Bucket List Day 16---July 18, 2010 Sunday

Bucket List Day 16---July 18, 2010 Sunday

Sunday, Sunday… We awoke at the Campground Services RV park in Watson Lake. Our goal is to make it from Watson Lake to Sikanni. We will see. We stopped at Contact Creek as they have the best gas prices on this stretch and the best “I did Alaska highway” t-shirts. Shortly outside of town, we are stopped for, “Half hour to 45 min…” waiting for a pilot car on a 1 way stretch of highway repair. So, Amy is closing her eyes and pretending to take a nap, but I keep talking to her. Me, I got out the lap top to start our daily blog. ;) It is sunny.

We are 100 miles out of Liard Hotsprings that is to be our next stop. No big goals for the day. Henry wants to slow down a bit and see the scenery. We have crossed the Yukon into British Columbia and there is a noticeable difference in the beauty.
Our next stop was Liard Hotsprings. It is a natural hot springs up in the mountains with 2 main pools at the first level and a deep one further into the mountains about 5 minutes. The smell of sulfur is very noticeable at the lower pools. The minerals tarnished Amy’s silver rings to a nice brown color. The area had board walks up to the springs and dressing rooms, but the springs remained relatively primitive. The bottom of the crystal clear pond had smooth rocks that were easy to walk on. Amy said the lower pools were “uncomfortably” hot in temperature. A local native American teenager told our group to use their arms to paddle up the cool water from the bottom. Heat rises…remember science? Our group was able to go to the front part of the pool where 2 small cool streams fed into the ponds. Off to one side there was a stack of rocks. Our teenage friend told us that he picks a stone off the bottom every time he comes and puts it on the stack. He called it a name I am unfamiliar with but I got the sense from what he said it was good luck to do this. It was also an accomplishment to do it as the stack was in the hottest part of the pool where the hot water was bubbling up from somewhere deep in the earth. After getting out of the springs, we had lunch at the picnic area by our car. This would have been a GREAT time to take a nap, but we needed to get on the road. Off we headed to Toad River to get gas. Tim is dutiful and looks for souvenir spoons for Becky at each stop. Note to Tim....you should have listened to me and got the Toad River Spoon.

On the road, we have had our most plentiful wildlife sightings today. We have seen goat, BIG Bull moose, caribou, buffalo, and 2 black bears. One black bear was seen by our bikers standing on a rocky ridge looking at them. By the time we stopped, he had left. The second bear was in a field of clover and would not look up for us to get a good shot with the camera. He looked pretty large.

Off we go to Ft. Nelson and then we will see how late it is. We stopped outside of Ft. Nelson at a by the side of the road camp spot. Pictures to load later. Wifi not strong.