Day 31 - July 10th

Travelled from Edmonton, Alberta to Cardston, Alberta
This morning we had our last breakfast with Will and Andrea as they are heading to Calgary and we are heading to the USA. It was hard to say goodbye to our friends but now we both continue on our separate journey’s. It was raining when we headed out from Edmonton and we pretty much had rain the entire day. It did stop while we were going through Calgary which was a blessing!! It was quite chilly this morning as we headed to the US border and silly me packed my heated jacket in the bag Will and Andrea are going to bring back with them!!! We had brought clothing for cold and warm and with the last 2 days being really warm and a warm forecast ahead I felt I didn’t need it! However, at times I was so cold I was ready to sit on Grant’s heated handle grips!!! And if that didn’t work I was going to jump into Pat’s heated vest!!! LOL. As we travelled we could see the foothills of the Rockies on far over on our right surrounded by the mist of rain. The prairies skies can be pretty awesome yet very scary at times. Storms can come up at the blink of an eye it seems!! As we continued on there were big rain clouds to our right and clear skies to our left. These silly clouds kept following us and we kept hope to out ride them. But no luck! We stopped for a break at a little place called Innisfail. A few days ago when we visited the Sign Post Forest in Watson Lake we had been looking for sign from our home town, Innisfil. Although we never found one, we did see a sign for Innisfail and took a photo of that. We had no idea where Innisfail was let alone know that we would be actually having coffee there!! It is sure a small world sometimes. Eventually the clouds surrounded us with thunder and lightening, but we made it to a hotel before the rains came. We were hoping to cross the border into USA today, but due to the weather decided to call it a night and wait till tomorrow. Looking out our hotel window right now the rains have stopped but the skies are still pretty black in some areas. We walked over to Dairy Queen for supper as we really didn’t want to get our rain gear on. I surprised that they actually had a very yummy chicken salad with honey mustard dressing (our new favourite dressing discovered on this vacation thanks to Grant)! Our hotel has a pool and hot tub so we all jumped into the pool…wait no..it was toooo cold!!! LOL. We all relaxed in the hot tub, then Pat, the brave soul that she is went into the frigid waters of the pool. We are now relaxing in our room once again, I have a nice stale coffee and Grant is looking at the route for our adventure tomorrow!!

Day 30 - July 9th

Travelled from Dawson Creek, BC to Edmonton, Alberta
On our way out of Dawson Creek we stopped and took a photo of the “Mile O” marker which indicates the beginning of the Alaskan Hwy. Nice warm day with fantastic roads and drove approx 600miles.







Sometimes when riding and you have a much needed bum break we have a great time laughing and fooling around. Today for some reason I decided to dance with Big Al, who of course would have no part of this action and started to run from me. Well, I ran after him in my chaps and all!! Very funny to watch apparently! It was a great time!! When we got into Edmonton there are lots of storm warnings out with tornado's and hail.So far there is nothing here and hope it holds off till after supper. Tonight is our last night with Will and Andrea. After breakfast tomorrow as they head to Calgary to spend some time with their grandson. The rest of us will be heading down into Montana and travelling in the USA for the next 9 days. We are sad to be parting from them as they are great friends and we have so much enjoyed travelling with them. But we are happy that they are going to be seeing their little grandson, David and Jessica. To celebrate the past 4 weeks of our trip we are going to the Outback for supper!! Yummy, Yummy!!! Tonight we are staying at the same B&B that we were at on Day 5 - June 14th. A nice place with great host and hostess!! Here are a few pictures of motorcycles in motion! Andrea on the silver Burgman Scooter, Will on the red Goldwing and then Pat and Al on the yellow Goldwing. Nice looking riders!!

Day 29 - July 8th

Travelled from Fort Nelson to Dawson Creek, BC
We started out riding and are now in the Peace River Valley area. It is amazing how the landscape has changed once again!








