NORTH TO ALASKA 2025 - DAY 13 - LEAVING LIARD RIVER TO WATSON LAKE YUKON

We had a crazy night sleeping at the Liard River Hot Springs Provincial Park. About 4:00 a.m. I could hear this strange beeping sound. It sounded like an alarm! 

One I didn't recognize or never heard before.

I thought perhaps it might be a new alarm sound from our Bluetti power station?? It was kind of muffled sounding from more outside than inside the motorhome. The Bluetti is stowed away in a compartment underneath our motorhome.

I finally woke Steve up, and said "We have to check this out. It sounds like an alarm going off!". He got up and got dressed and went outside. He listened and checked. It was the strangest sound. But it was actually coming out of a tree way up high over our motorhome. We think it was some type of a tree frogs mating call!!! The sound of it is on the video on the link below at the end of this blog if you want to hear it. You would think it was an alarm too!

We debated on going back into the Hot Springs one more time. But it had gotten quite cold overnight. I wasn't so sure I wanted to walk back with wet hair through the cold temps for a mile. 

We decided to bundle up and hit the road. It was going to be a beautiful day for traveling.

We were headed to the Yukon!

We began to see mountains in the distance. It was really exciting to see that we were getting to some scenery that looked more interesting.

We had a little note from another RVer to stop at this place called Whirlpool Canyon on the Alaskan Highway. It was a perfect stop to get out and stretch our legs a bit.

We cannot imagine the heavy spring waters rushing through this area being able to move all of these logs and carve our these rocks.

Steve said this tree trunk looked like a starfish!

As we walked along, I found a beautiful rock. It's flat and slate looking but has some interesting markings. I decided I'm going to wrap it up and take it home as a memento. I might glaze it with some shellac and put it near my wood sculpture that we found last fall at Morgan County Park. I laughed with Steve that I might be collecting rocks like Lucille Ball in the movie The Long Long Trailer.  

We hopped back into the motorhome and headed back up the highway.  

We did stop at another rest area called Allen's Lookout. It was supposedly an area where bandits would sit up on this high hill and look both ways up and down the river. They would ambush and rob the boats floating on through, just like pirates!! 

Now to the exciting part of our day...

Yes ... We saw a 

GRIZZLY!!!!

He came lumbering up from the side of a ravine, and was munching away on the grass. He was looking for the fresh green stuff that grew closer to the road.

We were definitely a long distance away, safely enclosed within our motorhome. I only had the window open to film through, and Steve had his foot on the gas ready to go!

It was pretty thrilling to see a grizzly out in the middle of the day. It's a pretty rare sight. From some of the other people that have talked to me, they are jealous that we actually got to see a grizzly. And from a safe distance without being in danger.

With my new camera from my birthday, I was able to get some really close up shots. It was amazing to get such detail of things like his fur and his eyes and his teeth!

We watched him for a while and then he ambled on down the highway right away. We didn't want to disturb him eating his lunch.

There's actual video footage of it on the YouTube link below at the end of this blog.

It wasn't long after that we came to cross the border leaving British Columbia and now entering the Yukon. It seemed like such a milestone for us. We've been planning this trip for so long.

We got out and did the obligatory pose in front of the Yukon sign. We are such tourists. LOL  But we figure we got to make our memories and take the photos. That's the whole reason for this blog. It's kind of like a scrapbook for us of things that we are doing in our lives. You just get the benefit of reading along.

We had these little stickers made from Instaprint that I wrote about in my first blog of our trip. It is acceptable, and even encouraged, to post your sticker on certain sites and signs. They scrape it off by the end of the year and put up a new surface. We are the fourth sticker on the new surface for the upcoming travel season of 2025.

And here's where we made our memory. So if you are driving to the Yukon, stop and look for our sticker! Maybe add your own?

As we traveled further on the Alaskan Highway, we were lucky enough to even spot another bear. This time it was a black bear. Much much smaller than that big old grizzly. 

This one appeared to be pretty smart. We watched him as he approached the gravel on the side of the road. He looked left. He looked right. Then he proceeded to cross the road. What a good bear!!! 

And just like that, he scooted up the bank on the other side. Well out of danger, and ready to live another day in the woods of the Yukon.

We were headed on now towards Watson Lake. We know that is the location of the Signpost Forest.

We read some reviews of this very nice gentleman running an RV park right in the middle of the small town of Watson Lake. The RV park itself wasn't much. Basically a big gravel parking lot with electrical posts, along with water and sewer. He had clean laundry facilities and shower facilities. He also allows you to wash the road grime and dirt off your RV in the back corner of his parking lot. But what made this stop special was that he was very courteous and helpful with information. He also gave you a very big discount if you used cash instead of a credit card. Small town business owners really have to pay high fees to accept credit cards. So he appreciates the cash coming in, especially if you want to use United States currency, he gives you an even better discount. He's also able to give you a special discount on fuel at a local truck card filling station. 

https://www.downtownrvyukon.com/

He is conveniently located right across from a beautiful park. And just kitty corner from a nice locally owned grocery store. 

We went over and did a stock up shopping. They had some beautiful beef roasts on sale. I just had to get one. I know if I cooked it up I could get about four meals out of it. Added fresh carrots to my shopping cart along with a big bag of Canadian white potatoes. I just love those. We can't get them in the United States. 

I have a stove top pressure cooker along. I did not take my large electric pressure cooker or my air fryer. We are limited on cargo carrying space. So this would work just perfect to do it the old fashioned way on the stove.

It smelled so absolutely delicious inside of the motorhome as the roast was done cooking. 

I was able to shred up two meals worth of roast beef to put in the freezer to be saved for future meals. Maybe enchiladas, maybe tacos, maybe a casserole? The last section of roast beef I used up the next day for some hearty beef stew.  

Here's the link to the YouTube that goes along with today's blog:

Join us tomorrow 

when we put our sign up 

in the Signpost Forest at 

Watson Lake, Yukon.

131 miles travelled today

2,598 miles so far