Day 17 Dawson City to Whitehorse, Yukon

Today was a perfect day for riding.  Just a little cool with bright sun. 

Yesterday we had walked around Dawson to see what was here and get a general “feel” for the place.  My take on it is a big tourist trap.  Nothing here that doesn’t play along with their “history” as one of the “gold rush towns”.  And they get a lot of tourists coming here too.  Buses actually come from Tok and Whitehorse and bring loads of Japanese and Chinese tourists.  Plus some speaking a language I didn’t understand.  It may have been Portuguese or even Italian. 

A lot of dancing saloons and gambling houses.  Even with all the commercial stuff to attract tourists, the town has a beautiful setting in the mountains.  It reminds me a little of Silverton, Colorado. 

Lyle was looking at some pricing in the grocery stores while we were there and found some surprising things.  There were some rather small watermelons in the grocery store and they were selling for $10.  Keeping in mind that this town is in Canada and the exchange rate is .75 cents Canadian for each U.S. dollar given to them makes this stuff even more expensive.  That ten dollar watermelon would actually cost us about $13 in U.S. money.  Way too expensive for me.  And everything in there was expensive like that. 

Lyle has decided that he has seen enough of Canada and Alaska and he says there is nothing worth seeing in either place.  I disagree because it all depends on exactly what you are looking for.  Alaska is beautiful but I wouldn’t want to live here mainly because of the weather and the sun.  The weather is unbearable for half the year and during that same period of time, the country is dark!  So, you freeze to death in the dark!  Not my kind of place.  Give me Florida any day!  You can play golf every day and there is no chance of a person dying of “frostbite”.  !  !  !

So tomorrow we will begin the long journey back home to Missouri. 

We had dinner at McDonalds tonight and while there a family was also having dinner.  Dad, Mom, and two children.  The women asked me, “did you just come from Alaska and did you have dinner at Fast Eddy’s in Tok the other night”?  It turns out that they were having dinner there at the same time we were and both of them remembered us.  I kind of remembered them.  That just proves what I’ve always said.  When you go to Alaska, you see the same people all the time because there is basically one road in and one road out. 

I don’t have internet where we are staying tonight (located in the slums of Whitehorse) so I won’t be able to send this out.  Plus, I won’t be able to check the internet either.  I put my GS problem on the list last night asking if anybody had an idea what might be wr0ng with my bike.  I hope I’ll have some internet access tomorrow to find out if someone responded to my request for help.