Wandering in the USA: Heading Southward

It was time to head back to the lower 48 or as Alaskans say, “outside”! We have spent the last month exploring and experiencing Alaska, in addition to the 2 weeks we spent sight-seeing on the road in Canada to get here.

So we said our farewells to Donna, readied the coach and car for the trip south. On Friday, July 2nd we headed up the Glen Highway toward Tok to catch the Alaskan Highway to go back into Canada.

We dry camped that night along the road near Watson Lake, Y.T. and started down the Cassiar Highway the next day……………now that is an experience in itself!

Our Alaska Bible, The Milepost”, said that all 450 miles of the Cassiar were paved…………..wrong!!!

Really?

The first 150 miles was nothing but gravel and dirt with humongous craters. I was too busy hanging so I didn’t take very many pictures of the worst part of the road. Our fastest speed was 30 mph and that was not very often! Then it turned to broken pavement with frost-heaves deep enough to swallow the car! (Actually frost-heaves are a condition on all highways in northern Canada and Alaska.)

When you look ahead at the road and the painted lines are wavy, slow down……….that’s frost-heave!!!

There were a lot of wavy lines on the Glen Highway and the Cassiar (when we got back to pavement again, that is!)

This was the most common sight along the road.

We had a lot of flag persons to wave to, so we never felt lonely!

This poor truck driver didn’t make one of the curves, spilling his entire load of lumber in the road!!! (Note: the front axle and front end of the truck are missing!)

Hmmmm!

Love this plywood RCMP car, evidently it is supposed to make you slow down????

Just before Hope, BC we stopped to ride the tram down into the Fraser River Gorge!!!

The Cassiar turned out to be a nightmare of a road, especially in a motor home, however, there were lots of beautiful sights to see also.

We had stopped for the night along the road and were treated to this light show which followed a sudden and brief rain storm.

This young moose made it across the road before we got there, thank goodness!

There are flowers all along the roadsides. This is 'Fireweed’ and Alaskans say that when it blooms all the way to the top of the stalk, the first snow will come six weeks later.