It’s now May 19th and I’m still heading due north through Canada. It takes 5-6 days from the Washington border to Fairbanks. As each day on the road passes, the traffic gets thinner, the towns smaller and further apart, and it seemed on this trip, the weather got worse.
Still passing lakes, only these are covered with ice.
My dash heater still isn’t working, (there’s a vacuum pump that doesn’t seem to be working), so I had to drape my coat over my legs to be comfortable. Wasn’t all that bad, but I will have to get the heater fixed eventually. I enjoyed this countryside and the remoteness very much. I’m use to traveling by forests that have been harvested so to get to enjoy pristine and uncut forests was a treat. I did see some clear cut patches but not often.
Another frozen lake.
The day was uneventful, other then having to find somewhere to get fuel. Since I carry enough food for the entire trip I wasn’t much for stopping at little cafe’s, unless they really looked interesting. Or tourist traps. Of course there weren’t many of those up here anyway.
Shows how lonely it can be up here.
Looks a little nasty.
Finally, some civilization.
A neat bridge.
The lake, but this time, no ice.
Many of these lakes either have no sign, or a single sign that I usually passed by to quickly, or a tiny sign so I really don’t know what their names are. I spent the night at a lake side RV park this night but I was too tired to remember to take a picture of where I parked. One more day and I’d be in Whitehorse.
Remote. Looks lonely but beautiful.
Oh, to be that isolated! Growing up on a farm instilled a love of nature in me, and I long for a lack of incessant man-made noise that surrounds our suburban home now. Even sadder is that our home is only 150 ft. from where the farm used to be. Dad and I used to come home from work and school in downtown Portland, and revel in the clean air on the farm. Now Portland’s air pollutes our lungs even here, 15 miles away. A poignant statement on humanity – keep having babies and importing non-natives as fast as we can; worry about where to put them later. Ignore the fact that later always shows up on your doorstep.
I digress. At least somebody besides me values the beauty in the Great North’s isolation. Even a guy as social as Jim appreciates being alone now and then. Much unlike my socialholic 26 year old grandson, who can’t stand to be away from human contact for even a minute (I can’t believe he was raised by me), I could happily live without direct human contact for months on end. Methinks Jim appreciates the best of both worlds. The downside is the weather common to that country – cloudy and rainy a lot; the lack of people wouldn’t depress me a bit, but the lack of sun might.
I do love long lonely trips. No one yapping in my ear, open vistas, virtually deserted out-of-the-way RV parks, nearly empty National Parks (good timing on my part), long bike rides (weather permitting) down empty roads…