Day Eight - Watson Lake, YT to Whitehorse. YT

Day Eight – June 13, 2008

Yesterday, we departed British Columbia and entered the Yukon Territory (YT). This morning we had breakfast in the best restaurant in town, actually, it was the only restaurant in town.

Today was an easy riding day, in terms of miles. We departed Watson Lake, YT, at 1000 hours, headed for Whitehorse, 264 miles away. It was a difficult day in terms of riding conditions. It rained on and off all day, and when it wasn’t raining, the dust from the gravel was blowing across the highway. If you have never ridden a motorcycle on wet gravel or a wet steel road surface on a bridge, you have not really experience motorcycle riding.

Surprisingly, today was not a good day for sighting wild animals. In fact, the only two animals we saw all day was a stuffed Badger in the Good Sam Campground restaurant in Teslin, YT, and a black Labrador standing adjacent to the Alaskan Highway. Teslin’s claim to fame is the longest span bridge on the Alaskan Highway, seven spans—see photo.

We’ve had no cell phone service for two days now. Some of us are suffering withdrawals.

I would have never believed that I could put $24.00 worth of regular gasoline in a five gallon Harley-Davidson tank, but we’re paying between $5.50 and $6.00 a gallon for gasoline. Premium 91 octane gas is not available along the highway in many places.

We have read that some people think the Alaskan Highway is a boring drive, and in some places it is just miles and miles of highway and trees, but the grandeur and magnificence of this land is beyond description; you have to see it in person to fully appreciate it. Our digital cameras cannot possibly capture the width and depth of this scenic landscape.

We did have a good laugh today. While walking out of the restaurant after lunch we encountered a lady running in from the rain. I told her that in California we call it liquid sunshine; she replied that they do the same in Hawaii. Simultaneously, a young man walking to his car at the gas pump replied without even looking up, “In Bend (Oregon) we call it Tuesday.”

We ended our day at Whitehorse Harley-Davidson where John had his bike looked at even though it had been running well, since the electrical failure yesterday. They determined that the main electrical circuit breaker was malfunctioning and replaced it.

We had Chinese dinner and found a campground in Whitehorse with some small cabins for the night. It’s now 2300 hours, the sun is just setting and we’re finally washing a week’s worth of dirty clothes, swatting mosquitoes, and looking forward to going to bed.

To date, we have traveled more than 3,000 miles since leaving Santa Clarita and have traversed more than half of the Alaskan Highway. Tomorrow, we should finally reach Alaska, after nine days of riding. Hopefully, US Customs will treat us as well Canadian Customs did—we’ll see.