USA! USA!

Sadly, not even surprising in the slightest.

Robots

Egads! Last day of vacation...

(Warning: Lots of pics in this post. Give it time to load...)

Sigh.

'Tis the last day of vacation, and thus far it has been spent eating breakfast, lazing around, and playing Scrabble with Steph and her brother.

Actually, that's a pretty good summary of the last week - seeing as how I haven't updated much since the 10th.

With the exception of a couple days, pretty much all we've done is laze around, relax, amble into town for a bit then amble back. It's been glorious to do absolutely nothing.

However, there have been a couple of adventures to tell about.

We were planning on going to Dawson City on Saturday, but there was heavy smoke from forest fires in Whitehorse and apparently it got worse the farther North you went, and Dawson was apparently enveloped with smoke. Considering Steph's asthma and the fact that she's pregnant (oh, yeah, by the way for those of you who don't know, I'm going to be a Dad in January), we decided it was not a good idea to head up there.

So insdead, we just laid around doing nothing. It was wonderful. I did, however, play golf at a very nice little golfcourse just outside of Whitehorse. A quaint little par-36 9 hole course. I played relatively well, +2 through the first 6 holes, until I exploded on a tricky 7th hole and then proceeded to completely lose my game, finishing quite horribly to end at +6.

Anyway, like I said, there were two very exciting journeys which we took, which are detailed below.

Journey 1: Monday August 15 (this was the drive)
A drive to Kluane National Park and Destruction Bay

Since the smoke was starting to clear up in Whitehorse, we decided that Monday (a local holiday) would be a good day to journey into Kluane national park.

The first stop on the drive was Haines Junction - a typical, tiny, depressed Yukon town. Perhaps the only notable things about Haines Junction were the wasps that would congregate around the front of your car, feasting on the splattered bug remains - the instant we stopped the car anywhere, before you could even get out. There would easily be 20 or 30 wasps. Thankfully, they were more interested in the dead bugs than they were us.

The only other thing notable about this place was the little "snack stand" that we stopped at. We ordered a cheeseburger, fries and a can of ginger ale. Total cost? $14.00.

So we then filled up with gas (I never thought I would say "thank god" I was driving a Kia Rio, but it only cost $35 to fill the tank ... and at $1.145 a litre, that's a good thing - the highest we saw anywhere was $1.165 per litre) and headed North-West towards Kluane and the mysterious "Destruction Bay".

Unfortunately, as we got further north, the smoke intensified. However, we still managed to see some interesting sights along the way, like this:

Well, I guess you've still got to train them, snow or no snow...

The drive continued and I became more and more disappointed that we were missing these great vistas and panoramas because of all the smoke.

We approached a turnoff towards "Kluane Lake B&B", which we decided would be interesting to check out. I'm very glad we did. On the way in, we passed by a very fascinating abandoned village. There were probably around 10 or 15 abandoned log cabins, some abandoned kennels, and whatnot. It was quite interesting, albeit a bit creepy at the same time.

View of an abandoned house, taken from the "backyard"

This house was very big - it was either some sort of community house, or it was a rich person's house. I figure this as it has shingles for a roof, instead of dirt with trees growing from it.

Shot of a few of the houses, with an abandoned and rusting truck in the background.

Beyond the abandoned village was Kluane Lake, which was stunningly beautiful, not to mention huge. It may have been the smoke and haze which made it look bigger than it was, since you couldn't see the end sometimes (the mountains disappearing into the haze) but even with that taken into consideration, it was still a pretty big lake.

The water was unbelievably blue and clear; from some angles it looked like we were in the Carribean. It wasn't actually very cold either, I wanted to jump right in, but didn't.

The rest of the trip was somewhat uneventful, although the views were nice. None of the pictures turned out particularly well, and Destruction Bay - which I had hoped would be somewhere interesting, based on the name - was not interesting at all and instead was a gas station, small school, restaurant, a car repair garage, and some houses.

