This photo shows some of the damaged roads we experienced on our drive from Whitehorse Yukon to Beaver Creek Yukon. Notice the guardrail in the distance, that is what the road looked like before they repaved. Most of the road was like a continuous whoop de doo. Our average speed through this strech was about 40 mph. We still have about 60 miles of rough road left. We cheated and followed a truck pulling a fifth wheel trailer. As the truck and trailer bounced up and down off of the ground, we slowed down to avoid the same fate.

This is a view of Kluane Lake in the Yukon. Pictures and words truly do not do it justice. The scenery is just unbelieveable.

I caught Dug scratching his behind on the rocks of Muncho Lake at our camp site. He was scolded and sent back to the RV .... Bad Dog.


Dug, seen here trying to make up for the previous days issues, is plotting our next days activities as we do laundry in Whitehorse Yukon. Ok, I forgive you Dug. :-)

On the way to Whitehorse from Dawson Creek, we saw this Mama Bear with her three cubs munching on grass at the roadside. Very cute.

We will post more photos in the next few days as 3G network becomes available. We have photos of Buffalo, Stone Sheep, Porcupine and others to share.

Thanks for looking,

Vern, Sue & Dug

Just a quick note as we enter the Yukon Territory. We camped last night a Straberry Flats Provential Camp Ground. Dug found us a spot right on the lake. I will post photos in a day or two. We will be staying somewhere between Watson Lake, YT and Whitehorse, YT tonight. More info soon,
Thanks for looking,
Vern, Sue & Dug

Howdy fellow BLOGGER followers.

We left Dawson Creek (mile zero of the Alaskan Highway) this morning and drove 283 miles to Fort Nelson, BC. We had our first encounter with a moose. A baby moose jumped out of the tree line and right in front of our motor home. As Sue was yelling "LOOK OUT", I was jamming on the brakes. Sue, without missing a beat, was able to hang onto all the stuff she had in her lap, grab the camera and snap a few photos of the moose. After the moose ran out in front of the motor home, it turned and began running down the highway in front of us. After about 50 yards it decided it wanted nothing more to do with us and ran off into the trees. The look on its face was priceless.

About 50 miles later, we saw three moose grazing on the side of the highway. These were all adults and seemed to care less that we stopped and took there photos.

After arriving in Fort Nelson, we parked in an RV park, unhitched the car and drove around town. Pretty much everything in the town is closed due to the holiday. We decided to check out a local golf course and ended up playing 9 holes. We had a blast even though our scores were well above par. In other words very bad.

As we leave Fort Nelson in the morning, we will be traveling some remote stretches of the Alaskan Highway (gas stations are about 200 miles apart) and may not have cell service or 3G service for the Internet. So if you don't hear from us for 3 or 4 days don't worry.

Thanks for all the wonderful comments and keep them coming.

Vern, Sue & Dug

We left Prince George heading towards Dawson Creek knowing we would probably run into a lot of rain and maybe some snow.

About 100 miles from Dawson Creek we rain into light to moderate (does that sound familiar Fair workers!!) snow. No problem, but with the heavy snow we didn't see any wildlife.

Arrived in Dawson Creek and decided to stay at Walmart with the other (20) motorhomes. Very very cold. Today (5/23) Vern couldn't stand how dirty the motor home was and decided to take it for it's first bath.

This is the drive to Tumbler Ridge. It was partially sunny but still chilly (45 degrees). We wanted to go on a hike to see some prehistoric dinosaur tracks.

Of course Dug wanted to be the first one to see the dinosaur tracks. He also wanted to see how his paws matched up to theirs. In 2001 2 kids that were tubing down the river got out and stumbled onto the tracks. For you dinosaur buffs, they're ankylosaur tracks. They have found hundreds of these tracks.

We're staying another night at Walmart RV park. We've met a lot of nice people. The Canadians are very friendly. Vern usually has to come and get me as I'll be chatting away with the people inside the gas station or the laundromat!! We're heading to Fort Nelson in the morning. We're getting up early as we've heard that's the best time to see wildlife.

Day 9

It' been 9 days on the road and it feels like 2. We are having a wonderful time.

We found an out of the way golf course and hit the driving range. We did so well we decided to play 9 holes; what a beautiful course (see photo).

The weather has been great up until now. We parked overnight in the Walmart parking lot in Prince George. It rained all night and then sometime in the morning it started snowing. Not much stuck on the ground as the temp was about 35 degrees. (see photo).

We are now camped out in an RV Park just north of Prince George. We will be off to Dawson Creek in the morning (if it's not snowing).

We discovered that sunrise and sunset changes drastically as you drive north. Here in Prince George, sunrise is 5am and sunset is 9:20pm. When we get to Fairbanks in June, sunset is 12:34am and sunrise is a 3:09am. I think it will never actually get dark while we are there.

Thank all of you for the wonderful comments. It truly makes our day and we look forward to reading them.

Happy Birthday Vern!!! YeeeeeeHaaaawww!!

