07/16/2010 - Friday - the beginning of the end

Today we traveled from Skagway to Watson Lake, Yukon. As mentioned in yesterday's post, we are leaving Alaska and starting our ride home. There are a few things to stop and see along the way home, just not so much here in the Yukon.

After leaving Skagway this morning we stopped at the top of the hill (approx. 66 miles from Skagway) at a little town named Carcross (shortened from Caribou Crossing). The photo top left is of the oldest trading post / store in the Yukon, which is in this town.

From here we headed northeast and turned onto the Alaska Highway. We stopped for the evening in Watson Lake, on the border with British Columbia. When we stopped at the motel that I called for reservations, they nor their second motel could find them. In addition the rooms where not yet cleaned because, as the person behind the counter said, the crew did not show up today.

Anyway, we decided to cancel the room reservations and started a search for two rooms in a different place. The visitor center gave us a few names. When we mentioned where we did have reservations the look on their faces more or less said 'bad decision'. We did find rooms at the second place we stopped at. There is more to say about this place, but there was not a whole lot of choices in this town. We stopped here because it was over 300 miles to the next town of any size.

This motel, 'Air Force Lodge', is a remodeled barracks used during WWII when the Alaska Highway was being built. We talked with the owner who said he got the building for nothing when he purchased the land. He refurbished it and has been open for 5 years. However, the down side is the rooms are somewhat small, there are no bathrooms in the rooms, but they are down the hall. There are four separate rooms: Men's bathroom, women's bathroom, men's shower room, and women's shower room. In addition, shoes are to be taken off at the door. I am glad that I wore socks today.

The most notable thing about Watson Lake is that it is home to 'Signpost Forest'. I am sure that we have all seen signposts with distance to various towns (for example, 999 miles to NYC, 2000 miles to Los Angeles, etc.). The practice supposedly started in this town during the construction of the Alaska Highway when one of the soldiers posted a signpost with the mileage to his hometown. Now there are over 6,000 signs here (see top right photo).

Well, tonight early to bed, early to rise - as there is not much else to do here.

Signed:

The Wayward Travelers.