On the way back, we did get lucky to get our first sight of wildlife on the trip - a beautiful eagle. Unfortunately, the eagle was quite a ways off and even with my zoom lens, I wasn't able to get very close to him before he flew away. Nevertheless, I did get this decent shot (fixed up a bit with Photoshop):

And so, that was about it for this journey.

Our next journey was much more eventful, exciting, and offered many more opportunities for photographs.

Journey 1: Tuesday August 16
A drive to Skagway, Alaska and a ride on the White Pass & Yukon Route

On Tuesday we rose early, at about 6:30am, showered, drove down to Tim Horton's for some breakfast, and then headed south towards Skagway. This was the same drive we had done earlier on the vacation, but this time we intentionally left very early so we would have lots of time to stop and take pictures, poke around, etc. I had also made reservations for the "Summit Excursion" of the YR&WP railway for the princely sum of $89usd per person. The train was scheduled to leave at 12:45, Skagway time, which was 1 hour behind Whitehorse. So we had plenty of time.

The initial parts of the drive aren't very interesting, although just as you leave Carcross you come up on this creepy old abandoned ... something. There are no signs to explain what it is, but it appeared to possibly be an old gas station, or perhaps something related to mining (turns out, after doing some research, it is an old processing mill for a nearby mine).

Again, this was slightly surreal, creepy, and fascinating all at the same time.

As you crossed the border into BC, you find that the scenery changes (as I mentioned in my last post) into something much more interesting and beautiful. Crystal clear glacial lakes surrounding rocky islands and terrain, covered with pine trees each at most six feet high. However, and this was cause for concern at the time - there was some fog. And then there was more fog. And then there was even more fog, so thick and heavy you could barely see the road ahead. Giant tour buses would emerge from the fog and zoom past on the other side of the highway, going (it seemed) way too fast for the conditions.

This was about all you could see in front of you.

The fog didn't clear up much at all as we descended towards Skagway, but we were still able to get a shot of the "spectacular" Bridal Veil Falls. These falls were apparently "stunning", according to some tourist info we had read about them. While the falls were certainly very nice, I wouldn't classify them as "stunning":

The fog, along with a longer exposure, combine to make what I think is a very nice effect.

We continued the descent towards Skagway, getting across the border no problem. We also descended out of the fog, which was good, although I was worried our trip on the WP&YR would be worthless if the fog didn't fade, as the train goes as high as we were on the road.

As you approach Skagway, you can take the opportunity to drive over to the starting point of the Chilkoot Trail, a famous mining route. So we decided to drive towards it. Unfortunately, the start of the trail is nothing particularly interesting, as it's just a trail off to the side of the road. We didn't have time to explore it at all. However, the drive was certainly worthwhile as we got to see more wildlife. Specifically, a family of either seals or sea otters (difficult to tell since it was just their heads peeking over the water - but I figure they were probably sea otters), and another eagle, this one thankfully I was able to get nice and close to (although there was barely any light thanks to the sun, to the picture didn't turn out too great):

This is all you ever saw of them. You'd think he could have been friendly and done a flip or something. Sheesh. How rude.

Managed to get this one just as he was landing in the tree.

Again, had to do some photoshopping to brighten it up a bit, as there was very little light at the time - it was a quick edit, too, so it didn't turn out very good, pretty blotchy.

All right. Next it was on to the train. This train is an "engineering marvel" - it took 2 years, 2 months & 2 days to build and climbs nearly 3,000 feet in under 30 miles. The line has a grade of on average 2%, with a maximum of 3.2% - which apparently, if you're an engineer, means something and it's very impressive.

Anyway, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Into the tunnel we go...

This was the train ahead of us going over a bridge.

Remember the "spectacular" Bridal Veil Falls? Turns out that where I took that first pic was just the start of it. It then tumbles 3,000 feet more into the valley below. Nice.

This used to be the world's largest steel cantilever (not sure if I spelled that right) in the world. It's no longer in use - the train goes through a tunnel instead.

