Friday, July 9, 2010

Alaska RV Tour - Onward to Dawson City, Yukon Territory

We left Whitehorse on July 9th and drove north on Highway 2 toward Dawson City, also in the Yukon Territory.  This was about a 330 mile drive over mostly good roads, although we did hit one stretch of gravel road that was pretty bad.  But more about that later.

We stopped at Braeburn Lodge, south of Carmacks, to sample their gargantuan Sticky Buns. These buns measure about 10 inches across and about 4-5 inches high! We bought one and will try to consume it over the next several days.

The population of the Yukon is small and folks know each other.  Also, dog racing is a big thing here and we were quickly learning that a lot of people are involved. For example, Braeburn Lodge hosts a checkpoint of the long-distance Yukon Quest race each February. 

Back on the road, we continued northward to Pelly Crossing for our lunch stop.  Lynda and I peeled off from the caravan just short of Pelly Crossing to get a burger from Gramma's Kitchen, and little roadside grill along the highway that is owned by First Nation people.

After lunch, our caravan continued northward when we came upon that 4 mile gravel patch I mentioned above. It figures that after days of rainy, cool weather today was actually dry and so that gravel road was dusty! We drove our rigs slowly, leaving plenty of room between us to avoid rock damage and allow the dust to settle a bit. 

Nevertheless, our RVs were a mess by the time we traveled through this construction area!  Here is a photo of the scooter after traveling this road for only a couple miles.

But the worse of it was that the Mounties were allowing only one lane of traffic at a time while a fatal accident scene was getting cleaned up ahead of us.  Apparently someone in a minivan was going too fast on the gravel - the vehicle left the road at a high rate of speed and flipped at least once. How sad that someone got killed... the dust on our vehicles did not seem that big a deal once we learned what had happened. We were all a bit subdued after the info passed down the line of vehicles.

While we were waiting to proceed at the gravel road, Spike radio'd us to look out for a Trek like ours that was heading our way.  Here is a photo I snapped of that other Trek.

Shortly before reaching Dawson City, we made a quick stop off the highway at the Tintina trench plate separation.  Spike set up a golf tee and some of our men-folk took turns seeing who could launch a ball the furthest.  But the joke was on Bob Billings, who asked for first shot.  Spike had a "special" ball for him - one that exploded when hit.  Lynda witnessed this and told me the expression on Bob's face was priceless!

We finally rolled into the Bonanza Gold RV Park around 5:30 PM.  We decided to fill up with gas before settling in and so drove the Trek next door to the gas station.  And this is where we paid the most for gas so far:  $4.97/gallon, after a "discount". Wow.

Anyway, we're here and looking forward to seeing more of the infamous Dawson City! Click here for some photos of today's drive up from Whitehorse.

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