It was almost eleven by the time we were rolling eastwards, back towards Meziadin Junction and highway 37 North. As we wound through the river valley Art spotted a black something in the ditch on the side of the road. The black lump proved to be a young black bear foraging for his lunch. Art quickly slowed and we had a good look but we had not yet got the cameras out so there was a missed photo opportunity.
Soon we turned left back onto Highway 37 and were northbound once again and another bear sighting! This time Gillian was ready with the camera and managed to snap a couple of poses through the window.
The sky cleared somewhat at the junction and we had quite pleasant weather for a while. Then the grey returned with a few scattered showers then improved again.
At Dease Lake we stopped for fuel—Art estimated from the state of the fuel gauge that would take about 160 litres. The pump clicked off at 172! He's getting pretty good at this. We had last fueled at the junction of Highways 16 and 37 near Kitwanga—630 kilometres back. About 25 litres per 100 kilometers for those that can make sense of that—We are still used to miles per gallon (though to be fair, in most other things we “thinKMetric” as the slogan goes). Our computer program that reads data from the engine computer says that we have averaged 9.0 mpg since leaving home. That is using US gallons; in Imperial measure that would be 10.8 mpg. We are pretty happy with this as our old 97 Commander gaser averaged 8.3 mpg (imperial) towing the car to and from Mexico. Our first rig, a 1973 Tripple E with a Dodge 440cubic inch with a 4 barrel carb got 6 mpg up hill and down! It will be interesting to see what we do on the entire 10 month trip!.
About 8 kilometers after leaving Dease Lake we pulled into the Water's Edge Campground—no water, no sewer, no electricity—BUT free wireless! The sites are spread amongst the trees, very similar to a Provincial Park in BC. The trees are a mix of spruce and lodgepole pine with a few aspen here and there. Lots of very pretty wild flower and each site has a hanging flower pot with pansies and petunias!
It lies along side the lake—Trekker loved the chance for a swim and was most intrigued by a black lab dock jumping from the jetty after a frisbee!
Dinner tonight was steak, cooked to perfection on our “Grill It” a “smokeless stove top grill”. It says so on the box. Nevertheless Art removed the smoke alarm first! Accompanied by pan-fried potatoes, asparagus and peas cooked in the microwave (gotta love that inverter and those solar panels!) and the remains of a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. Ahhhhhh!
Dease Lake to Teslin
Up and at'em at 8:30—at least Art was. Gillian following protestingly shortly there after. The night before we had discovered what an experienced northern camper told us a few days ago: You won't notice the time—chatting with new friends, the twilight never seeming to get closer, until all of a sudden you realise it's 11:30PM—even though it's still light enough to read out side without artificial light!
However, by 10:15 we were climbing up the dusty gravel road from the campground to the highway and northbound once again. Not a lot of wildlife today, not a lot of great weather either—cloudy with a threat of rain that never quite made good.
Trekker once again was unhappy with the bumpy road, panting and trembling as he alternately stood and lay down beside Gillian. He has been very nervous and stressed on rough roads ever since the terrible roads south of Tampico, Mexico, last year which had things falling out of the cupboards all around him.
After an hour and a half we stopped at Jade City near the Cassiar turn off. Gillian said it was to give Trekker a break and let him nap for a while. Yeah, right. Seriously, it was a fascinating place. And she only spent 60 dollars! Jade City is a family affair, selling jade jewelery, works of art etc and cutting jade from huge chunks.
The fellow in the red shirt will be mentioned later!
In the pictures to the right the small piece of jade being cut will take 40 minutes or so, the large one most of the day! The jade comes from a mine some 80 miles east of the shop—the largest known Jade deposit in the world and supplying 90% of the world's jade. (The mine, not the shop)
There are some seriously large chunks of jade here! The one to the left weighs about 80 pounds. The white part is asbestos. Click to see the asbestos fibres. At the nearby town of Cassiar high-grade asbestos was mined until closing a few decades ago.
About an hour later we were on the road again and 40 minutes later a loud “BANG!” coincided with a large star shaped mark on the passenger side windshield. An unloaded flat bed was passing southbound at the time so we knew exactly what had happened. We will have it looked at in Whitehorse to see if it can be repaired or if it will need to be replaced. If the latter we will wait for a while as our insurance deductible is $200.00. No point in having it repaired until we have done with Alaska, the Yukon and the Alaska Highway.
Our next stop was at the BC/Yukon border, just a few kilometres before joining the Alaska Highway. Here we met up with a family (Mom, Dad, Daughter,Grandpa and Grandma and dog) who we had seen at Jade City. They had a flat tire on their trailer and as Art got talking he found that Bill (the guy in the red shirt at the Jade store) had many friends who sailed to Zihuatanejo, and asked if he knew about the sail boat thing that went on around Christmas, which he had heard a lot about from his sailing friends. Art immediately recognised this as an opportunity to give a way a spare Sailfest T shirt that he had bought for that purpose earlier this year. Bill was delighted to be able to show off the shirt to his friends and responded by giving in return 2 jars of organic pasta sauce made by his company in California! Mmmmm! Will report later!
