Lake Creek Campground, Yukon Territory

Good morning, my friends. It was a short drive yesterday, but there was a lot to see and notice. We'll be crossing the border into Alaska this morning, and so there's no time to waste. Let's just get to it right now.

The trip started out with the stunning mountain vistas we've become accustomed to. I took pictures at random.

I've been following our Milepost post by post, taking iPhone shots of anything worthy of a stop. Our first "item of worthiness" from yesterday was a large turnout at Kluane Lake. (The women in the quilt shop in Whitehorse told me the correct pronunciation of that word: Kloo-AH-nee.) Kluane Lake is the largest lake in the Yukon, covering 154 square miles. Getting out of the truck, I noticed these pretties. They were growing all along the roadsides yesterday.

My phone tells me these are Hedysarum Boreale. 

Walking out onto the lakeshore, the view was so big, it required four pano-style shots. Looking left, it looked like this. Those mountains are known as the Ruby range.

Turning a little to the right...

And a little more...

And looking all the way to the right:

From there, we could see our next point of interest...this bridge:

Leaving the lake, we crossed over this bridge, headed to yet another pull out. This is the Slim's River bridge.

Here's what our Milepost told us about this bridge.

Just a little way on, we stopped at another pull out to admire Kluane Bay.

Here's what our Milepost tells us about this area. Silver City appears on our map, but if there was anything left of the town, we missed it.

Okay...here we go. We'd read accounts of travel on this section of the highway. So far, we've hit a few rough patches, but this was the first time we were required to await a pilot car. Stopping here, it was a little nervous-making. There didn't seem to be anything happening at all. We wondered if the pilot car would actually come. Was there really work being done here? Or would we sit here waiting until our dying days? 

After about five minutes, the approaching headlights came into view. Phew! Okay...here we go. We followed this pilot car for about five kilometers.

They are completely rebuilding the road in many sections of the highway. This is a massive project to restore what is known as the Shakwak corridor. It extends from Haines Junction (where we stayed night before last) to the Alaska border. You can read all about it right here.

Even after the pilot car let us roam free, the road was well-maintained gravel for most of the remainder of our drive.

We passed through Destruction Bay.

It's really just a gas station, a restaurant, and a convenience store.

Looking in the opposite direction, we could still see Kluane Lake.

Here's what our Milepost said about this little town.

Just before passing through the next town, I captured this little "shrine." The Google tells me that this is a memorial to a local resident.

A few more kilometers had us passing through Burwash Landing. This is all we could see from the road. It seems to consist of nothing more than a museum.

As we passed by, I noticed some very old structures behind the main museum building there. This is what our Milepost told us about it.

We crossed over Duke's River bridge.

There's the "river":

Here's what the Milepost told us about that:

And then, we crossed over the Donjek River bridge.

There's a view from the side...

Crossing over...

And here's what our Milepost tells us about this:

And then it was just about ten kilometers to our final destination.

Once we were set up, Mike took Smitty out for a walk right away. It was cold and the walk was short.

We're camped right along Lake Creek. There was a short trail leading out to the water. Looking to the right, it looked like this. One assumes that water color comes from the tannins released by decaying leaves.

Looking to the left, it looks like this. 

We pretty much had the campground to ourselves last night. We've had peace and quiet every place we've stayed on this trip, even when our campground is near the highway. We've been sleeping well. This morning, I posted this next paragraph to Facebook, and it seems a good time to say it here as well.

I’ve known since I was a little girl that Alaska is the “land of the midnight sun.” Experiencing that much light is something else again. I’m continuing to remind myself that we can go sight-seeing after dinner because it will be light until around midnight. Even hours after “sunset,” the sky is still light. Last night I went to bed early. (I was also up early. Besides, I’m old.) Anyway, I woke up around 11:30. It was light out, and I thought…”Oh lookie there…it’s morning!” Only no. Also, the birds sang all night long last night. Knowing it’s the land of the midnight sun and experiencing what that means are two different things.

We've been keeping our driving days short, which has been very nice. It means we arrive early and we have time to experience a place, even if we're only staying one night. We were set up by 1:00 p.m. yesterday, and so I had some time to work on my slow-stitching. Now, I've finished the third block for the Raggedy & Friends project.

Here are the three wrinkly blocks I have for this project so far. They're fun to stitch.

Okay, and so I've already told you we'll cross the border into Alaska today. We'll be wearing our "Mission Accomplished" t-shirts to mark this completion of our mission to visit all 50 states. (Selfie to follow.) Also, I'll add the final state to our the map on the side of the camper. This morning, I'll add some ice blocks into an insulated bag and load it with all our agricultural products. If they want to see what we're carrying, they can look in the bag, and hopefully, they'll stay out of the camper. It depends on the agent. Someone posted a list of prohibited items. I expect our limes will get confiscated, and maybe our eggs. I managed to find just a half dozen eggs at the grocery store, and there will be just three left when we cross over. Hardly anything to cry over, but I might cry anyway because that's just how I roll.

I've always liked that line Tom Hanks spoke in A League of Their Own: "There's no crying in baseball!" And we often say that to ourselves when things go wrong: There's no crying in travel. So...limes or no...I'll probably hold it together.

Okay, my friends...I'll see you on the other side.