Alaska 5

Our next destination is Watson Lake.  Here they have the "Signpost Forest".  It was started by some soldiers building the Alaskan Highway in 1942.  They had put up a signpost with distances pointing to their home towns and cities.  Since then it has grown to over 65,000 signs.

We posted the license plate from the White Dragon.  The GoldWing that we wrecked in Italy in October of 2008.

While Dirk and Hetty went in search of their sign.  They have been here before and posted a sign for their hometown, Wormerveer, Netherlands.

The variety and number of signs is awesome.  Some are cardboard and obviously done on the spur of the moment.  Others are professional signs made just to post here commemorating a family or person.  Many are roads signs and city signs.  Some are 3 by 5 feet and are the city limit sign for a German city.  How did they get it here, by air?

Now we move onward toward Dawson Creek, British Columbia (the one behind us is Dawson City, Yukon).  Dawson Creek is milepost one of the Alaskan Highway.

We have now traveled the entire 1400+ miles of the highway.  We did Whitehorse to Tok westbound, Delta Junction to Tok and Whitehorse to Dawson Creek eastbound, but we did not miss a single mile.  And around Tok and Whitehorse, combined, we did about 20 miles twice.  We rode all the major paved roads in Alaska and saw a lot of wild animals alongside the roads.  We saw mountains and valleys, wide rivers and tundra, cities and towns, ocean and lakes.  We have seen a lot, but Alaska is even bigger, so we also missed a lot.  But now we are headed south into the Rocky Mountains of BC and Alberta.

What can one say about the Icefields Parkway that has not been said before and probably by better writers than I am.  The sun came out and the clouds parted after a rather wet night in a campground south of Jasper.  (Where in the morning Kathy, while on the way to the outhouse, saw a black bear and two cubs walking through the campground.  She stayed quiet but signaled me to bring the camera.  I did, but the bear and cubs had left the road and gone off through the trees never to be seen again.  And we did NOT go searching for the sow and cubs in the deep dark woods!)

We turned left at Saskatchewan Crossing and headed through a pass and down into the plains of Alberta.  Alongside the road there were signs telling motorists of the "controlled burn" that had happened a few days earlier.  Having fought wildfires for 41 years and been involved in a few controlled burns, this was one of though cases when "The best laid plans of men and mice" went all wrong.  Controlled burns are designed to stay on the ground and burn brush and small trees, not get into the crowns like this one did for hundreds of acres.  This "controlled burn" turned into a "wildfire".  There was still smoke and a couple of crews working the last of the hotspots when we went by.

The reason for leaving the Icefields Parkway was to visit our friends Dave and Maureen in central Alberta.  They are GWRRA members and have a ranch of about 160 acres with the horses and dogs that that requires.  They used to have llamas too.  While there (left-right) Dave, myself and Maureen went for a bareback ride.  I hadn't ridden bareback since high school, which was more than a few years ago.  I didn't fall off, but then we never got above a walk.  The route Dave took was through trees, both standing and down around a hayfield and back.  I'm glad my horse was surefooted, it only stumbled and nearly lost me a couple of times!

Dave and Maureen have hunted the area for many years and have a great collection of mounted wildlife, many bears, mountain lion, birds, fish and others.

Dirk has his foot on a Bison rug with the mountain lion over the stairs to the lower level behind him.

After the day of rest, great food (thanks Maureen!!!), good whiskey (thanks Dave!!!) and lots of talking Dave told us about a breakfast cafe about an hour south of their place.  So we out through the edge of the prairie and he was right, the place was packed with a waiting line.  So we waited and then had a great breakfast.

Maureen is taking the picture, left to right, Dave, Dirk, Hetty, Kathy, Bob.

After stuffing ourselves, we parted from Dave and Maureen and headed south to cross the Rockies on one of the few roads neither they or us had been on before.  (Dirk's first US GoldWing trip was in 1981.  He has seen more of the US than we have.  But we have seen more of Europe than he has, so I guess we're even.) 

We camped that night high in the Rockies at Provincial campground where we got the next to last empty space.  A huge double campsite space.  Later another GoldWinger (from Manitoba) made the loop looking for a space and couldn't find one.  So we offered him part of ours.  (We had room for probably a dozen tents!)  He accepted and moved in.  He was riding the gold 1800 and split the campsite bill three ways with us, saving each of us some money.  That night a thunderstorm passed directly overhead.  There was a definite lack of sleep that night.  By morning it had passed, the rain had quit and the sun was out again.

We crossed the Rockies just north of the border and traveled west to the Okanogan Valley.  There we turned south, crossed the border and turned west on the North Cascades Highway (US 20).  It is a trip of more mountains, lakes, streams and trees.

That night we stayed in a campground right at the ferry dock ready to cross Puget Sound to the Olympic Peninsula the next morning.  The Whidbey Island Naval Air Station was a few miles away.  Three of these jets were flying a slow racetrack loop over our heads for several hours.  The roar of their engines drowned out conversation every 30 seconds or so.  They had their wheels and flaps down and were going as slow as possible without falling out of the sky.  It was extremely annoying.  As least they quit just before sunset so we were able to sleep fine.  That is the roof of the campground toilet block in the lower right.  (Our tax dollars at work.)

The next morning we were fogged in, but the ferry's foghorn woke us in time to catch the early ferry to Port Townsend.  All the reservations for spaces were gone, but there always seems to be enough room for a couple motorcycles, even one with a trailer.  So, even without reservations we got on.  The trip across was totally in the fog.  Somewhere out in the middle we crossed the wake of a large ship, but we never saw it.  I assume the captain was watching his radar because my GPS showed us making a curve to the left and back again right at that point, as if we had gone around its stern.

After we left the ferry dock in Port Townsend we headed inland and left the fog behind.  We are going to Hurricane Ridge in the Olympic National Park.  It is on a dead-end road that climbs over 5,000 ft.  My senior discount card lets me and three others into the park for free, a savings of about $30 over the two vehicle entry fee we would have had to pay.  The card is good for life and only cost $10.  We have also used it at Denali and Kenai Fjords as well as at US federal campgrounds where camping is half off.

Hurricane Ridge is in brilliant sunshine and we can see all the Olympic mountains.  And the jet trails from more military maneuvers in the sky.  At least these are too far away to be noisy.

A slow trip back down the road and we are headed around the Olympic Peninsula and south along the Pacific coast of Washington and Oregon and then to home.

We have travelled 6,750 miles in 34 days through some of the best scenery in North America, Alaska, Yukon, BC, Alberta, the Rocky Mountains, the North Cascade Mountains, the Olympic Mountains and the Pacific Coast of Washington and Oregon.  It has been a memorable trip with fun people on good running GoldWings.

Thank you for following along.