During the last 3 weeks while in Alaska it was rare to see any farm land, but now we are back into farmlands, crops of canola growing, cows , horse ranches etc. The weather has also taken a dramatic change.For the last 4 weeks we have been cold, using our heated jackets, now we are literally taking everything that is legal off!! We started the day at 20’C and ended at 31’C. We love riding in the warmer weather, but this is too hot. We are very drained at the end of the day, but all agree that it is better than being frozen at the end of the day. Today we saw 2 deer and one bear but we were not close enough to get a photo. Near the end of the day we crossed the Peace River and climbed a large hill for 5.3km. We have never travelled on the same roads since the beginning of our vacation, so most of the time we were seeing something new every day!! When we left Fairbanks we travelled on the Alaskan Hwy to Dawson Creek, which is where the Alaskan Hwy ends. This hwy was the engineering marvel of WW11 and goes for 1422 miles/2,288km. This road was built by 30,000 US Army soldiers and civilians in only 9 months. It is hard to believe that in 10 days we will be home! Our journey has been so amazing, I find it hard to even find the words to try to describe the things we have seen and done. Alaska has this magical feeling about it. A surreal sensation. Even on the worse days with weather and road conditions we were all still happy, laughing and friends at the end of the day!

Day 28 - July 7th

Travelled from Watson Lake to Fort Nelson, BC
This morning before we left Watson Lake we went to the Sign Post Forest, Watson Lakes best known attraction and is being mimicked around the world. This forest was started in 1942 while working on the Alaska Highway a soldier erected a sign here pointing the way and stating the mileage to his hometown. Others have followed his lead and are still doing so to this day. Pat and Al placed a sign from their home town of Oro up, however the rest of us never did get around to getting one, which we regret now after seeing the forest of signs. About 2 hours from Fort Nelson we stopped at the Laird River Hot Springs and enjoyed about ½ hr in the water. It was amazing how hot the water was! At one end we could not even go in it as the temp was about 130’!! It was a very rugged setting and we enjoyed just having a nice relaxing soak. We have been travelling along the Alaskan Highway and today was our best wildlife sighting day of the trip!!We saw about 10 buffalo which was the last thing I expected to see on this trip!! We also saw 2 bears and 3 moose!! On the road we had to stop a few times for mountain sheep that were licking the salt off the pavement. They are quite the stubborn animal and very happy to be in the middle of road despite cars passing around them.








We also some really great scenery again!! Some areas had lots of vegetation and yet others the mountains were bare. Lots of gravel in the hills and dried up creeks where the snow and glaciers melted after winter and have now dried up. Near the end of the day we went up over a mountain and around a huge gorge valley, the road was awesome hugging the edge of the canyon all around! And, when the bike is not running I like to sometimes just relax!! The night ended in Fort Nelson with a great dinner at Boston Pizza.

Day 27 - July 6th

Travelled from Whitehorse, Yukon to Watson Lake , British Columbia
Today is Pat’s birthday!!!
Whitehorse is known as “The Wilderness City” due to the spectacular surroundings. It was originally a stopover for stampeders heading down river to the Klondike during the gold rush of 1898.








This morning we met with the MP of Whitehorse, Larry Bagnell who is a relative of one of Pat and Al’s friends. Larry was kind enough to take us to Schwapka Lake, Myles Cannon and the foot bridge over the Yukon River. We then toured the SS Klondike museum and found it very informative.This steam ship transported supplies and people up and down the Yukon River mainly during the gold rush. Once the white pass train was finished people stopped using the river for transportation. It definitely tied together the gold rush and the way of living/travelling back in those days. We then headed to Watson Creek and stopped at Johnson's Crossing (Johnson just happens to be Al and Pat's last name!) which is known around here for their yummy cinnamon buns, and yes they lived up to their reputation!!. After a quick supper in Watson Creek we visited the Northern Lights Centre. Here we watched a documentation on the Northern Lights and another on Space which was very interesting. We stayed tonight at an old air force bunker house that was renovated into rooms . Interesting place where we had to share bathrooms with unknown people! It reminded me of when I lived in nurses residence The final picture of the day was taken when Grant was leading the group and I put the camera behind my helmut and snapped. Pretty awesome photo

