July 1 -- Watson Lake

July 1 -- Watson Lake

Several days update are included in this post.  The internet is very sparse here in the Northland.

How about we start from yesterday:
 

June 30

Here I am at Watson Lake, looking forward to a shower tomorrow morning. This is a pay campground, and I’m parked next to another T@B with two people and three dogs.  Zorro and Zelda rocked the truck about that for a while, literally.  The drive was LONG. I’d rather not go this many miles in a day.  And there were complications.

As I was driving along at slightly under 100 (kilometers per hour, that is), some motorcyclists came up behind me.  Being the polite trailer-puller that I am, I moved over and let them pass.  Not many miles later, their bikes were parked along the road and one of the women was frantically flagging me down.  One of the couples had dumped their bike in the ditch.  The accident had something to do with a bear alongside the road.  Both of them were lying in the bottom of the ditch.  The woman was crying.  There is NO cell service out in the middle of the Yukon, but fortunately, a man with a satellite phone stopped and called the emergency personnel from Watson Lake.

In the meantime, I had given them the dog blanket from the back of my car, some ice, one of my flip-flop dishtowels, my camping jacket and what meager first-aid supplies I had.  Pretty soon the police arrived in a Suburban.  Apparently the ambulance was indisposed.  One of the officers said that it might be as much as a four-hour wait. By then, the rain had started again and the injured couple were lying there in the ditch getting wet.  I made arrangements to pick up my stuff at the Trooper Station tomorrow and left.  As I drove into Watson Lake, I wondered why they had been so unprepared. Supposedly they were some sort of first responders.  Seems like they would have had first-aid kits, blankets, extra clothing, and other emergency supplies even if they were staying in hotels at night.

It really brought home how vast this country is, and how difficult it would be to get help in case of an emergency.

June 29 –

The dogs woke up at 5 and wanted to go out. Squirrels!  Needless to say we did NOT go out.  Around seven, I could no longer ignore them so I put on some clothes and a lot of bug dope and we went out.  Zelda FINALLY peed. For those of you who know her…

Today we are headed to Tok (Tock, according to the Tom Tom lady) where I will do some tourist stuff, and the dogs will languish in the back of the pickup. It’s not hot, so they will be fine.

Picked up some maps and a paper copy of The Milepost. The weather in Tok was very nice, but that didn’t’ last.  The border crossing was uneventful.  The border lady asked for both the dog documentation AND my passport.  She didn’t ask about potatoes, apples, firewood, or dogfood. 

The road near the border was excellent – just trickin’ the people coming into Alaska for the first time.  However, the road into the Yukon was terrible.  I mean terrible.  Whoop-de-doos like you wouldn’t believe.  Sometimes I had to drive as slow as 35 just to keep the car and the trailer on the ground.  So, we didn’t make very many miles yesterday.  We stopped at a beautiful provincial campground on Kluane Lake, but who could tell how beautiful it really was.  Pouring rain.  I do mean pouring. I felt very sorry for the people in the campground who were staying in tents.  The trailer was damp enough with all four of us breathing, but it was not wet.

The highlight of day 3 in spite of the short mileage was seeing a little brown bear grazing alongside the road.  He was eating the sedges or whatever grows there.  It was not like watching a horse graze; it was like watching Zeus inhale his dinner.  I took some pictures.

Stopping, setting up, and getting settled in went smoothly.  Of course, the door was closed against the pouring rain and NONE of us wanted to be out getting drenched. 

 

June 28 –

Anchorage to just before Tok.  The Eagle Trail Campground.  The lady on my Tom Tom says “tock” instead of Tok.  The drive was good, but in the Mat-Su Borough, it was cloudy.  Farther up the road, it rained.  The clouds and rain could not hide the vastness of this part of Alaska. OK, all of Alaska is vast, but usually we don’t see so much of it edge to edge.

Once we left the Mat-Su Borough, the roads certainly changed a lot. They went from nice, well-maintained roads with lots of wide paved pullouts to rough, tarry, gravelly, wavy (in and up and down way) roads.  It was OK to drive slow on these roads, and I did!

Glennallen is pretty small.  It has a big dot on the map, so I thought it would be bigger, but the grocery store had everything I needed (and had forgotten). 

Camping with dogs—three dogs.  Let’s just say it’s a tad more work than I thought it would be.  Squirrels!  The evil nemesis of poodles (and Ellen) must be the denizens of every campground in Alaska (and maybe Canada, but we’re not there yet).  We’re still ironing out the sleeping arrangements.  Zelda could sleep quite comfortably on “her” little part of the bed, but for some reason, my part of the bed is just so much more comfortable.  The dog enclosure works very well, except for the parts under the trailer. So far Zorro has not taken off with it like a gerbil wheel down the road.

The mosquitoes are epic! I bought some dog stuff and will be applying it to the dogs (and maybe to myself), but in the mean time, they are getting OFF where they can’t lick it. I feel like a walking Deet factory. 

Day 2 was a success!