June 30, 2014 - Whitehorse, YT to Watson Lake, YT

Been this way before!  We are backtracking only because there is no other road.  We woke up this morning in Whitehorse to a fairly clear day, some clouds but no rain.  Yippee!  Seems like we get a rain day then a day of no rain.  Our ride was simply across the Alaska Highway to Watson Lake.  Nothing particularly eventful happened.  Oh, wait, it did!

We slept in a bit at Whitehorse and left about 9:30 am to fuel up and move on.  Only, no fuel.  What?  No fuel?  Nope, the power was off.  Not just at our hotel and the gas station, but everywhere.  As a matter of fact the power was out for about 100 miles.

I had less than a full tank and nothing in the aux tank.  Hmmm...we decided to press on since we had no idea how long it would take to restore power.  We stopped about 30 miles out of town...still no power.  We stopped again about 70 miles out of town...still no power.  Rut roh....I thought I could make it to Teslin (the town of the $56 hamburgers) and just barely made it.  I was 16 miles into reserve and for joy, power was on.  I later learned the power was actually off but the two places in town for gas had generators going.  Good!  I fueled up both the main and the aux tank.

We were hungry so stopped again at the price gouging restaurant (the only choice in town).  But, this time we were savvy and split a French Dip with Onion Rings and a slice of cherry pie.  Only the onion rings were good.  The rest was just something to fill you up.  Our meal still cost over $25.  Hahahah, we should have paid attention the first time.  Oh well.  Full of food and fuel, we motored on.

Yup, my favorite bridge again.  Thank goodness is was dry.  It was still a total butt pucker for me

 Yup, a bridge that seemed to last 10 miles of slippery metal grates that jostled me everywhere but where I wanted to go.  I was so glad to see the end of that bridge!

From there, it was sit there, twist that.  We made a quick stop at the Continental Divide and took a few pictures.

About 30 miles outside of Watson Lake we hit road construction.  When we went through here earlier in our trip, the road construction was only a few miles of scary, deep, slippery gravel.  Well, I guess the road workers have been busy because we rode over 23 kilometers of nasty road construction.  Loose, squirrely gravel and dusty.  Eventually, it became packed harder and became easier to navigate.  But, come on, 23 kilometers????

I got my gravel practice in for the day and actually got up to about 57 mph at times.   But at other times I was lucky to hit 30 mph.  Fortunately, no mishaps and we made it to Watson Lake and our motel, same as before, A Nice Motel.  And, it is nice.  I'm sure we're in for a good night sleep.

Tomorrow we'll move along the Alcan to Fort Nelson, BC.

Till then my friends,
Cheers,
Cletha