August 2nd – 6th Planes, trains and automobiles

 

August 2^nd – 6^th Planes, trains and automobiles, Uber, Lyft, Shuttles, and public transport! 

After returning from our ferry trip to Juneau we are able to snag a rental car at Whitehorse finally.  We travel back to Watson Lake stopping in Teslin along the way.  Another nicely done museum, the George Johnston Museum tells the tale of the local “Tlingit elder, trapper, fur trader, entrepreneur and photographer.”  A self-taught photographer, he chronicled the life of his people through black and white photographs, during the first half of the 20^th century and the coming of the Alaska Highway construction.

 

Also at Teslin is a small wildlife gallery with species information and full-sized mounts, on most of the local wildlife.  Both stops were worthwhile.

 

Tonight, we sleep once again in our parked trailer, TerraVia.  We set the alarm for 2:15 hoping to catch the northern lights.  The cloud cover, however, blocks any that we might have seen.  We continue to talk with locals and Facebook RV travelers about alternatives to get our pickup back to the states.

 

Returning to Teslin we spend one night and also take in the Teslin Tlingit Heritage Centre.  We see a beaver and 4 moose that day, a cow and 2 calves crossing the highway, and one being harvested by local Tlingit at the Heritage Centre, the meat later to be distributed to elders and the families of the 4 who harvested the moose.  No photos, but we enjoyed their Centre and talking with them as they worked on the moose.  We also talked with a man who was weaving small items using stripped cedar bark.  We shared a bit of our story with him and he said, "you know, you will find out this was meant to be for a reason."  We did find that out a few days later and I will write about that in a few days.

We stop for the short boardwalk out to the pretty Rancheria Falls, a nice stretch of the legs.  Yes, there really is a falls behind us in the selfie, that is not all my white hair!

Hmmmmm dark beer, do you sense a theme?

We turn in the rental car at Whitehorse airport and hop on a West Jet for Calgary then the flight back to PDX, our home airport.  Hopping into another rental car, we sleep in our own bed and take off again the next morning after picking up some “car camping” gear and some extra prescription medicines.  We come in under the stealth of the night and depart early the next morning, alerting the neighbors, the Samuels, so they would not be alarmed if they saw activity at the house and garage area.  

 Not where we thought we would find ouselves on our "road trip."

We turn in this rental car at the Bellingham airport and have just enough time for a dark beer at the Paws for a Beer right next to the train station in Bellingham.  The dogs all love us as we bring our chicken dinner in to enjoy with our beer.  

We then hop the Amtrak Cascades train to cross the border into Vancouver.  We love train travel and this evening we are treated to a wonderful sunset along the water.  A delightful night at the YWCA hotel in Vancouver BC leaves us refreshed and ready for the next part of this odd (need to add by now, frustrating) adventure.  We pick up a rental pickup this morning for the drive back up to Watson Lake.  We will follow the Cassiar route and car camp along the way.