Almost 2 weeks? Has it really been that long since I last blogged?  Shame on me….

As of the last blog, I've come a long way in miles – now I'm in Glennallen, Alaska, at one of those 4 favorite campgrounds I blogged about earlier. This one is Tolsona Wilderness Campground, and I got a spot to die for!  Right on the creek, with my picnic table looking over the water to a rustic bridge; if only there weren't so many mosquitos, I'd be in heaven! Luckily, I found a mosquito repellent in Canada that works really well, and I'm going to stock up on it on my way home! 

Muncho Lake -- passed it on the way, and loved the reflections! 

There have been lots of bears by the roadside – up to 23 now, and I finally saw a moose about 5 days ago, unconcernedly munching away on the side of the road. She even looked up at me as I took photos, almost like she heard me asking "Look this way, look this way."  

4 Grizzly bears, Mama and 3 cubs

Let's see, what have I done in the past 2 weeks?  Well, first was Liard Hot Springs, a place I was looking forward to spending some time.  It's a beautiful hot spring (very hot in spots) and it's been constructed to seem like it's just in the middle of a river. There is a gravel bottom, so you can even go barefoot, and there are several concrete benches in the middle, below the water, so when you sit on them, you are about up to your neck. It's a wonderful place to unwind after several days in the car. 

Liard Hot Springs

Buffalo have flourished near the hot springs, and I saw 2 herds relaxing on the roadside at various spots on the highway.  We even had to stop for a short while for a buffalo block – several of them in the middle of the road just passing time!  

A little way further, some stone sheep (related to mountain goats) were licking up salt on the side of the road.  Apparently this is a very common activity, and they are often found in just this situation. I didn't see any rams, but a lot of ewes and lambs. 

Stone Sheep licking salt

By the time I got to Whitehorse, there was a lot of smoke in the air from numerous forest fires to the west, the way I was going.  After restocking, laundry, showers, etc. I pushed west.  At Haines Junction, less than 100 miles down the road, I could hardly see onto the sides of the road, and the beautiful mountains that I was hoping to see again, the Kluane mountains, were only there in my imagination.  What now, I asked myself?  

I had never been to Haines, and although the tour books didn't have much to say on the subject, I decided that going south and toward the coast would at least get me a little bit away from the smoke. It was a fun little side trip.  It meant crossing the border into the US for a little while, and having to get out my US money and put the Canadian money away. But they had a hammer museum there! A museum full of only hammers – all sorts of hammers, from huge sledge hammers, to those that hammered around a corner (really!) to little tiny hammers that were used in the 1920's to signal for another drink at a nightclub (including the Cotton Club in Harlem!) to a child's Playskool hammering bench like my kids had when they were little! IT was fascinating to see all the variety of hammers the originator had collected. 

Hammer Museum

  

And there were eagles! Haines is home to the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve, and although the greatest gathering of eagles takes place in the fall, I saw quite a few of them, some sitting on sandbars in the river, others soaring overhead. The smoke had mostly disappeared as well, and that made breathing easier. 

Eagles fishing from a sandbar

The next morning I resumed my westward ramblings, but the smoke got worse.  At one rest stop, I talked to a couple of men who had just come from the direction I was going, and they said it got much worse, all the way to Tok, which was a very long drive.  I debated long and hard with myself, but ended going back to a campground I had seen about 30 miles back, and boy was that a good decision.  I was given a campsite right on the water of Kluane Lake, the campground had a place to wash dishes with hot water (yippee, clean dishes for a change), and that night there was a gathering on the deck with a husband/wife country western duo entertaining for about an hour. What a kick that was – most of the campers came and sat on the deck singing along, or clapping, and eventually dancing to the music! And that night it rained, and reduced the smoke significantly, enough that driving to Tok wasn't too bad. 

Smokey skies, but pretty meadows of fireweed along  the highway. 

But I'm going to stop here, and promise to start up again very soon.  I've got a lot more to tell!