Day 127 – July 15 (Alaska Day 34) – Moving towards Whitehorse

You just know it is going to be a good day when you are out walking the dogs in the morning and you see 4 or 5 Bald Eagles soaring around in front of the camper.  I watched two eagles – one had the white head and tail and the other was not old enough for the coloring yet.  The white headed eagle didn’t like the younger eagle and was trying to chase it away.  At one point they locked talons and started falling towards the water.  They let go before hitting, but the young one did end up leaving.

We filled up with gas on the way out of town.  Rick didn’t have the car hooked up at this time and while he was trying to get into the station he hit the curbing with his tire, tearing out a big chunk of rubber from the sidewall.  Not a good start for him.

As we were driving along, Dorrie and I were talking about the scenery.  Every day we are driving in breath taking mountain scenes and it never gets old.  We love the views.  Two days of rain are erased by two hours of beautiful driving.  We stopped a couple of times to take pictures.

At the border crossing the agent went inside Rick’s camper.  We thought, oh boy this is not good.  Turns out he was went in to take a fast look and get their passports.  We both went through without any problems.

We were cruising along about 55 miles per hour when Dorrie said, “Bear”.  I pulled over, but we had gone too far, so I called Rick on the CB and said we were going to turn around and see if we could get a picture.  We went back, got several good shots and then turned around in the road.  There just isn’t any traffic to speak of on these roads.  We stopped for a couple more pictures and went on.

Later there were a couple of campers on the other side of the road stopped, which usually means wildlife of some kind, so we stopped.  Rick looked and then pulled out and I stopped where he had been.  Right on the ditch was a bear eating grass.  I called him on the CB and he stopped again.  While we were taking pictures, Rick got out of the camper and walked back for some pictures.  At one point the bear saw him on the road and sat up, looking right at Rick.  Rick backed up and the bear started eating again.

The bear saw Rick, notice the ears

Then there was a mommy and two cubs on the side of the road.  We stopped again and took pictures.  At one point one of the cubs got scared and climbed a tree – faster than you would think possible.  Things cooled off for him and he came back down.

The sixth bear of the day didn’t want his picture taken and ran into the woods.

We stopped for the night at Pine Lake Campground, one of the many Yukon government campgrounds.  We were setting up the camper and Dorrie said she wasn’t sure the slides would clear the trees, so I went out to make sure.  Everything was good and I started to go back inside.

The door would not open.  I thought she had locked the door for some reason, so I got my keys and the locks were open.  I tried the door again, still no good.  I thought maybe the leveling jacks had the door in a bind, so I had her hand me some bug spay – I was a walking blood bank, and then raise the jacks.  Still no good!

I had her remove the screws from the lock on the inside to see if she could open the door, but the face plate would not come off because the screen door was in the way.  Rick came by about then and we talked about possible solutions.  Nothing was working, so he climbed into the emergency window exit to see if he could do any good inside.  The process of getting into the window was not quite as easy as it sounded.  The bottom of the window is about four feet off the ground.  He stood on my three-step stool, balanced on the top (not a step) with one foot and kind of jumped head first into the window.  Dorrie was inside pulling on his belt loop and he was kicking his feet trying to squirm into the camper.  He finally made it inside – falling more than entering.

After about 2 hours of work, the door finally opened.  The slide for the latch had broken, so now we only have the dead bolt to use to shut the door.  Not a big deal, just a pain until we can get a new latch.

Tomorrow we will be in Whitehorse.  I think Rick is going to see about having one of the tires I have been carrying with us mounted on his rim and I am going to see if there is a RV parts place where I can get a new latch.  Life on the road!  By the way, it was still a great day – eagles, beautiful mountains, and bears on the roadside.