By 3:25 we were east/north bound on the Alaska Highway! This was very nice road, much nicer condition than we had been led to believe. 100 Km/h speed limit, rolling hills for the most part, mountains in the background, small trees, many small lakes and streams in the foreground—beautiful. We can understand why people actually live this far north! The dark band on the top of the photo is due to the tinted windshield, not ominous cloud.
We didn't see much wild life—no bears but we did see one fox up close beside the road as we went by. Such a gorgeous bright orangy red fur. Unfortunately there was no time for a picture. Near the end of today's drive we crossed the Continental Divide for the second time. Rivers once more were flowing towards the pacific instead of the Arctic!
Three hours and 20 minutes after entering the Yukon we pulled into the Dawson Peaks Resort and RV Park. All the serviced sites were taken but for $14.00 plus taxes we could have a dry-camp space and access to the internet. The internet made the deal! And they have a restaurant!
They do have free wifi in the restaurant so here we are sipping on a "English Style Pale Ale" called Yukon Gold. Thought for a moment it may have been made from potatoes, but that's Vodka! Very nice in any case.
After the internet and beer, we returned to the rig for dinner. Gillian cooked salmon, rice and veggies while Art did a bit more on the computer and scrubbed the bugs from the windshield. A very large number of mosquitoes! We found we could access the wireless from the rig so we sent a few e-mails as well.
As I write this (on the word processor, not directly to the blog) the time is 11:20. Gillian is walking the dogs—no flashlight needed, and someone hasn't done the dishes yet.
More tomorrow from Whitehorse.
OK! Well!
So much for plans.
Our morning routine was, well, routine: up, wash, walk dogs, breakfast, pack up and stow for traveling. Yup. Routine. Right up until Art pushed the switch to bring in the bedroom slide in. The slide moved 2 inches then stopped.
Now began the non-routine part of the morning—a few mutterings, then dig out the manuals and start looking. Then manuals discussed fuses and their possible locations. Possible locations. Couldn't find them anywhere.
Under the dash was a mass of heater ducting an wires--no sign fuses. Next we checked the online manuals that we had downloaded shortly after we bought the rig. The wiring diagrams listed almost everything but the slides and stabiliser jacks (which use the same hydraulic system and which didn't work either). Also notably missing was information on the heat pump—but that is an earlier story.
Next to the internet where we e-mailed friends who have an identical rig. Then again to the internet to www.rv.net to leave a HELP! question on the Tech Issues forum.
Then we got Skype call from Don, a knowledgeable friend from home who suggested a poor battery connection. We cleaned all the battery terminals, which were OK for the most part, with no improvement.
By now it was well past lunch time and the restaurant would close in half an hour so there we went. Gillian found Art's pouting funny!
Returning from lunch we found we had received an e-mail from Wayne, our friend with the Horizon like ours suggesting a bad connection under the dash that he had had problems with. That appeared to be OK so Art gave up and consoled by the bacon cheese burger and beer for lunch took a nap while Gillian took the opportunity to do a little house cleaning. Hardly seems fair does it?
Of course we had arrived fairly late last night so there were no serviced spaces left. We were happy with dry camping as we are well set up for it. However we had not planned to sit for too many days so had not been concerned with power saving. The day was over cast and the trees around the rig limited our solar input so we ran the generator for a while to make sure everything was fully charged. We also ran the heat pump at the same time as it was still a bit cool.
So. It is now 6:00 PM Sunday, tomorrow I guess we call a service tech in Whitehorse and find out what a 180 kilometer service call will cost!
There is a provision for manually pushing the slide back in but as it involves applying 150 pounds of pressure to the slide for 10 minutes—well 'nuff said.
Yesterday we made use of the Silverleaf program, which uses data from the rig's engine computer, to see how various speeds affected fuel use-I won't use the term “fuel economy”! It is hard to say for sure for such a small test distance (about 20 minutes) but we got about 10.4 miles per US gallon on a fairly flat gently winding road with a small elevation decrease of about 200 feet over the test run. Since leaving home to the BC/Yukon border it was 9.1 mpg; from the BC/Yukon border to here, maintaining about 55 miles an hour with one 20 minute run at 50 mph, the burn was 9.2 mpg I think.
Interestingly enough the last test run was at 60 mph (100Km/h) which allowed the transmission to shift into top or 6th gear. Most of the trip so far has been done in 5th, which the Allison Transmission manufacturer refers to as "first overdrive". 6th gear is "second overdrive". Earlier less carefully watched runs indicates that running at 60 mph up a hill or against a strong headwind uses a lot more power (and fuel) than running 5 mph slower even in a lower gear.We are hoping the long runs later across the Canadian prairies will allow us to get an accurate picture.
I should mention that the notebook computer that we use for this is on the dashboard in front of the passenger, not the driver!
One more item of interest; while driving Art leaves one of his ham radios tuned to a local calling frequency and so far has only made one contact—a camper from New Brunswick which passed us southbound as we were northbound on highway 37 while we chatted!
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