That's it for the pictures from the WP&YR - if you're ever in Whitehorse, or near Skagway - do yourself a favour and take this train ride. It is one of the most spectacular things I've ever seen, both from a scenery and "holy shit they put a train up here" perspective.

We hung around Skagway for a while, but it's nothing impressive - just a huge tourist trap for all the cruise ship tourists. It was an interesting mix, though, of cheap junk and over-the-top jewelry shops ($55,000 ring, anyone? $15,000 watch?).

And so we began the journey back to Whitehorse. The fog cleared up, which was great as we were able to see some more spectacular scenery and some more wildlife. Again, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves on this one:

We really could not believe our eyes at this one - a family of bears. Looks like a mom bear, a teen and two cubs, but its hard to tell. They ran across the highway right in front of our car, and thanks to the zoom lens, we managed to get a bunch of shots of them. We stopped at the side of the road and did not get out of the car, even though they were quite far away.

They then climbed back over the guardrail behind us and ran across the highway again, then disappearing into the valley below.

The crystal clear blue water and unusual terrain of this area is amazingly beautiful.

And so, the sun begins to set on this vacation, and soon it is time to return to the real world...

More vacation updates...

Sweet, sweet, vacation. It's been nice over the last few days not having anything to do at all.

So, here's some summary of what has happened...

Sunday August 7th

Sunday was a relatively quiet day, although not as completely quiet as Saturday. Steph's brother and I got in the car and decided to make a trek down to "Annie Lake Golf Course", a local course built (people think) by the military in the 1950's for entertainment, and it's now been "maintained" by the community ever since.

It features "pasture" golf (i.e. no real fairway to speak of), packed sand greens which must be raked once you're done, and is just $2 to play. So we figured it would be a good deal and we headed on down, it's about a 40 minute drive through some beautiful scenery.

Once there, we encountered exactly what I expected, and exactly what I had described above. After plunking our toonies into the little box (there is no staff at the golf course and you pay on the honour system), we teed it up and let it rip.

The sign welcoming you to Annie Lake Golf Course

Unfortunately, what they neglected to include on the sign was "18 holes of golf while being devoured by literal swarms of blackflies". Now, I thought I had bugspary in my golf bag, but it turns out I didn't, and to be honest with you I don't think it would have made a difference anyways.

Literally, we were assaulted at every moment, whether we were moving or not, by swarms of biting, hungry blackflies. It was so unbelievably bad that we quit after 3 holes, and I returned to Whitehorse to watch the welts start to rise - about 15 in total - on my arms, neck, and face. Vicious, huge swollen welts that itched like hell.

Thankfully, the 2 other courses in the area are not "pasture" golf and I'll have bugspray with me this time. Hopefully the bugs will be less nasty.

Other than that, Sunday was pretty uneventful, I lounged around the house, ate, and generally got more relaxed. Watched "In Good Company", which nobody liked except me.

Monday August 8th

Monday was yet again another quiet day. We wandered around main street in Whitehorse, ate from the local Boston Pizza (no different than anywhere in Calgary, except that they have the American menu, which is slightly different than the Canadian one), and then wandered off to Miles Canyon, which is just a couple of kilometers from Whitehorse.

The pictures did not turn out well and did not do the canyon justice. While not awe-inspiring, the sheer cliffs into the crystal clear blue river below were pretty neat.

The water was so clear and blue I wanted to jump right in...

That's about it, actually, for Monday. Nathan and I tried to go play pool at the local pool hall but it was closed on Mondays, so I came back home (Steph had gone for cake with her mom and mom's friend) and played videogames on the Playstation until they came home. Then we watched "Spanglish" which, following the trend, nobody liked except me.

Tuesday August 9th

Ah, the first big adventure of the trip. (This was the drive)

We decided to hop in the car around 11am and head on down to Skagway. Lack of photo ID be damned!

The drive to Skagway is around 170km, so just shy of 2 hours. The first half of the drive is through some pretty scenery, although nothing that is unbelievable or can't be seen elsewhere (if you've ever driven around the Invermere/Radium/Farimont area of British Columbia, you've seen the majority of the Southern Yukon landscape).

