AMAZING COUNTRY

From Watson Lake we traveled to Whitehorse to stock up on supplies and to check out Miles Canyon on the Yukon River. From there we headed to Skagway by way of the Klondike Highway.  This was, by far, the most magnificent drive we have done.  Every twist and turn was more beautiful then the one before.  I think I took 100 pictures on the drive. I was finally able to make my snow angel.  Wow the snow was wet and really cold.  As we drove into Skagway the small town, with one street of shops, was filled with people from four cruise ships.  The next morning we drove our vehicles onto the ferry and headed to Haines.  We were surrounded by mountains as we took the short trip across the water.  While in Haines Carl and I took a hike on Mt. Riley.  It was a rough one, 6.3 miles round trip.  After we saw a bear track we were going to turn around but kept going and OMG was it worth it.  We sat at the top on a rock, ate our lunch in the sun, and just gazed out over the snow covered mountains and the superb views of Lynn Canal, Taiya inlet and the Chilkat River.  The view was so awesome I wanted to take pics for everyone to see but my camera was dead.  The view will have to live in our minds. 

Today we are leaving Haines for the Alaskan Highway ending up in Tok.  We will pass through Alaska, BC, Canada and the Yukon all in a matter of 2 hours.  We have to go through customs again.  Canadian customs pulled us over, made us get out, and searched our R.V.  We were just waiting for them to find our freezer full of venison in our car but they never checked the car so we were safe once again.  On our way to Tok we spotted a grizzly bear, slammed on our brakes, got the cameras, and proceeded to photograph him while he ignored us and kept looking for something to eat.  The wildlife has been outstanding.  So far we have seen 28 Bears and 2 cubs (Black bear, brown bear, grizzly) several moose and some herds of mountain goats and a couple mice caught in our R.V.

On our way to Tok we experienced the worst road of our trip.  I drove 100 miles of frost heaves, yee haws (that's what Carl calls them) at times going 20 mph.  The only thing that helped was the outstanding scenery of wildlife, mountains and rivers.  We are now making our final approach to Alaska and in front of us is customs again.  We had heard the U.S. customs was really difficult at this post so we were worried.  It was a breeze, the guard ask us why we were coming to Alaska and we said to fish and he waved us on through.  WE ARE FINALLY IN ALASKA TO STAY FOR THE SUMMER.   We made it through 6 border crossings and we will now be feasting on venison and salmon.  The trip has been amazing, great scenery,  great fun, great wild life, and great friends and family through the states of Wyoming, Utah, Oregon, Washington and the province of British Columbia, Yukon and of course Alaska.   We have been as high as 8,200 ft in the mountains.  Every campground has been nestled in the mountains with a lake or river running through it.  We are on our way to Valdez tomorrow.