get kind of old after awhile. I was ready to see DIFFERENT!! We did have lots of neat stuff happen. Everything from MORE buffalo, (teeheehee) to stone sheep, caribou, black bears, grizzley bears, moose (or mooses??) and the lakes were awesome. We got some good pictures that I will have to post later.
I know I have told you before about my horrible sense of direction. Well, imagine this. I got lost in the sign forest at Watson Lake, Canada !! :>) Chuck got me out and I was fine. Nothing attacked me. LOL For those of you who don't know what the sign forest is, I will try to explain.
There was a homesick soldier, who was working on the Alaska Highway in 1942, who decided to put up a sign to tell where he lived and how far away it was. At the last count there are over 65,000 signs up in the sign forest. They put big posts in the ground and each person can put up a sign on the posts. They sell boards and they have paint that you can use to make your own signs. I will post pictures of our signs later. There are rows and rows of signs. We tried to look for some names of people we knew put signs up, but didn't see any we knew. We did see signs from Alderson and Summersville, WV and lots from VA and Georgia. It was amazing to see the different sign designs.
Today, we are in Downtown Chicken, Alaska. I think the population here is 30-50 in summer and in winter it drops to 15. We are in the middle of nowhere. There are three buildings where we are. An "Emporium and Mercantile", a Saloon and a Cafe where they have homemade pie and icecream, as well as a large menu hanging on the wall. Believe it or not, they have WIFI internet here. That's what I'm using. I'm having a problem with my AT&T card right now. Hope it gets fixed soon. Should be by the first of next week at the latest. They don't even have electricity here. They have generators that they use for all electricity needs.
The flowers here are just beautiful. They have flowers planted in old pots, wheelbarrows, and in anything they can find to sit around. They grow big and lush (for want of a better word). We want to take them home with us.
I felt right at home with their "facilities". LOL
One was for HENS and one was for ROOSTERS
We never had flowers planted in front of our "chicken" houses!!!!
Carolee going into the HEN house!!!
Downtown Chicken had some beautiful flowers even though it was kind of chilly the day we were there.
I loved the flowers about as much as Carolee did.
Merrell and I with the "Chicken" flowers!!!
Beautiful downtown CHICKEN. Mercantile, Saloon and Cafe. What more could you ask for?
Attack Chickens in Downtown Chicken, Alaska
Chuck panning for gold in Chicken, Alaska
Donna filming Merrell and Chuck panning for Gold in Chicken, Alaska. No gold because it started raining and they "chickened" out. No pun intended!!! Teeheehee
Merrell was really intent on finding that gold.....................
This is the post office in Chicken, Alaska. It is open 5 days a week, even though in the winter they only have a few full timers living there. The Postmistress lives about a mile and a half away and sometimes the roads are so bad that their snow vehicles won't start and she has to walk to work. It gets reallllllllllllllly cold up here and sometimes the fuel for the generators freezes!!! Brrrrrrrrrrr
All of us on the porch of the Chicken Post Office. I am holding the official "Chicken" mascot. It makes a loud noise when you squeeze it's neck. The Post Mistress uses it for the tourists..................We are going back to Tok tonight and I'm not sure where we are heading from there. Howard is flying into Anchorage next week and will spend a week with us, so we want to save the Anchorage area until he joins us. We do have cell phone service in Alaska (where ever there is service of course) We don't have service here in Chicken. I just love saying that. Everything they sell has the name Chicken on it. :>)
Hope all is well with everyone and we are having a great time and are looking forward to touring Alaska.
Take care,
Donna and the Gang
