Day 129 – July 17 – Yukon Territory

This was another driving day.  And the good news, no problems for anyone!

We try to start out about 9 in the morning, that way no one is rushed and we miss the morning rush hour.  Oh, that’s right, there isn’t a rush hour anytime.  We can go for several miles and not see another vehicle going in either direction.  A crowd up here is three cars or more likely campers driving close together.

We were going along and Rick came over the CB and said, on the left side!  We stopped and there was a shy bear have salad on the side of the road.

It wouldn’t stand up for a picture; it just kind of hid behind the grass and weeds on the roadside.  We had a rush of traffic about that time – a semi truck went past headed towards Whitehorse and a car passed us about the same time as the truck.  I took a couple of photos from the safety of the camper and we continued on down the road.

About 15 minutes later, Rick slowed down and moved towards the middle of the road.  I asked what was going on, and just then we saw the porcupine waddle over to the side of the road.  Waddle is the only term I can think of based on how it walked.  I told Dorrie it walked like it had a quill up its butt.

I continue to wave at the northbound campers and some wave back.  The others are cursed with my, “May you not see any wildlife” curse and smile.  I feel like the penguins from the movie, “Madagascar” where the leader says, “Smile and wave boys, smile and wave”.

We stopped at the Yukon Motel and RV Park in the village of Teslin to look at the gift shop – we had gone through the gifts we have right now and I guess I must still have too many clothes because  Dorrie said we need a few more items (so I have to make room.)  I am going to start looking for a place to get body paint so I can paint on shirts – I will try to save my pants if possible.

Just past the gift shop there was a photo spot where you could see for miles it seemed.  More photos and we were off again.

We passed a sign for a place that had ice cream 56 miles ahead.  That sounded good to all of us so we planned to stop for an after lunch snack.  Lunch was sandwiches at a rest stop.  When we got to the ice cream place, there was a big CLOSED sign on it.  So much for our snack!

One or both dogs are almost always in Dorrie’s lap.  In the morning it is usually both of them – Chloe in her lap and Sadie in her arms.  After a while she will put them down and Chloe will usually go to one of the beds and sleep.  Sadie will beg to get back in her lap – sometimes she is successful and sometimes she has to sleep on the dash for a while.  Today we’re going along and Dorrie said look at this dog.  Sadie was on Dorrie’s legs, on her back with her feet in the air and Dorrie was rubbing her stomach.  She was in dog heaven!

How Dorrie and the dogs start the day

One thing Dorrie does to have some fun is to fry bugs.  I bought an electric flyswatter at Harbor Freight before we left home.  It runs off batteries and has a metal grid in it – when you press the button to turn it on and hit a bug it will spark and the bug will most times pop and smoke.  No more bug.  It is great for all kinds of bugs.  We have fried flies, bees and lots of mosquitos (by the way that is in ascending order of size).

We stopped at the Big Creek Yukon Government Campground just for the night.  During the drive, Dorrie had suggested halibut for dinner and it sounded good to everyone.  We had saved one package of halibut out of our fish that we shipped home.  She got it out of the freezer and when we got the campground we fixed it for supper.  The package had four hand-sized pieces of filets in it and I cut each piece into four strips.  Half we deep-fried and the other half we fixed on the grill.  It was great and it was from our own fishing trip to make it even better.  We actually liked the grilled fish the best.