June 5, DAY 25 and first official day of the caravan.
We did some last minute shopping in the morning and had our firs official wagonmaster briefing. We had a group picture taken under the Mile 0 arch and went to dinner as a welcome dinner. The salads and veggie were great and I enjoyed the chicken but some others took the mystery meat and were not as happy. We had a wonderful presentation about the building of the Alcan with pictures and were told the highway is now open so we can proceed as planned in the morning. Tobey wants to tell you he meet a new friend that is part black lab and part kangaroo. They had a great time and you should see how high the dog can jump.
June 6, DAY 26
We are at Fort Nelson and the weather is great. We stopped at Shepherds Inn for breakfast and can you imagine 16 rigs attempting to park along with other guests and a few trucks. Guess the place is well known. I had the standard ROMEO breakfast. We saw a llama, two black bears, moose and her calf, two deer, sandhill crane, a big bird that could have been a young bald eagle and of course many black flies as they smacked the windshield. The campground said that for the last three days the town was one big parking lot because the road was closed starting here. She said at was a made house when the opened the road and worse then any traffic jamb on the La freeway system. Talked to a guy coming south from Whitehorse and he said between here ad there we will find a 20 mile stretch of gravel. He had a broken windshield on his tow car to prove it. Another 7AM push off in the morning to go to Laird Hot Springs where we will dry camp for the night. Given the night temps we had frost this morning so it should be interesting? It is 10PM Pacific Time and the sun just went down but is still very light out.