Day 10!

Today was probably the best day so far. However, we are getting tired of hotel hopping, but we are not getting tired of the beautiful scenery.

This has been an absolute wonderful last couple of days. We got up and moving this morning early in order to make it to our 7:15 reserved pre-paid breakfast. It was actually wonderful. We sat in the corning of the dining room where we could see out both sets of windows hoping to see a moose or wolves, but we didn’t.

After breakfast we had a little trouble with the truck, when Kevin went out to load our stuff he opened the passenger side door and when he tried to close it, it wouldn’t latch shut. Somehow the latch froze open, yes I said FROZE!!!!! It was a little chilly this morning. We found the maintenance person that worked there and he and Kevin were able to fix it in a matter or a few minutes. They actually spent more time chatting than anything else. That was just the beginning of our dealings with really nice people today.

With the door fixed we loaded up and drove on away from our expensive rendezvous to a little place called Liard River Hot Springs. First of all, if you have never had the opportunity to dip into a hot spring, DO IT!!! This is something that should be on everyone’s bucket list. If you have done it, well you know what I am speaking of. The air temperature was somewhere around 10⁰ F with the wind-chill even colder. When we first got there, we were the only tourist there and we met a VERY nice man – Arvin. He was the park maintenance man (what is it with maintenance men being so nice, I hope Kevin is this nice when he is working maintenance at the lodge this summer) and he was more than happy to take a little break from shoveling snow off the path to walk us back to the hot springs and give us some info. He showed us where the dressing rooms were (mind you this is at a park campground type place) and the bathrooms (I mean glorified outhouses) and told us about the temps of the pools. So after a brief discussion (about 10 seconds) we decided that we had to try it. Back to the truck we went for the bathing suits and towels. As we were walking back down the path, Kevin accidentally stepped off the boardwalk into the snow. Before I knew it his whole leg was buried and he was practically sitting on the boardwalk, that is some deep snow! The bathing suits were easy to get to (I packed them in the suitcase we take taking into the hotel rooms every night) but the towels were a different story. Yes, Sissa I remember that we packed them into the coolers and put the coolers on the rack on the back of the truck, howsomever, the pad lock we locked the cable with that we secured our belongings with was frozen. Enter our knight in shining armor – Arvin, he tried to help us get the lock open but then decided it would be easier for him to run to his house and let us borrow a couple of his towels, he was gone and back in a flash – literally. So off we went to the “dressing rooms” to change. Might I remind you that it was in the area of 10⁰ and the dressing rooms were NOT heated, there was even ice on the floor of the “dressing room”. So we strip down, put on the swimsuits and VERY carefully walk down the icy steps barefooted into the 125⁰ (and hotter in the upper section) spring. We both tried to keep our hair dry, but to no avail mine got a little wet anyway and turned to icicles. Even though I am quite embarrassed at how awful I look in a bathing suit, I am posting a picture of me that Kevin took just to prove what idiots we are. I still suggest that everyone try this if ever given the opportunity. Oh yeah, we saw a cow moose as we walked down the path to the springs, check it out:

After leaving the hot springs we motored on down the mountains and passed SEVERAL buffalo/bison on the way – see blog header picture.

Moving on up the highway, we stopped off in the town of Watson Lake to take in the sights of the sign post yard. This was really cool, any traveler that comes through can nail a sign up to a post. There are literally hundreds of posts with signs on them. Each post is at least 10 feet tall. The picture below is just a fraction of the whole thing. Also, here is Kevin standing on the walk way to the door of the visitor’s center (which was closed for the season).

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful until we got to an overlook looking down at the town of Teslin and Teslin Lake, this is where the day got really funny. Here is Kevin to tell the story: “We pulled into the overlook where Teresa wanted to take some pictures. I see her open the door and swing her legs out of the truck and within a matter of seconds she disappeared clean out of sight. I heard and ow, ow, ow, so after I finished reading what I was reading in the Milepost and taking a few pictures, I went around the truck to find her laying on the ground. She was holding her butt in one hand and the camera high in the air in the other hand. I asked her if she was alright, she said ‘I’m hurting but I saved the camera’. So I reached down and took the camera and safely set it in the front seat then started back around the front of the truck only to hear Teresa say ‘what about me?’. So, I told her to get up and take her pictures. It was extremely funny at the time, maybe you had to be there. We both laughed.” Ok, well you all know how Kevin likes to tell stories, but this one is mostly true. I did fall getting out of the truck but in my defense, the parking lot was covered in ice. I hit my right butt on the side of the truck at the bottom of the door and landed on my left hip. But, I did protect the camera! Here is the picture that made it all worth it. BTW, I am bruised but no lasting damage done, I guess being fat has it’s advantages – extra padding when you fall on your butt!

We rolled into Whitehorse, Yukon (YT) about 6:15 this evening and got a room at the Best Western. We were able to talk the very nice front desk agent down from $139 to $109 for the night, Waahoo! Even though there is not breakfast included, we have a really nice room and wireless Internet.