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!
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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…
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The Visitor Center, our Whitehorse Wi-Fi connection |
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!
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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!
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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