Dateline July 15, 2011, Our Safari Whitehorse to Dawson Creek
We said goodbye to Joan and Chuck, Hal and Kim, and Pete. Pete had hooked back up with us after dropping Bunny off to fly home. Her mother had passed away, and our condolences went to Bunny and the family. From there we headed out on the last legs of the Walkabout Canada-Alaska, back down the ALCAN. Our destination for the day was open. We knew we wanted to stop at Watson Lake and Liard Hot Springs along the way.
What a safari. We saw nine bears, grizzly and black, plus moose, bison, and sheep. One of our favorites was a black bear with two cubs born that year. What a thrill. The pictures are worth a thousand words.
We stopped in Watson Lake, where there are tens of thousands of signs.
The first sign was put up during World War II by an American soldier who was homesick and posted the name of his hometown. While we did not bring a sign, we put a card with our names in a plastic bag and hung it up.
We continued on down the ALCAN to Liard Hot Springs. The herd of bison was right before the entrance. We proceeded into the park and got the last camping spot. Lucky for us, Janice had passed the two rigs ahead of her a few miles back. They came in behind us and were turned away. Yikes.
Liard Hot Springs was magnificent. It is a natural hot springs, not built up into swimming pools. There is gravel on the bottom, a few small wooden dams, and the water is maybe two feet deep. The closer you get to the spring's origin, the hotter the water gets. We were only able to go a short way up because it was too hot for us.
We had a lovely evening dip, and first thing in the morning we had the springs to ourselves. Wow.
After our morning soak we headed down the ALCAN toward Dawson Creek, thinking we might stop somewhere around Fort Nelson. As usual it did not turn out to be a place to stay, so we continued on looking for a camp. Long story short: the place we had thought to stop was full, the provincial park was blocked, road closed, so we went right back (430 miles again) to Dawson Creek and our friends at the golf and RV campground, John and Melanie Rigsby.
It had been raining a lot for the past five days, so the facility was quite muddy. Of course, while trying to park, Janice got the rig stuck in the mud. John brought out his trusty tractor and pushed from the rear on the trailer hitch, and we were out. We parked in another location, a little muddy, but we made it.
The next morning we were going to play golf, but it made no sense. The course was way too wet, and the mosquitoes were in full attack. We changed our plans and went to meet others further down the road. We said goodbye to our friends and reminded them to come down to Florida that winter so we could all have some fun together.
We stopped at the visitor center on the way out of town. This was where our adventure had started exactly eight weeks earlier when we met all the Roadtrek team there. Fond memories of the entire trip.
