Sharp's Travels

We were up at 5:30 am this morning. We have loss our first hour due to the time zones. No one else had pulled off in this turn-off with us last night. It was 37 degrees this morning and Gay had to scrape the frost off the windshield. It’s time to head south.

Stopped at Teslin to top off the gas tank and then on down the Alaskan Highway towards Watson Lake. For the most part we have the road to ourselves. We only see a car once in a while.

The sides of the road are lined with tall, skinny pines. So far a rabbit is the only wild life we’ve seen.

In the Milepost book at mile marker 1118 I read about mouth watering cinnamon rolls at the Continental Divide Lodge. It was time for a break so we stippped in for coffee & cinnamon roll. It was a neat old log building and the rolls were delicious.

Another mile post find about 65 miles down the road was the Rancheria Falls. It had a gravel path and then a board walk path of about 1/3 mile back in to the falls. We needed the exercise after those rolls anyway. It was real pretty back by the falls.

It is only 11am and the temperature has gone up to 61 degrees. It was another heat wave for us.

The lakes along the highway are like glass. You get the reflection of the trees and mountains back in the water. They were beautiful. Another screen saver Nikki.

We made a stop in Watson Lake at the visitor’s center. We checked out their museum on building of the Alaskan Highway. They had neat old pictures. I spotted a black bear along the roadside. Unfortunately this rig doesn’t stop on a dime so we were too far by for pictures. At least we both got to see it.

We are now seeing lots of birch along the highway. It’s a refreshing chance from fur trees.

We stopped at Allen’s Lookout for a beautiful view of Liard River with Goat Mountain in the background. It sure was pretty.

Just up the road, there was a herd of between 50 or 60 bison grazing along the highway. There were lots of little ones in the herd.

Best of all 2 little black bears were eating the bear candy (clover) right along the road. We pulled up and stopped. We took lots of pictures. They didn’t seem to mind that we were there. We stayed about 20 minutes just taking picture after picture and watching them eat.

My wild life card is filled for today----3 black bears, 65 to 70 bison altogether and I mustn’t forget the rabbit that started it all! Love it.

We stopped at the Liard River Hot Springs Provincial Park. It was a short walk on the boardwalk down to the pools. There are 2 hot spring pools with water temperatures ranging from 108 degrees to 126 degrees. There were 3 levels to the pool. Lots of people were soaking in it. You could smell the sulfur from the springs. I put my hand in the water and I probably wouldn’t last 5 minutes in it before I was too hot! There was no charge to view the pools, only if you were going to use them.

We didn’t go too much further before we pulled over and boom docked for the night.

It did get up to a warping 71 degrees today!
For pictures of the day see album: Johnson’s Crossing to Liard 8-16-08