April 22 - Last Full Day in Canada

We had another exciting day on the road. Filled with unexpected events. It all started the from Toad River RV park, after crossing the summit, the highest elevation on the trip.

Two hours into our journey, we came across a flipped 18-wheeler on the side of a ridge. There was another 18-wheeler surveying the damage of the scene. Turns out the accident happened the night before without major injury. All that lost mulch and soils gone down the hill. The trucker surveying damage pointed us to a local Hot Springs. Of course, our mermaid daughter wouldn't miss a chance to swim even if it meant in 105-118 degree water. As she was enjoying the springs, she struck up a conversation with a family of five. They pointed out a cold spring connected to the hot spring. Courtney swimming and Sandy soaking her feet and legs enjoyed the spring for an hour. Courtney refused to bring a towel stating that she might not get in the water, but we knew better. She bravely walked a fourth mile back to the RV in her swim suit in 50 degree weather, with snow off the sides of the walkway, snow banks and an ice covered pond.

We also crossed the Continental Divide. Courtney bravely tried out the snow. She sank up to almost her knee. Our poor dog Nova the chiweenie, sank up to her belly, not enjoying it one bit.

We saw more snow and beautiful scenery than we had seen before on the trip so far. The tops of many of the mountains were covered in snow or glaciers. Thank goodness the peaks were still much higher than we were. The roads were clear and all paved except for about 100 yards of gravel.

We saw 62 buffalo in 5 herds, beside the road, enjoying the sunshine, five skiddish elk, one brown bear, two baby beavers, and four big horn sheep eating along side of the Alaska Highway. We could have gotten out and petted them, yeah, right!

We drove and drove getting a little bit of get “are we there-itis”. I think that was the longest day of the trip. We got within 165 miles of Skagway and just decided it was time to quit.

We pulled into a motel, restaurant and RV park. Unluckily the RV part was closed, due to frozen water. However, they had us pull up next to the motel and plug into their electric. We said that would be great, how much? “$15.00” I said sold! Their motel rooms started at $79.00! Daylight lasted until after 10:00PM and lightens up at 5:00AM.

We found much of the food in Canada to be over priced, the special of the day for supper is usually around $20.00 and it goes up from there. Gas is sold by the liter, roughly 3 and 3/4 liters makes a gallon. It looks cheap at $1.039 per liter, but it takes a lot of liters! More tomorrow.