Hi Everyone,
After much research on the difference between the black bear and the grizzly, Vern and I believe we've seen our first grizzly!! It was very exciting and the bear just stood there watching us watch him/her. Thank goodness it was a grizzly because if it was a black bear all the information on the black bear is, "if the black bear starts to charge you...stand your ground." Well we'll let you know how that works out. We'll check on the grizzly because maybe it's okay to run like hell!! :) The bear sighting was about 100 miles north of Whistler.

We have finally seen our first rest stop (and using it for the evening) since the Canadian border.

Tomorrow we'll be in Prince George. Between the reststop and Prince George we should have lots of opportunity to see wild life.

Welcome home Mom, glad everything with the surgery went well!! :)

View from 1/3 of the way to the top of Whistler Mountain.

Day 6

Dug saw his first squirrel yesterday in Vancouver. We went to the Capilano Suspension Bridge (very cool) and while there Dug went after a squirrel and Vern had to hold him back.

Vancouver is a beautiful city. Very clean and everyone is very nice. I think the entire time we were there we heard 2 horn honks. It was supposed to rain on Sunday and Monday and so far no rain. We left Vancouver this a.m. and drove to Whistler which is about 80 miles away. What a beautiful drive. It's called the Sea to Sky drive on Hwy 99. We stopped at Shannon Falls, short maybe half mile walk to the falls. We saw this other trail up to Stawamus Chief Monolith which was only 1.5 miles and we thought cool, nice little walk. We started walking and it gradually started to incline. We then saw this "Danger, people die on this trail" sign and we tought hmmmm. Saw an older couple coming down and thought how bad could it be. They were with their much younger children who told us we should go a little further as it's absolutely beautiful but at some point it's almost straight up for 1,500 feet and towards the end you're using chains and ropes to get to the top...well that's all we needed to hear. It was a tough climb just getting to the "pretty bridge" :)

We're in Whistler right now and boy oh boy if I was 20, well maybe 30 years younger this is where I would be. Everyone is young here, all into adventure sports and the majority are from foreign countries, mostly Australia. They're here on student work visas and having the time of their lives. It's absolutely beautiful and still has lots of snow on the top. This weekend they're having a competition where you snowboard down and when you hit the dirt you get on your mountain bike. The camp ground we're staying in reminds me of New Zealand, just beautiful. It's about 75 degrees in the city and when we went to the top of the mountain (where the downhill, giant slalom, super-giant slalom and combined were held during the Olympics) it was probably 45 degrees. We're going to stay here for a couple of days and hike, ride our bikes and golf. That could all change as it's "supposed" to rain next couple of days...hey maybe our weather people come up here to retire!!

Day 3

Dug making friends with the truckers!

The first ting I want to say is WELCOME HOME Britanie!! There is truly no place like home.

Well we finally made it to Washington state and stopped at a rest area just south of Olympia. The views of Mt. Hood, Mt. Ranier and Mt. St. Helens were awesome. We've been averaging about 400 miles a day but this will slow down when we get north of the Canadian border.

The right lanes of the I-5 freeway in California were horrible. More potholes and dips than I would expect to experience on the Alaskan Highway. The freeways in Oregon and Washington have been great so far (keeping our fingers crossed).

Well Dug has yet to see a squirrel, a few birds and a lot of bugs on the windshield though, but we are keeping an eye out.

More info later as the adventure continues.

Bye for now,

Vern & Sue

Command Central!!

Day 2 of our trip.

We drove through some beautiful country. It's unbelievable how much water is in Lake Shasta. We were here for a family vacation 8-12 years ago (8 years is my opinion and 12 years is Vern's :) ). During that trip we had forest fires and the water level was down 15-20 feet. Today when we drove by the forest was a lush green and the water level was higher than the water mark!! I've attached a picture of Mt. Shasta.

We're staying in rest areas since we aren't really "sight seeing" until we get up to Washington. The rest areas in Oregon are really nice.

To answer John's quesions: No; No; Don't have a tracker yet...but Vern likes gadgets; 55mph; it's beautiful and between 70-80 degrees; don't know yet as we're not in Canada; Yes loved Dudley!!

Kathy some must haves: GPS very helpful, but what's more important is the navigator in the passenger seat who has an Atlas to really know where we're heading. XM radio, oh my gosh awesome. We've listened to more comedians than I thought possible. We also listened to the first few chapters of a James Patteson Women's Murder Series...now we have to tune in next Wednesday at 5:00 to hear the next few chapters.

We'll be in Washington tomorrow with a nice drive along the coast.

The adventure begins. Dug (our trusty mascot) taking his first photo at the beginning of our trip. More Dug photos to follow.

The first leg of our trip will take us to Vancouver British Columbia. From there we will begin exploring the must see parks and sites in Canada.

If you do not have an account to post a comment, please feel free to email us at mcgruff44@gmail.com.

We should be able to add to this BLOG every few days with text and pictures.

Thanks for looking.

Vern & Sue