Day 26 - July 5th

Travelled from Dawson City to Whitehorse.
Saw lots of trees today but nothing too exciting. We did encounter one bad patch of construction where approx 1 ½ “ of fresh gravel had just been put down, a true nightmare for motorcycles. But we all made it through safely which is the main thing! I so admire Andrea!! She rides her own bike and nothing stops her!!! We’ve had some roads that I would not want to travel on even in a car and she does it on a motorcycle!! We stopped at the Five Fingers Rapids not far from Whitehorse. These rapids were just another obstacle that the gold seekers had to navigate to get to Dawson City. Also stopped at an old hotel which is now a historic site. We are in Whitehorse tonight, which we passed through approx 10 days ago. Another nice B&B with a cute little dog named Maggie. We were tired when we got in and ordered supper, sat around, talked, laughed then blogged etc. Another load of laundry being done tonight.

Day 25 - July 4th

Travelled from Tok, Alaska to Dawson City, Yukon
Before we head out each morning it is routine for everyone to check their tires. Today Will noticed that his back tire was almost flat and found a sharp little rock lodged into the tire! Will and Andrea patched the tire in the pouring rain and kept the rock for a souvenir! We then headed towards Fairbanks and the rain eventually stopped. Here the landscape made you think you were in the “Land Before Time”. There was not much greenery, mainly the ugly dull Black Spruce and flatter lands. As we were driving there were some huge black clouds above us and we figured that sooner or later we were going to be poured on!!
We made a quick stop in “Chicken, Alaska” with a large population of 11 people!! It was the cutest remote little place and if we were not in a hurry to beat the rain, I would have loved to stay here for a while. Just as we were getting ready to leave the skies opened up! Because the road was not paved we decided to wait till the rain settled a bit and left approx 15 mins later. We headed out on to the famous “Top of the World Highway” which climbs from the western banks of the Yukon River and ascends into the mountains. There are many tight bends and steep hills along the way as well as large potholes,and wildlife (which we didn't see any of). There is no other way to describe this ride other than “The Most Horrifying, Magnificent Adventure”.
We had decided to take this road to Dawson City and as we had heard how spectacular the scenery was and decided to be adventurous. The problem with this road is that it is nearly 167 km of dirt and gravel, not pleasant to drive on in the best conditions when your on a motorbike, let alone in the rain. Initially the road wasn’t too bad, but as we drove it just got worse and worse. It was like driving on slick elephant snot, and if you can‘t imagine that, imagine driving on crunchy peanut butter on toast!!!I think you get the picture!! Lots of slick, gooey muck and pot holes. As we were driving along, I had to wonder why it was called the “Top of the World” as the scenery was pretty, but not spectacular. But, then we came to the boarder to cross into Yukon, NWT, then it was an instant wow!!! And I mean WOW!!!! We were literally on the peak of a mountain that looked like we could touch the clouds!!! It was raining so hard I could not take pictures from there, but as we continued along the road the rains calmed a bit and out came my camera. Once again this black cloud kept following us. We were so relieved to see the sign for Dawson City!!! There were several times our stomach jumped into our throat as we rode along this road and we were so happy for it to end!!
We entered Dawson City crossing over the Yukon river on the George Black Ferry and stayed in a nice B&B. We have really had good luck with our B&B’s. All have been very nice, nice hostesses and food!!. After supper we walked around the little town. Lots of old buildings that have been here since 1901 during the gold rush. I love these old towns with history. If the walls and streets could only talk!! Some of the buildings they have left as historic building because they sunken into the ground over the years due to the permafrost. The heat from inside the buildings melted the ground, causing the foundations to sink. Population here is approx 1,000 except during tourist season.