May 26 - in and around Whitehorse

Happy Sunday.  We stayed up late and got up early.  It is easy to forget to go to bed when it is so light out.  No bears in camp last night, so no excitement to report.  There was one here the night before that provided the evening entertainment. 

We did make it to the Church this morning for the 9am Mass.  The next Mass of the day was in French.  Quite a few of the signs are in French, but as people came in and were chatting was the first time I heard it being spoken by so many people. 

David parking the bike

I thought the Indian art on the left side was interesting

This building center was much larger than the one in Teslin.  It had the radiator overflow hose we needed.  One thing we've notice is they seem rather casual about what they charge versus the price marked on the shelf.  When this happened in a different store, I didn't notice the difference until we were gone.  Today the hose was supposed to be $ .89/foot but it rang up $1.19/ft.  The register person didn't care or offer to check, so we went back and pulled the label off the shelf, then found the clerk that was supposed to cut it for us.  It was the end of the roll, so he asked us to pay for an extra foot and gave us a foot or two extra.  We went for that, but the different price was a surprise.  He was cool.  Went up to the register and had her give it to us for the marked price.

Not sure of the significance of having this mammoth all decked out, but that is one big jump suit.

The smaller two mammoths were in their natural state.

This DC-3 is amazing.  It is a plane that was first used for military transportation and then sold for use in Canadian commercial air transport.  After its useful life, a mechanic interested in historical flight preservation came up with a way to make it a weather vane.  It rotates so the nose is always heading into the wind.  I didn't believe David when he told me it moved until the wind changed.  Watching it move is just incredible.  It is over 16,000 lbs, the body is about 65' long with a 95' wingspan.

We were at the Yukon Transportation Museum.  I thought this room was something that would appeal to Addisyn and Piper.  Since they have been so good at putting comments in the blog, I thought I'd include a picture.  There were several child sized tables with chairs.  Lots of books, papers and crayons. 

This plane is a home-built.  The husband did the structure and mechanical.   The wife did the fabric.  It was used in this region for many years starting in 1967 and donated to the museum.  It made its last flight when flown to the museum in 2004.  Took them 7 years to build it. 

For those future flyers, or pilots that need a little refresher...here is a practice plane. 

They had lots of other types of vehicles too.

 Ok, enough from the museum.  We spent quite a bit of time there, but we did cruise other parts of the city today too.  We went back to the Visitor Center to check on the George Black Ferry.  They still say the highway after Dawson City will be open by Thursday.  Maybe as early as Tuesday.  So that will be the direction we head tomorrow.

We see an assortment of grill covers and extension plugs hanging out the front of vehicles, but this quilted cover was both distinct and neat looking.  It hasn't been cold enough for anyone to be using block heaters, but I did find out that we have one on the mh.  Thank goodness it doesn't hang out and flop around like so many of them we see around here.

This horse is a bicycle rack.  I liked it.  We've seen several in Canada the shape of a bicycle, but this was unique.

The weather was gorgeous mostly.  It would spit rain here and there, but it didn't rain enough to get us wet.  It seems very dry here.  Things dry quickly.  After church, we had stops at the hardware store, Walmart (lots of RV's in the lot) but not much in food, so then a grocery store was needed.  We managed to put $118 worth of food in the motorcycle bags and headed back to the RV park.  We checked out a laundry in town; it gave me the creeps.  Fortunately the one here at the park is very clean and has super nice machines.  After this trip, I may be wanting a front load machine.  They sure do a good job.  All that took time though, so instead of biking (and having to climb the big hill again) we took the motorcycle.

One of the places we went is the hydro-electric plant. 

This is a fish ladder that runs up the north side of the dam.

The lake on the Yukon formed by the dam for the hydro plant.

The water coming through the dam.

Just clouds.  I thought they looked neat.

This was in a residential area.  Not sure why, but someone made a large sphere out of bicycle wheels.  There was also a pyramid and a cube shape behind this one in the yard too.

We came up with some more bicycle routes, but it will have to wait until we come back in July.  I chatted with a woman from Florida today.  She and her hubby flew to Iowa and picked up a new 28' Winnebago class C to be driven to Anchorage.  It will go into service as a rental RV.  They were given 11 days for the trip, but they extended that another week.   The wife is trying to get the husband to agree to an additional week.  They can keep the coach, but would pay a higher rate.  That would be a unique way to make the trip.  They have to make fuel stops daily.  I wouldn't enjoy having to make that type stop every day.  It did remind me that we'll need to fill tomorrow.  We aren't low, but we will be going to relatively isolated areas this next week.  I'm sure fuel would be expensive and I haven't found any wifi access.  So this may be it for several days.

Stay well, and make noise in the woods so the bears stay away.  :-)