An interesting experience (which will have more relevance later), was after about an hour's worth of driving, and when Steph's mom had thankfully slowed down from 150kph (which, when you're in the back seat of a KIA RIO going that fast, on Yukon roads which are notorious for having no guardrails, is a slightly unnerving experience), we came up on a friendly police cruiser going the other way. Now at this point we were doing about 110kph, which is either 20 or 10 over the limit (depends on where you are on the road and I can't remember). Thankfully, the cruiser just flashed his roof lights as a warning and carried on his way. We heeded the warning by declaring "Well that's the only cop on the road today, so we're free and clear."

Anyway, once you get into British Columbia (you end up in the north-north-north-west corner of the province, just above the US border), the scenery changes drastically into something you've probably never seen before. It is utterly stunning - barely any trees taller than 3 feet tall, lots of rock and brush, and tons and tons of tiny lakes. Unfortunately, we were running short on time and Steph was getting hungry, so we didn't stop too many times for photos, but here's a quick glimpse:

Looking east, the sun unfortunately wasn't in the best spot so this is a bit washed out

This is looking back North towards Whitehorse
Anyway, one of the girls who worked at the Canadian Customs Checkpoint was a friend of Steph's mom, so she was kind enough to call ahead to the US border control and ask if they would let me through. The official word was "maybe" so we decided to chance it.

We continued to drive through more and more spectacular scenery, and I got more and more disappointed that we were short on time and couldn't stop (unfortunately, Steph's mom had some clients to meet in the evening, so we needed to pay attention to the clock), but I did manage to get a couple more shots close to the border:

This is probably one of the most stunning panoramas I've ever seen; I wanted to climb down the side of the hill and go wander around by the waterfall...

Zoom shot of the waterfall.

Once we got to the Border, the border guard looked at my Birth Cirtificate, asked me where I lived, and then let us through (he didn't even look at Steph's documentation or her Mom's). This made us happy as we were starving hungry.

So we then, after about 15 minutes, entered Skagway. Skagway appears to only exist as a stop for cruise ships. There were about 4 or 5 of them in port at the time, and as such the main streets of Skagway were literally JAMMED with people. Even if we had time to stay (which we didn't), I wouldn't have wanted to. The shops looked very interesting (except for the tourist trap ones), but the crowds were too much.

We found a tiny little pizza joint which served delicious thin-crust pizza, which we quickly devoured and then hopped back in the car for the drive home (sigh).

On the way out, Stephanie and I resolved that next week, we'll leave Whitehorse at about 6am and head down to Skagway again, taking time to grab some photos on the way which do justice to the scenery (also, the sun will be better positioned), and we'll be able to spend some time in Skagway.

We may also take the White Pass & Yukon Route rail tour, which is one of those "how the hell did they build a rail line through these mountains" kind of things which I find fascinating. Here's a snap:

Its hard to tell from this angle, but you can see the train is on a bit of a cliff - imagine now that you can look down (we're on the other side of the canyon, this shot was taken with my zoom lens at about 250mm), and you would see the bottom of the canyon maybe, I don't know, 1,000 feet below... thing you have to remember about this rail line is that Skagway is sea-level, and by the time you reach the border crossing (20 minute drive), you're at 3500 feet. Quite the climb.

I'm not sure if we'll do it though, as it is quite the expensive tour, around $150usd per person, apparently.

Anyway, so we're making our way back to Whitehorse. After we get about half the way away, I look down at my speedometer and notice I'm going quite a bit over the speed limit, and start to slow down. Just as the cop coming the other way (pretty sure it was the same guy as before) flashes his lights and starts to turn around on the highway.

Damn.

So, I pull over (and of course, this couldn't be worse, right? Since I don't actually have a Driver's Licence right now - just the stupid temporary licence you get when your current licence expires), the cop gets out and leans in and starts talking. I was going 114kph, in a 90 (I think) zone. Not good.

