We sure got our wildlife fix today!!
The road improved tremendously along beautiful Kluane Lake, so we moved on pretty quickly, until, right on a long straight section where I could stop without causing any wrecks, ( there was no other traffic anyway) I saw two sheep. Well, I thought they were sheep from a distance, ( Bette) and then as I got closer I realized two things. One, there are no sheep in the Yukon, and two, sheep don’t have humped backs and six inch long claws.
They were grizzly bears!!
Marlipops was in the back of the coach, thought I was having a seizure or something as I screamed “Get the camera! Bears !!!”
So, after she picked herself off the floor, coz I had hit the brakes a bit harder than normal, she threw me one camera, picked up the other and we started pic taking like crazy.
Yes, our first really wild sighting of grizzlies. This is the time of year when berries ripen in the bushes, so out come the bears. These two, mother and cub, were foraging for roots and shoots on the opposite side of the road, looked at us once, and carried on doing whatever it was they were doing. They did not run away at the sight of the yellow peril, and at one point looked as if they were going to cross the road and come over. I was busy taking pix and I realized my window was wide open, so I stopped taking pix pretty quickly, just to keep an eye on them!!
Off they went, down the road, who knows where, absolutely fantastic.
One of the highlights of our trip, making it so much more perfecter than it already was.
The rest of the traveling today was done with poised cameras.
The scenery here really is stunning, and virtually unspoiled by humans. Just miles and miles of tundra, and forests and mountains and stuff.
Then we got into Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon.
We needed to do some laundry, and use the internet, Verizon being useless, more of that later, so we found a combo Laundromat/WiFi place, proceeded to load 3 machines, ( we really are dirty!), fired up the ‘puter, and whammo, off went the power.
Not just the Laundromat, but the whole town lost power, the banks, traffic lights, stores, everything was out for about an hour.
Great watching people scurrying around trying to find a shop with power, like headless chickens!!
So, we sat and Marlipops got on the pay phone to Verizon.
We had signed up for cell phone service, paid an extra premium for service while in Canada, and the phone has no service. In addition, we had signed up for their broadband internet service, which we were assured by the store in Montana we bought it from, would work in Canada and Alaska.
Well, as you all know, we haven’t had any service to speak of on either phone or internet, and we got a $ 600.00 bill for this “no service”! So, we disputed it, and Marlipops spent a frustrating hour on the phone to the Verizon people, to finally find out that to get phone service in Canada we should have called a special number, when we were in Alaska, to get it activated!! Only problem was that no one told us, so although we have a Canada plan, and we are in Canada, it don’t work!!
We are still arguing about the internet service, so we will just keep on using Wi Fi wherever we can get it.
We finally got all our washing done, did some grocery shopping, and went to get some beer, at 8 o’clock.
All the liquor stores are closed!!
The “off sales” places wanted $ 19.00 for a six pack!!
So, Captain Cautious is drinking water tonight!!
Wildlife watch today was grizzlies, some guard squirrels and lots of birds.
