Day 12 – Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Second full day on the Alaskan Highway. This time there was sun rather than rain.
After 10 hours of sleep, Dick was so ready to get on the road to see some more beauty and some more great wild animals. Patti is getting a little road weary and couldn’t haul out of the bed until 7:00am, but got into the spirit once we had coffee at the Toad River Lodge. This Lodge has as its claim to fame a baseball hat collect that is now over 7,000 and counting, all displayed on the ceiling of the café! Guess you really had to see this to believe it!
This is the stretch of the road that crosses the Rocky Mountains. This was a part of the road that the planners were most concerned about but the surveyors found a good route and the road climbed up and around the mountains. Many of the views were quite stunning.
We did get to have some great animal experiences today
including a young Bull Moose standing looking over the highway (Dick thought it was a statue at first until our approach startled it) and a caribou that was first on the road and then allowed us to move along
beside it for a few minutes. Dick was highly disappointed that, although there were plenty of signs, we never did see a Woods Bison (the larger wilder cousin of the Plains Bison that we usually see.) We looked and looked, and Patti even attempted a buffalo call, but no luck so far.
Muncho Lake which is located within Muncho Lake Provincial Park on the Alaska Highway, has water that is perpetually a blue hue, the result of copper oxides leached from the bedrock. This large, seven mile long lake, was one of the true headaches for the crews to work around in building the road. The steep slopes resulted in many tractors and trucks rolling down into the water.
Back when the Alaska Highway was still a gravel road, the small roadside stations were the essence of life and travel along this long and lonely highway, and they still remain invaluable to the weary traveler today. We stopped at a couple, including getting gas, at the trip high of nearly $6.00 a gallon. Yipes! And as we hear, this is lower than last year.
We also got out and hiked to see a salt lick. The animals love to come to lick the minerals out of the rock. We didn’t get to see any animals, but had a nice hike and took some wonderful wildflower photos. 
We also stopped for lunch at yet another great natural hot springs. This one was so hot at one part, which Patti, although she truly wanted to do it, couldn’t even put her whole foot in. Luckily, there were some other really lovely and cooler spots. The Army troops had heard about this hot springs, and built some boardwalks to get out there.
They were able to enjoy hot soaks, which had to have felt good after only bathing in freezing cold mountain streams and rivers. Because the area has such hot water, there are really unique plants that grow around there. Highly refreshing and fun!
When we got to our destination of the day, Watson Lake, we went immediately to The World Famous Sign Post Forest, the town’s best known attraction. So famous, it is known - and mimicked - around the world.
Here’s the story: “The forest was started in 1942 by a homesick U.S. Army G.I., Carl K. Lindley of Danville, Il. While working on the Alaska Highway, he erected a sign here pointing the way and stating the mileage to his hometown. Others followed his lead and are still doing so to this day. On July 20, 1990, Olen and Anita Walker of Bryan, Ohio placed the 10,000th sign.” They currently have somewhere over 67,000 signs! Okay, you just really have to see this to understand the magnitude! It is probably a city block’s worth of posts with signs, signs, and more sign pounded up on the posts. Street signs, homemade signs, warning signs, official signs. We just walked through with our jaws dropping. Wow! Who knew!
We ended our evening with a viewing of a show on the Northern Lights at the Northern Light’s Center here in Watson Lakes. It was an Imax type of show, beautiful, but a little bit lulling one to a dozy state with low lights, soft music and mystically moving lights. Worth doing, but we think that seeing the real thing, which generally can only be seen in the far north in the winter, would probably be a whole lot more gripping.
Then back to the campground where we are sitting writing this both on our computers, hooked up to electricity on the site, using the camping Wi-Fi free Internet service. Camping has changed some in the 21st century!
By the way, coming into the Yukon was a first for each of us. Doesn’t that have really a ring of “really far north?” It is! But exciting to be here.
Second full day on the Alaskan Highway. This time there was sun rather than rain.
After 10 hours of sleep, Dick was so ready to get on the road to see some more beauty and some more great wild animals. Patti is getting a little road weary and couldn’t haul out of the bed until 7:00am, but got into the spirit once we had coffee at the Toad River Lodge. This Lodge has as its claim to fame a baseball hat collect that is now over 7,000 and counting, all displayed on the ceiling of the café! Guess you really had to see this to believe it!
This is the stretch of the road that crosses the Rocky Mountains. This was a part of the road that the planners were most concerned about but the surveyors found a good route and the road climbed up and around the mountains. Many of the views were quite stunning.We did get to have some great animal experiences today
including a young Bull Moose standing looking over the highway (Dick thought it was a statue at first until our approach startled it) and a caribou that was first on the road and then allowed us to move along
beside it for a few minutes. Dick was highly disappointed that, although there were plenty of signs, we never did see a Woods Bison (the larger wilder cousin of the Plains Bison that we usually see.) We looked and looked, and Patti even attempted a buffalo call, but no luck so far.
Muncho Lake which is located within Muncho Lake Provincial Park on the Alaska Highway, has water that is perpetually a blue hue, the result of copper oxides leached from the bedrock. This large, seven mile long lake, was one of the true headaches for the crews to work around in building the road. The steep slopes resulted in many tractors and trucks rolling down into the water.Back when the Alaska Highway was still a gravel road, the small roadside stations were the essence of life and travel along this long and lonely highway, and they still remain invaluable to the weary traveler today. We stopped at a couple, including getting gas, at the trip high of nearly $6.00 a gallon. Yipes! And as we hear, this is lower than last year.
We also got out and hiked to see a salt lick. The animals love to come to lick the minerals out of the rock. We didn’t get to see any animals, but had a nice hike and took some wonderful wildflower photos. 
We also stopped for lunch at yet another great natural hot springs. This one was so hot at one part, which Patti, although she truly wanted to do it, couldn’t even put her whole foot in. Luckily, there were some other really lovely and cooler spots. The Army troops had heard about this hot springs, and built some boardwalks to get out there.
They were able to enjoy hot soaks, which had to have felt good after only bathing in freezing cold mountain streams and rivers. Because the area has such hot water, there are really unique plants that grow around there. Highly refreshing and fun!When we got to our destination of the day, Watson Lake, we went immediately to The World Famous Sign Post Forest, the town’s best known attraction. So famous, it is known - and mimicked - around the world.
Here’s the story: “The forest was started in 1942 by a homesick U.S. Army G.I., Carl K. Lindley of Danville, Il. While working on the Alaska Highway, he erected a sign here pointing the way and stating the mileage to his hometown. Others followed his lead and are still doing so to this day. On July 20, 1990, Olen and Anita Walker of Bryan, Ohio placed the 10,000th sign.” They currently have somewhere over 67,000 signs! Okay, you just really have to see this to understand the magnitude! It is probably a city block’s worth of posts with signs, signs, and more sign pounded up on the posts. Street signs, homemade signs, warning signs, official signs. We just walked through with our jaws dropping. Wow! Who knew!
We ended our evening with a viewing of a show on the Northern Lights at the Northern Light’s Center here in Watson Lakes. It was an Imax type of show, beautiful, but a little bit lulling one to a dozy state with low lights, soft music and mystically moving lights. Worth doing, but we think that seeing the real thing, which generally can only be seen in the far north in the winter, would probably be a whole lot more gripping.
Then back to the campground where we are sitting writing this both on our computers, hooked up to electricity on the site, using the camping Wi-Fi free Internet service. Camping has changed some in the 21st century!By the way, coming into the Yukon was a first for each of us. Doesn’t that have really a ring of “really far north?” It is! But exciting to be here.
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