May 27: Sean and I woke to heavy rain. I’m talking about the kind of heavy rain that soaks you to your bones. After breakfast, Sean had the ugly task of clearing the slide tops of water. I helped him by staying inside and pushing the button to roll the slides in, lol. Hey, I didn’t leave him out to suffer by himself for long because while he was undoing the water/electric/sewer connections I was getting the truck hooked up to tow. Being the gentleman that he is he stopped what he was doing to help me. Note for those wanting to travel to Alaska, invest in some rain gear especially those traveling in spring and early summer. We headed out with our destination still up in the air, but we knew we wanted to stop close to Jade City, BC. First on the list of things we needed to accomplish was fuel. We didn’t get the tank full on the way in to Stewart, so we stopped to top off. It was pretty chilly today and Skittles was very restless, and I eventually figured out she was cold. I ended up wrapping her in a blanket and she settled down quickly and fell into a nap with Hershey curled up right beside her. The Cassair Highway was offering very pretty mountain views the further we went. Soon we were in Dease Lake, BC and had to stop to commemorate the last time we were here 12 years ago. It was warm here and stopped raining for a short time. We ate lunch/dinner at Nympha’s Takeout Asian Food and stopped to get a picture of Rabid Grizzly Rest Area where we broke down for about a week in 2013. We saw 2 bears, a grizzly and black bear between Dease Lake and the rest area. The highway narrowed and turned to chip seal surfacing before Dease Lake and continued for most of the rest of the roadway. There were a few metal grate bridges that you could see through to the river below. Now, Sean had racked up quite a lot of miles and we searched for a place to stop for the night. We happened upon Cottonwood rest area that had us a little scared going down the 1/2 mile road because it was very narrow, but it turned out to be a beautiful place! Sean was trying to get turned around the small road, but miscalculated because he changed his mind last second where he wanted to park, and we were stuck with a trash receptacle holding us hostage, lol. There was no one else at the rest area, so we decided to get out and take the truck off so Sean could back up, but we got distracted by stretching our legs and playing with the pups since it was lightly raining at this point. Then, Sean got to looking at the trash bin and started putting his weight against it and it moved, so he literally shoved the bin out of the way and drove the motorhome to the spot he wanted and we didn’t have to disconnect the truck. It was a beautiful area and we were so glad we found this place off of the road. We enjoyed a long walk with the dogs and settled in for the night. No one else came to the rest area overnight.
May 28: We woke to light rain once again, but soon stopped and the clouds broke apart to let the sun shroud us in beautiful warmth that we hadn’t experienced for days. We made a few laps around the oval drive to get some exercise before another long journey today, destination Simpson Lake, YT after stopping in Watson Lake, YT for road conditions on the Campbell Highway and a few provisions. But, first things first, we had to make a stop at Jade City’s Cassair Mountain Jade Store to get a few trinkets. Sean and I stopped at this store on our previous trip to Alaska and loved it! Trinkets in tow, we were on our way down the road again. Shortly after leaving town, I spotted 2 moose in the distance, but Sean wasn't able to stop the motorhome fast enough so he parked literally on the road (there was no traffic) and we ran back to the spot I had seen them. The moose didn't like this commotion and did run off, but I was able to get a picture of one. Later down the road, we did see a fox sitting on the edge of the road looking at something in the brush. I was surprised it did not run from the sound of our vehicle, but after something I guess it was stalking. The road got a bit rough in areas and at one point Sean made a comment about a sign to “Watch for wildlife” and I couldn’t stop laughing. All I could picture was a person with their eyes jiggling in their head trying to “Watch for wildlife”, lol. We made a side trip to Boya Lake, but didn't get a great view of the clear blue water because it was still very cloudy. The chip seal road gave way to a great paved area that was a nice reprieve. We eventually crossed the Yukon Territory border and soon were at Watson Lake, YT. Sean took us to fill up the fuel tank and then parked across the road from The Signpost Forest and near the Northern Lights Experience Centre. We whipped up some lunch and then headed on foot to the Centre to get info on the Campbell Highway conditions and multiple town info guides. Next order of business was to go to the grocery store and to Canada’s version of a post office. Now that things were in order, we could have some fun! We prepared many months ago by having a sign made and tweaking it just for the Signpost Forest. We walked over with the pups to look around for good open space to place our sign. Sean got to work grabbing the drill and some screws and his ladder, and he staked our claim on a section of 4x4 post. If anyone reading this happens to go the the Signpost Forest, please send us a picture of ours if you see it! Now it was time to head on and start the Campbell Highway. We had not traveled this highway on our previous 2013 trip, so everything will be a new experience for us. We were warned about road conditions, but the information center confirmed the road to be passable, thank goodness. The road is chip sealed to a certain point and then turns to gravel for many miles. Simpson Lake, our destination for tonight, was a very pretty area. This also where we encountered a lot of mosquitoes, and honestly, if you keep moving they aren’t too horrible. Earlier we had a break in the rain and was just a bit cloudy. As soon as we pulled into a campsite at Simpson Lake, it started raining, lol. Sean rolled the awning out and cooked us some hamburgers and we ate outside under the awning and enjoyed the view, listened to the rain, and occasionally swatting mosquitoes. After dinner was cleaned up, we took the pups on a long walk all the way to the highway and back. We had not heard or seen a car while driving since we left Watson Lake, and we finally heard one passing by on our way back to the campground.
May 29: Sean and I started to notice a big difference in the time of sunrise and sunset starting to change. We are in the area now of long days and short nights. Sunrise at 4:30a, sunset at 11:06p. We tried to sleep in since it was intermittently raining and windy, but didn’t make far past 8a. Sean requested pancakes for breakfast and after we ate the rain stopped so we took the pups for walk around the campground. There was a squirrel that took a special liking to torturing our dogs, pictured below. Now it was time to get on the road as we had about 5 hours of driving really slowly due to the Campbell Highway changing to a dirt road in about 10 miles. Surprisingly, the dirt road was mostly fairly smooth and we were able to make better time than initially thought. Sean saw a large dark animal in the distance on the road (he thought it might have been a baby buffalo) and turns out it was a wolf! I did manage to get a video, but it doesn’t show how big this guy was… it was huge! Definitely looked bigger than Skittles, our Great Dane. We stopped for lunch in a pullout and watched my wolf video a few times for entertainment, lol. Sean had been wanting some drone videos of the motorhome driving in the wilderness, so I drove the motorhome while he made different videos and photos. Before we knew it, we had arrived at our stopping point, Finlayson Lake rest area. We had passed a floating airplane base just before the rest area, so we took a long walk to this base on the lake and back. The lake was still half full of ice. We made it back to the motorhome just before a large rain shower hit and then it started snowing! I started on dinner (chicken alfredo) while the weather was being bipolar. Luckily, the precipitation didn’t last long, but the wind stuck around and the sun came back out.
