Miles traveled: 437
Total miles traveled: 1983
There is absolutely NOTHING else anywhere near the Northern Rockies Lodge, and they know it! After we woke up and packed up we took a look at the restaurant menu and decided breakfast wasn't worth THAT much. A bowl of cereal was almost $6 and that didn't include the milk. We had granola bars, juice boxes, and water bottles in the car. So we agreed to skip breakfast, get on the road and eat a big lunch in Watson Lake. By cutting breakfast out we ended up getting a much earlier start than we had planned, which was very nice.
Muncho Lake was absolutely beautiful. The cloudy skies didn't allow for a great picture of the dazzling green of the water. We spend a few minutes enjoying the lake and then we were on our way.There is lots of wildlife to be seen along the highway. One animal we were hoping to see was the Wood Bison. Just outside Muncho Lake we got our wish. First we saw this big guy on one side of a two lane bridge. It was both amazing and intimidating to see such a large animal up close.
On the other side of the bridge and a little way up the road we found this group of Wood Bison sunning themselves in a large, open, grassy area. We pulled off the road and took several pictures, a video, and made sure the boys got to take a good look at the herd.
Watson Lake is home to the famous Sign Post Forest. The sign post forest has been in existence since the Alcan was being build. Story goes that in 1942, during the construction of the highway, a homesick construction worker put up a sign showing how many miles to his home town. Many other people followed suit and so the forest began.
It's pretty amazing to look at. There are population signs, welcome signs, license plates and other forms of signage from all over the world. The boys ran around checking out all the cool things and looking for familiar signs. It was a nice stop to stretch our legs and burn of some energy.
Another view of the signpost forest. The place was immense and quite interesting. If we'd had more time we might have taken a closer look. However we were wasting no time so after a brief investigation we were off to gas up and hit the road.Now keep in mind we have now been in Canada for almost 10 days. We've been filling up on gas daily, staying in hotels all over Canada, eating out and shopping. Most, if not all, of this spending had been done one one credit card. We hadn't had any problems at all until Watson Lake. When I went inside the convenience store to pay for our gas the card was denied. We figured it was because of the unusual activity, although we were all a little surprised it had taken this long to happen. The real problem was that the lady in the store was not at all patient or understanding of the situation. In fact she was down right rude. We paid with a different card and left quickly.
After leaving Watson Lake we made very few stops, mostly because there was NO PLACE to stop, on our way to Whitehorse. By the time we arrived in Whitehorse the excitement and anticipation of reaching Fairbanks tomorrow was almost unbearable. We were all ready to be done with the driving, done with hotels, done with eating out and off the road. ONE more day and we would be DONE!
Catch up on Parts 1 - 9 of our Adventure to Alaska
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
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