Expensive gas and a huge cinnamon bun on the way to Whitehorse

Monday morning July 9 we were up at 8.30 and managed to get into the ferry lineup by 10:30. We had planned to see and do a lot more in Dawson city like the midnight dome, dredge tours and the paddlewheel graveyard but with the kids both getting sick Saturday and Joshua getting hurt Sunday we couldn't,

So I went to the hardware store for a few tools to try and do a wheel alignment since I was still having issues with that but they didn't have what I needed. I bought a couple things to try and make do with but they weren't what I wanted and very expensive. $3 in the usa = $5in Edmonton = $15 in Dawson city...

We didn't get out of town until after noon and had to make it 530km to our next campsite in Whitehorse while sightseeing along the way. I started looking for paved pullouts to check my wheel alignment but after quite a while realized that there was no such thing so changed my camber and toe settings in the dirt with a tape measure and 2 shelving brackets...

The drive was scenic and nice, but the road was generally quite narrow and there were a lot of construction stops.

Short video of the Yukon scenery and a road construction crew working!!!!

 We fueled up in Pelly crossing at 4pm and found an abandoned campground to have lunch at. We shared the old picnic shelter with a guy who  was from Argentina and flew out here to tour. He was around 70 years old and he buys international health insurance for 6 weeks every year and flies somewhere with his bike and just bikes for 6 weeks and flies back. The next year he starts again from where he left off until he finishes that country or continent or whatever.. He ended in Vancouver last year so this year he went back and started there a month ago and is biking to Tuktoyaktuk. Then biking back to Dawson city where he gets a bus ride to anchorage for a flight back home. He made it 2,700km (1,700 miles) from Vancouver to Pelly crossing which is almost all mountains in one month by himself and he is 70. Julie and I were both impressed. He had another 2 weeks to bike to Tuktoyaktuk and back to Dawson city which is 2,000km (1,250miles) and get a bus to Anchorage which is a 1,600km bus ride and probably takes 2 days out of his 2 weeks left. I hope he made it or at least didn't get hurt if he didn't make it before his health insurance expired. I asked him if he ever got hurt bad while doing this and he said only once. He went over his handlebars and broke a bone in Taiwan but it was ok because they have nice hospitals. We enjoyed talking to him even though we couldn't have the best or fastest conversation since English was not a language he was fluent in. It was interesting how he packed and planned food. He carried hardly anything with him I thought but bikes very long distances with nowhere to buy food. From what I understand of the road from Dawson City to Inuvik its almost 800km with maybe one place in-between to get food. One persons crazy is another persons adventure.

We left our lunch spot around 5pm and drove to Braeburn Lodge next. The travel guide said they had world famous cinnamon buns so we stopped and since the kids were sleeping and we needed to keep driving I asked Julie to run in and get 4 so we could see what they were all about. She came back with one. It was $10 and HUGE! it fed all of us. 

 

We rolled in to Whitehorse at 8.30pm, fuelled up , I dropped Julie off at a laundromat while i went grocery shopping with kids. Finally back in a decent sized town! First time since Fairbanks. It was quarter after 10 when we finished at the laundromat and figured we would just roll into the nearby campground and set up for the night. The first campground was full, then the first rv park was full, we went to the one that we stayed in before and they were full. We started driving down the highway and found another campground that technically was full. They had one empty spot that said it was for handicapped camping only. Our second time around I got out to read the little sign and it said if it was after 11pm that site was open to anyone so we took it! We had the Kids in bed at 12:45, ourselves at 1.30am. 

Joshua did pretty good today. He was a bit whiney but really not bad considering what happened and how long he had to sit in his carseat and how sick he was as well. He left his bandage mostly alone which was a relief.