May 18th-20th, 2010

In the daytime, the narrow mountain bike trail beside the cliff didn’t look too bad.  It was much scarier at night.  Actually, it’s much scarier when you’re there.  This picture doesn’t really do it any justice.  

We rode to Wal-Mart, changed my oil, and got back on the road.  Must take advantage of the good weather and get some miles under our belts.  Rain is apparently on its way for today and tomorrow.  We arrived at Haines Junction and noticed the skies turned grey fairly quickly and decided to look for a place to camp.  We continued riding along the Alcan and spotted a dirt road and pulled over.  From the looks of it, I think this site used to be a base camp for workers when they were building the highway. 

Better to have camp set up dry than wet

Ok so it didn’t rain.  It sure looked like it would’ve. 

The next morning we woke up to the sounds of pitter pattering rain drops on the tent.  We don’t like riding in rain.  As a matter of fact, I can’t say I know of anyone who gets excited at the thought of riding in the rain.  Since we have no timeline to adhere to, we’re sleeping in. 

Three o’clock in the afternoon and the rain still hasn’t let up.  We’ve kept ourselves busy playing video games on Amanda’s cell phone, watching movies on the iPod, and looking over maps.  Every once in a while the rain would lighten and up and we would go outside to stretch.  I remember we were both walking back to the tent from the lake and heard a 16 wheeler approaching on the highway.  We looked at each other for a second and without saying a word, started to make a mad dash for the tent.  I have absolutely no clue why we did this, probably because we didn’t want to be seen and have someone tell us we can’t camp here.  So there we were, me in my blue onesie wearing my Buff (a tubular headscarf) on my head, running as if we had seen a ghost.  Of course we were no match for the speed of the 16 wheeler racing down the highway and we were clearly in plain view.  As I was sprinting knowing that we are in view, the thought of wondering what the truck driver thought when he sees two fully grown adults running away from nothing, in which one of them happens to be wearing a bright colored blue onesie, made me burst out laughing in hysterics.  Amanda must’ve been thinking the same thing because she started laughing too.  This amplified even further as I now have the thought of wondering what is going on in the truck driver’s head when he sees two adults, one of them is dressed like a giant Teletubby, both have silly grins on their faces and are running full tilt like chickens with its heads cut off.  Luckily the truck kept going as if we weren’t even there.  

The rain stopped in the early evening and we both went out for a potty break.  I noticed a man walking in our direction with a fishing rod.  I finished up and started talking to him in case he didn’t know we were here.  Amanda thought I was pulling her leg in an attempt to make her panic.  When she realized I wasn’t, she had to stop in midstream and relocate. 

Sulphur Lake, Yukon.  The man that was fishing had emigrated with his family from France to get away from the hustle and bustle to live a simpler life.  Within a few casts, he was reeling in trophy sized pike.  He stops here often to fish on his way home from work. 

Woo hoo!  Clear skies with lots of sun!  Back on the road again.  Approaching Kluane Lake

Much of it is still frozen

This is RCMP ingenuity at its best when working with a tight budget.  We spotted this contraption just before Destruction Bay.  Sure had me fooled. 

Took a short break at this gorgeous rest area

If you look closely, you might be able to spot a golden eagle in mid flight

The moment of truth.  Will they let us through?  The reason we crossed the border into Mexico is so that we have a point of re-entry in our passports to show that we didn’t outstay our 6 month limit in the U.S.  Not sure if that’ll cut it…

…it did!  Alaska, here we come!

Time to call it day. 

Another pic for those of you back home wondering how cold it was at night.  It wasn’t too bad, the sleeping back liners made a huge difference though.  I used my Buff to cover my eyes because night is slowly becoming non-existent.  

522 km

Waiting out the rain.

Alaska, the last frontier.

Bit too paranoid.