May 31, Fourteen Bears and a Hare

Getting up early this morning paid off because there was so much wildlife on the sides of the Alaskan Highway.  In our journey today, we saw 14 black bear and a hare. J  One of the bears was a grizzly!  We saw lots of bison grazing along the highway, along with sheep, caribou, moose, and elk.  It was a pretty exciting trip today.  One sad thing was a dead bison, hit by a vehicle, and not far down the highway was a baby bison wondering along the road all by itself.   Poor thing; but I guess that is nature.

We had to stop and have breakfast at the Northern Rockies Lodge on Muncho Lake.  Last time we stopped, we had lunch and it cost $50 for burgers and fries!  This time breakfast was a deal….$33 for eggs, potatoes, sausages, and the waiter gave us free coffee.  The lodge gets groceries twice a week from 800 miles away.  They figure, by the time the groceries get to them they are 60% higher.  To buy gasoline there is $1.99 a liter!  

Glad we didn’t have to fill up there.

Muncho Lake is probably the most beautiful lake we have ever seen.  It still had ice on parts of it when we stopped.  The waiter said that one of the lodge’s planes was bringing people in later today.  They were hoping the winds would come up and push the ice to the other side of the lake so they can land 

in the water in front of the lodge.

The water looks so turquoise due to the fragments scraped from the glaciers.  Some of this sediment sinks to the bottom; but some remain suspended in the water which 

reflects back the color green to our eyes.

I thought we were getting out of the mountains…then around the corner were some more mountain peaks.  These are called The Northern Rockies of British Columbia.  They were beautiful and our GPS was squawking again…”winding road ahead, winding road ahead, winding road ahead!”  

Camping at Fort Nelson, BC.  For the past 3 night the campgrounds said that they had Wi-Fi and they “LIE!” Tomorrow night we will check first to see if the internet works before we pay for the ameneties they really don’t have!  

Unhappy camper! Blogs are backing up! 

Without computers…you find other things to do.  We walked over to this neat museum next to the campground.  It had a lot of history of the area, old buildings, old machinery…old everything.  There was an old guy there that had a collection of old cars.  He told us an old story about him and the old Buick below.

The car on the right, the old man said he drove from Whitehorse to Fort Nelson.  It took him 3 days to make the nearly 500 mile trip in that 100 year old car.  The only scary encounter he said was when a buffalo ran along side the car for about a half mile.  

I think seeing this Willys has brought back memories of the Willys Bill had at one time.  I can read that smile.

You take my picture....

 ...and I'll take yours.