Back home from a 6,583-km trip
We were away from Dease Lake this morning by 07:30 – though the “Open” sign was out at the only restaurant in town, the doors were locked and the next one was 3 hours away so coffee from the gas station had to suffice. The first photo shows the main building left at Laketon, a ghost town on still-frozen Dease Lake that dates back about a century to the Cassiar Gold Rush.
It was a much slower wildlife day than yesterday – we met this pair of young bull moose just south of Good Hope Lake.
The last time we stopped at the Cottonwood River rest stop, a bear with triplets tried to join our picnic, but today we had the place to ourselves.
We made a stop at Jade City. As well as rough and processed jade of all types, they have a charming cat who apparently tries to sneak into travellers’ vehicles as they leave 🙂
Traffic on the Stewart-Cassiar was very quiet and even on the Alaska Highway it’s still light. A large percentage of the southbound traffic was people moving out of Alaska (mostly military transfers, I assume).
We got back to Whitehorse this afternoon. It was a most excellent road trip – I put 6,583 kilometers (4,090 miles) on the Outback in 18 days and had some wonderful experiences ranging from visits with family and friends to wildlife encounters and high-country hiking.
I’m still quite shocked at how different our property looks now, with all the snow gone and crocuses blooming in the forest. Back to reality now, with a “to-do” list as long as my arm to get started on. It’s 03:30 as I type this – attacking the list begins at 8 when I can pick up both tile for the kitchen floor and hardwood for the den at Home Hardware. With a forecast of 19 and mostly sunny, though, the focus may quickly turn to outdoor projects such as cleaning up my last logging mess. 🙂