Day 14 July 13, 2014

Day 14  July 13, 2014

After a really wonderful night of sleep at the kilometer 80 rest stop I awoke to fire up my tiny sterno-powered stove to boil up water for a breakfast of instant oatmeal and hot tea.  My skills at breaking down the tent and repacking the motorcycle each morning are  improving but to deal with the myriad of tasks that have to be accomplished in the correct order still takes about 1 ½ hours from start to finish before I can drive away from a camping location “taking nothing but memories and leaving nothing but footprints.”

Today’s ride will be another very long one, to make up for the extra day that I spent in Calgary to see the Shania Twain concert. Fortunately, I have a room reserved in the town of Watson Lake in The Yukon, just north of the border with the top of the province of British Columbia.

Today’s ride encompassed heavily wooded regions of northwestern Alberta and northeastern British Columbia, taking me through the small town of Fort Nelson for a pleasant lunch, watching the FICA World Cup Finals game first half (Germany vs Argentina) as about the only population center on today’s route.  I encountered several road construction zones, each with foreboding signage declaring “Loose Gravel,” warning “Motorcyclists Use Extreme Caution,” and the ever-popular “Extreme Dust Conditions Ahead.”  The flagging individual at each site would always wave motorcyclists (me) to the front of the line, allowing me to follow directly behind the pilot truck that would slowly guide the northbound traffic through the construction site after the southbound traffic passed us by to minimize the shower of dirt, stones, and dust kicked up that I had to encounter.  Negotiating the potholes, loose gravel, and wash-board surface conditions was no joke on my street bike with street tires and loaded with a full month of gear plus camping equipment and I bottomed out the rear mono shock on the motorcycle a number of times, but managed to stay upright.

A high point of today’s ride was encountering the gorgeous Lake Muncho, in British Columbia, less than 100 miles from the border with the Yukon.  The outstanding warm, blue-sky weather that I again was super lucky to be experiencing helped to color the waters of Lake Muncho an incredibly beautiful, clear, deep jade color that I have never seen before in my life and times.  Despite my telling myself, “enough photos, no more, keep going,” time after time, I would round another bend and view another vista that forced me to eat my own thoughts and stop for more photos to lock in the memory of this “Wow” place.  What a sin to have to keep moving when every emotion in me said to “stop here; don’t let this place, this moment be rushed” but finally I had to keep to my schedule to reach my room in Lake Watson.

Finally crossing the border into the Yukon Territory was another milestone for the day.  During the final 50 miles into Lake Watson, I encountered numerous bear sightings and three clusters of bison at the side of B.C. Route 97 / Yukon Route 1.  The bison couldn’t have cared less that I had arrived in their personal zip code and required them to pose for my photos. 

I finally arrived at Lake Watson at about 09:30 P.M., still in bright sunshine, and checked in with German-born Mike, proprietor of the Air Force Base Motel in a structure originally built to house military personnel and later converted into his small motel.  He pointed to shoes laid out in the reception area and told me that his motel was a “no-shoes-only” establishment while in the building to keep the dust and dirt of the Al-Can Highway out of his very clean motel.  Mike was pleased that Germany had won the World Cup game this day, having spoken to relatives in Germany earlier and he described for me their wild and joyous celebrations there.  I complied with the “shoes off” policy, unpacked, and was soon asleep.