2004/08 Yukon trip - The road home - |
|||||
We were pleased to find that the road works on the Hump had been finished.
Some of these paragraphs and pictures are only available via the family's userids and passwords |
Thursday 26th August
This was a working day. I spent the day fixing up the camper, tightening up screws and plumbing. Sandie was doing laundry, shopping, and having a haircut.
We also got to watch some Olympics, a rare event for us as we’ve been away for most of last few games. There wasn’t all that much for the Canadians to cheer, but they all seemed to enjoy watching the Americans lose. There was some confusion about the competitors’ tee shirts that said “Canada” in the Greek alphabet, as there was an additional sigma character at the end. It was, of course, the Greek symbol for “Eh?”
Friday 27th August
Our son-in-law had the day off and took us in all in his pickup truck to Labour Day Lake for a hike and picnic. There is currently no logging in the area, so the main logging road out towards Arrowsmith had been allowed to deteriorate, and it was a lot worse than the last time I’d driven it. Further up the mountain, part of the road had been decommissioned and the culverts ripped out so we were bouncing across all those transverse ditches. The road was also heavily overgrown so the truck was in tree whacking mode.
After all that, we had a good day. The rain held off for the hike and the lake was pretty even though low clouds hid the surrounding mountains. He had tried to camp on this lake last year but gave up when the rain became torrential. It’s located just below the peaks that separate the rainy west coast from the drier east coast, so this is where those Pacific storm clouds empty themselves.
Saturday 28th August
Our plan was to head out over the coastal mountains to Long Beach for some surfing, but the trip was delayed. Soon afterwards the sky in that direction turned black, so we went blackberrying along the Log Train Trail instead. Clearly the bears had got there first as many of the bushes were flattened. This made it easier for us to get into the middle of the patch, but the bears had eaten most of the crop. Much of what was left had either dried out in the drought or gone mushy in the recent rains. However, we collected enough for dessert for one meal.
Sunday 29th August
I tried to get back on my marathon training schedule, but ran out of steam after a couple of hours of running, probably an after effect of the cold. The sun came out and we took the dogs for a walk along Cherry Creek. Rogan was glad to be out, but his exercise still had to be limited until he’s recovered from both his leg surgeries. This meant that Gracie could leap in and out of the creek, while he had to stay on the leash. On the deck he would wander around with his frisbee looking for someone to throw it for him, but of course nobody would. He looked a very sad dog.
Monday 30th August
I spent a few contorted hours putting the exhaust pipe back onto the generator. By lying under the sewage tank I could just reach the clamp with my arm between the tank and the generator, but the whole repair had to be done without ever seeing the manifold I was attaching it to! Sandie was happy to have use of the microwave back. I didn’t get any closer though to finding the source of the graunching noise we hear on bumpy left-hand bends. This noise had started early in the trip and had been worrying us ever since.
In the afternoon, we went over to Stamp Falls again, this time to see the fish coming up the fish ladder. There was a steady stream of medium sized salmon coming through. They appeared to be sockeye, still a silvery blue as they hadn’t gone far enough upstream to get their spawning colours of red and green.
Tuesday 31st August
I was asking my daughter about running on the trail to Lacy Lake, but she didn’t think it would be a good choice for solo running because of the bear and cougar population. So, I went running on the safer and familiar Log Train Trail and immediately met a bear! The bear was running up the mountain and across the trail. I assume that he’d seen me, but in the gloom under the trees I didn’t see him until he crossed the trail in front of me.
Next