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Saturday, July 30, 2016

Whitehorse, YT - Stop 32 on our Trek North to Alaska

I heard howling last night in the distance, whether by coyotes or wolves, I cannot say.  But their soulful cries were enough to jolt me from my sleep and give me the willies!  We awoke on Saturday to a beautiful sunrise, a fitting farewell to Kluane Lake.  We were greeted by chipmunks, squirrels, and ravens along the Alaska Highway as we traveled to Whitehorse to meet up with Claudia/Mike.




We were relieved to find the roads were in much better condition than the havoc encountered by our RVillage friends earlier in the season.  We stopped at the site of the Canyon Creek Bridge, originally built for the gold rush stampeders in the early 1900s and replaced in 1942 during the construction of the ALCAN.  It was considered quite an accomplishment of the U.S. Army Engineers to deconstruct and rebuild this bridge in just 18 days.




We got settled at Wally World’s parking lot by 12:15 and headed into Wal-mart to do grocery shopping (our way to reciprocate for the “free RV site”),only to find this Wal-mart has a very limited grocery section.  We learn Canadian Superstore, about 3/8 of a mile down the road, is THE place for food shopping.  We had no intentions of unhooking the truck while we overnight in Whitehorse, so we walked over.  This place had really great produce, decent prices, and fresh sockeye salmon for Dad to purchase (yes, he resorted to buying these elusive fish)!   And they have an ingenious way to ensure shopping carts are returned to the store:  you must insert $1 Canadian to get the cart unlocked, which is refunded upon returning it to the main cart storage area and relocking it up.  Trust me, there were no stray carts in the parking lot!  We walked back to our rig in the Wal-mart parking lot, put our groceries away.   Then we hoofed it back to Superstore to return our cart, which was on our walking route to the Klondike Rib and Salmon Restaurant, where we met Claudia/Mike for dinner.  This was our second visit to Klondike Rib and Salmon, and it was every bit as delectable as the first time!  Huge portions, good prices, and simply scrumptious!  Bison steaks, salad, and focaccia bread pudding topped with butterscotch-drizzled vanilla ice cream!  Yummy!  The only establishment EVER to receive a coveted Rambling RV Rat 5-cheese award, not once, but twice!





These suckers arrived too late to get immediate seating.  Some advice:  It gets crowded VERY quickly and they don't accept reservations, so arrive right at 4 p.m. when they start serving the dinner menu.  




My family then walked over to the Visitor Center to use their Wi-Fi since our Verizon coverage is sporadic at best.  Ironically, we just upgraded our Verizon plan to include Canada and Mexico coverage, 24 gigs of data rather than 18, and rollover of unused data for my parents’ two phones and Mi-Fi.  We are now paying $240/month, and yet our service is worse than ever.  Anyway…


The Visitor Center, our Whitehorse Wi-Fi connection

 


I am frustrated with my production assistant (a.k.a. Dad).  He has not been working on my videos!  So today I gave him a verbal warning for being derelict in his duties, hoping to light a fire under his butt.   The end result:  a bunch of my videos are now available for viewing on my Rambling RV Rat youtube channel.    Here's a link to my channel.  Check things out sometime!  






While Dad worked dutifully on my videos, Mom and I trekked over to the Fish Ladder to see the salmon coming to spawn since our timing seemed to be off everywhere we went previously.  There weren’t many yet, but there were a few there.  They are pooling and trying to figure out how to use the ladder, which will not be open to them until tomorrow morning.  We took a very poor quality photo just to proof to Dad that live, spawning salmon really do exist!

Salmon really do exist, though quite hard to distinguish that fact from this photo.




Mom and I walked more than 8 miles today, while Dad did 5.5 miles!  That will help counter all those extra calories we consumed at dinner.  But now I am bushed.





The Yukon has been spectacular!  The mountains are heaven on earth!    I am so grateful we are not just blowing through Canada.  Our North American neighbor has an abundance of natural resources and awe-inspiring vistas to share with us!







1 comment:

  1. If you shop at Aldi in the lower 48 you will have to put a quarter in to get a cart. But the idea came from Europe where most of the shops use this method. Aldi is part of a German company.

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