Quilters, and Bobcats

After a day of housekeeping chores (laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning out the food boxes and the cooler) and a much needed nap, I left Whitehorse this morning for Stewart and Hyder, two small towns on the British Columbia coast, where a healthy salmon run attracts a lot of bears. There are viewing platforms, and you can apparently get pretty close to them without being in danger. It was a long drive, but there were some memorable things to remember. 

First was some pretty amazing scenery. This was actually on the road from Skagway to Whitehorse on Monday morning.  It was fairly early in the morning, and I thought this was such an iconic view of Alaska that I just had to stop and take several pictures.

But this morning, I geared up for the long drive (probably 400 miles or so), put on the audio book I've been listening to (volume 3 of the Outlander series – I've already listened to volumes 1 and 2) got my two cups of tea and a bottle of water handy, and set off. I was repeating part of the Alaska highway, from Whitehorse almost to Watson Lake.  It was pretty, and I was hoping for some wildlife, and wasn't disappointed.

About 20 miles south of Teslin, a big cat-like animal ran across the road.  I'm not up very much on my large cats, but I'm pretty sure this was a bobcat. It was the right size, and the right color (brownish gray). I wasn't able to take a picture because I was going 55 miles per hour and he was running pretty fast, but I braked and watched him cross the road and tried to impress the view on my brain.  I've never seen one of these in the wild, and I was pretty excited.

A bit further on a black bear was grazing alongside the road, just as peaceful as you please. 

I'm taking a slightly different route home – it's called the Cassiar Highway, and is a little more remote than the Alaska Highway.  Here's an example……and yes, I filled up just before I got to that sign!

A few miles down the road I went through an area that had a huge forest fire in 2010; there was a huge swath of mountainside, almost as far as I could see, that was burned. But regrowth is happening – this is why they call it fireweed.  I could hardly believe how beautiful these huge patches of fireweed looked in the burned forest.

I knew it was too far to get all the way to Stewart in one day, so decided to camp for the night at Dease Lake.  The Milepost had an ad for the Water's Edge campground, and it looked pretty nice. I pulled in, filled out the registration, and started to my campsite, when I was stopped in my tracks by a sign – "Quilter's Parking Only – all others will be Stitched in the Ditch".  Wow – the owner's wife is a quilter, and we spent a couple of hours this evening getting acquainted over tea.  What a great finish to a very interesting day.  Yes, I gave her the book!!

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