He asks where I'm from. (Calgary) What am I doing here? (Vacation) What's with the licence? (Temporary licence, etc.) Do you have a radar detector? (no way) Are you sure? (Uh, yes, at this point Steph's mom pipes up, "Where would we put it?", a good question considering we're driving the tiniest car on earth). He replies that he thinks I have one since I started slowing down once I came around the corner. (I reply, well, I was actually already slowing down because I realized I was going too fast...) At this point, he gives me back my licence, growls "SLOW DOWN" and walks away.

Whew.

Anyway, that was it for the drive... we got back safely, Nathan and I hit the pool hall, and life continued as normal.

Wednesday August 10th

Today was an absolute do nothing day, which was glorious. We roamed into town for a bit, and had lunch at a weird little restaruant in a shack which was built in the early 1900's. I had a Muskox burger. Delish. Very spicy, bitter, strong flavoured meat. Yum.

That was as exciting as it got. Lasagna's in the oven, Steph, her Mom and her Mom's friend Prima are watching our wedding video (Al, so far everyone who has watched it says its amazing, once again thank you for the great job you did).

And so, that is all. I leave you with this (my favourite shot of the trip thus far, taken on the road to Skagway, an old abandoned house right on the lake, again unfortunate position for the sun, straight ahead, so maybe next week I'll get a clearer background):

Imagine the stories the person who lived in there would have had...

Hello from up yonder

Vacation Day 1: Look, this is where I am right now

Sheesh it's been way too long since I wrote in this blog. I suppose that's what I get for working 240 hours last month. The math on that on an "hours per week" basis just really makes my poor head ache.

Anyway, thankfully, today I got to go grocery shopping, swing by Wal-Mart, take some photographs, try to get on a broken down mining train, and eat lunch all without having my cell phone even anywhere near me. This achieved of course because Stephanie and I are on glorious vacation.

It's odd, really, thinking that aside from trying to get on the mining train, basically all we did today was stuff that we could easily have done back home in Calgary, but despite that I'm getting to be a bit more relaxed than I was before we left. I'm sure in a couple of days I'll be fully relaxed and really be able to kick back and enjoy myself. But considering how stressed I've been at work lately, getting all the stress out of my system will take more than one nice relaxing day.

This is helping, though, actually I realize now as I write. It's been way too long since I've written in this blog, and just kicking back, listening to some Coldplay and writing I'm finding very therapeutic.

Not sure what holds for the next few days. I'm going to try and get me some photo-ID here (since the Alberta government took my driver's licence away, pending renewal, I don't have any photo-id right now) at the registry (Hopefully, "Yeah, I'm uh, up here on business, and don't have photo-id, and have to get into the US, so, uh, can you take my picture and give me something?" will work). Once I've got my hands on the photo-ID, that will give us a chance to swing on down to Skagway & Juneau Alaska, which should be fun. Might do that on Wednesday maybe, it's about a 2 day trip there and back. There's a fancy hotel in Juneau which is right on the water and has fancy hot-tubs on the decks, with big tall pine trees surrounding them that grow up through the deck. That would be neat, I think.

I think we might also try to swing back up to Dawson City (about a 5 1/2 hour drive), stay there for a day or two and maybe head up to Eagle Plain, which is 30 minutes south of the Arctic Circle. We tried to do that drive to the circle last time we were up here, but failed. You see, I figured that along the drive on the Dempster Highway there would sometimes be signs saying "100km to Eagle Plain", etc. But strangely, there was nothing. So once the car had half a tank of gas left, we were forced to turn around and go back since we didn't have any idea where we were and if we had enough gas to keep going. This time will be different, I tells ya.

Also Dawson City is a great place to visit, so quiet and laid back and relaxed, and there's plenty of stuff to do. Plus it's got a great "Gold Rush Theme" Casino, and that's always a plus.

Anyway, that's about it. I think I'm gonna muck around and play with the 70-300 zoom lens I borrowed from my Dad.

No spectacular pictures yet, but here's something decent I took in the mother-in-law's backyard: