RV ALASKA - Alaska Highway Eastbound - Destruction Bay to Whitehorse

When we had rolled into Whitehorse on our westward journey, we had no camping reservations, got in too late to snag a spot at the nearby government campground, and ended up next to the RV Wash at Hi Country RV Park.  Their system said we’d fit into site 26, but there was absolutely no way that was going to happen – even with Alan’s decades of trailering experience.  So, on the return trip, I went with my favorite resource (RV Life’s CampgroundReviews.com), found another private RV park, paid our money and took our chances.  That’s one bet that didn’t pay off.

Date(s) – August 15th

Total Miles Traveled to Date – 13,526

Wildlife Sightings to Date – Four horses at the side of the road.  I’m including them in our wildlife sightings because we were pretty sure they were feral, not just on open range.

Our updated tally of wildlife sightings is: 4 feral horses; 96 eagles (including 2 fledglings); 4 seagull chicks; 16 swans (including 2 fuzzy cygnets); 9 sea lions; 27 seals; 17 sea otters; 4 cow moose; 1 bull moose; 1 grizzly sow with 2 cubs; 1 back end of a grizzly bear; 6 black bears; 1 coyote; 1 snowshoe hare; 3 rabbits (including one very fast bunny that just managed to cross the road safely); several small herds of bison with at least 2 dozen young calves; 9 deer (2 of them bucks with their racks covered in velvet); 9 mountain goats (including 3 tiny and adorable kids); 23 bighorn sheep; 62 elk (including 7 calves that hadn’t yet lost their spots and a number of bull elk with full racks covered in velvet); several small herds of pronghorn antelope (including 2 mamas with 3 newborn fawns between them); 3 great blue herons; dozens of American white pelicans; at least a half dozen families of adult geese with goslings; and several dozen ducks (with lots of little ducklings).

Highlight(s) – Coffee break with a view!  On our way to Alaska, I remembered an extremely large pullout on the north side of the Alaska Highway just a bit before we reached Congdon Creek Campground.  The pullout had a wonderful view of Kluane Lake, and I tucked the memory into my back pocket in case it might fit into our plans on our return trip.  When we left Congdon Creek that morning, we planned ahead.  Just a short distance from the campground, we pulled into a large parking area along Kluane Lake, leveled the trailer, extended the slide and took the time to enjoy our second cup of coffee of the day and the gorgeous views of the lake out of our dinette window and the surrounding mountains out the back.  I love the light of early morning or early evening.  The hour after sunrise and the hour before sunset are considered the “golden hours” for photography.  The light does make for excellent photos, but it also makes for a wonderful time to just stop and relish whatever part of the great outdoors we’re in.  Our coffee break was probably closer to 9:00 a.m. than sunrise; still, it was an extraordinary pleasure to enjoy the mountain scenery and the peace that enveloped Kluane Lake – a true reminder that life’s simple pleasures are the best, and we should always make time to stop and smell the roses.  Sometimes, even on a trip of this magnitude, it’s the little things that make the best memories.

Since it was just a straight travel day for us, it was the incredible beauty of western Canada that made our day.  Yes, we were still on the alert for frost heaves, but there were fewer in this section of the Alaska Highway than there had been on the prior one.  Around every bend, again, was another amazing view, and we were just soaking it all in, knowing how blessed we were to be able to make this trip.

Lowlight(s) of the Day – Bullet holes.  In signs, not in people, so no worries.  I can’t tell you how many bullet holes we’ve seen in road signs throughout western Canada and Alaska.  What’s even more concerning than the bullet holes themselves is that some of the signs that were used for target practice were in residential areas.  We’ve probably all read stories about stray bullets causing deaths, injuries or property damage.  I don’t know what possesses people to shoot at road signs, but when we found the Kluane National Park and Preserve sign with 16 bullet holes in it, that really made me angry.  Seriously?  You have to destroy a National Park sign that represents wild places set aside for our benefit and enjoyment?  Good thing it didn’t happen in front of me – I probably would have gotten myself shot giving the shooter a piece of my mind before Alan could drag me out of harm’s way.

Campground(s) – All I can say is, at least we were there for only one night.  If you believe the website and the signage coming into the park, Caribou RV Park just east of Whitehorse on the Alaska Highway is an amazing RV park and resort.  It’s actually highly rated (8.1 out of 10 stars on CampgroundReviews.com as I write), and it certainly has its fans.  I am not one of them.  And, for the record, neither is Alan.  Maybe they do things differently up here, but I thought the signage was bland and rather amateurish – unprofessional, in my humble opinion.  And it seems that “rustic” is a way of life up here.  The section our pull-thru site was in could have used a good weed-whacking around the perimeter (and maybe even a pass with a brush hog), and our "spacious pull-through" wasn't really what I'd call spacious.  I thought the map was poorly drawn and not very helpful.  When you actually have to stop and figure out whether a particular fork of the road is a roadway or a pathway, your map and your signage need some work.  The only reason we found our site was that we ended up there by happenstance.  The site itself was “L shaped,” with our picnic area forming the short base of the L.  The neighboring rig on the side of our site where our picnic table was had been pulled in facing the opposite direction.  That site also had an “L shaped” site, but upside down to ours – which put our picnic tables right next to each other in between the two rigs.  What’s with that?  When we left the next morning, after paying $57.83 Canadian dollars for a water and electric site, we found the dump station oddly situated and right next to the dishwashing station.  Eeewww!  What’s with that?!  And it was set up in such a way that anyone in line behind us (and there happened to be a big Brinkley fifth wheel that day) would block the main road in and out of the campground while waiting for their turn to dump.  The whole place looked, I don’t know – unkempt, I guess is a good word.  The Caribou RV Park didn’t earn high marks from us.  In fact, I’d choose the pot holes and gravel lot at Deep Creek State Recreation Area in Alaska over this place any day.  If we ever pass through Whitehorse in the future, we’ll be looking elsewhere.  Again.

Tip(s) – Let’s talk finances - foreign transaction fees, ATM withdrawals, Canadian currency and the exchange rate.

First of all, well before our trip, I checked our credit cards to see which one(s) charged foreign transaction fees before we decided what cards we would bring and how we would use them.  Our Discover card charged no transaction fees, and was running a 3^rd quarter cash back special – 5% on Walmart and grocery stores.  So, I used that card at those stores wherever Discover was accepted – which wasn’t everywhere, especially in Canada.  Our Verizon VISA card didn’t charge any foreign transaction fees either, so that was our go to card for gas stations (4%) and restaurants (either 3% or 4% - don’t recall and too lazy to look).  Our Chase Freedom VISA card did charge foreign transaction fees, but that card earns 1.5% on all purchases, so I generally used that for all of our camping reservations.  Since most of those reservations had been made ahead of time and for campgrounds in the States, I wasn’t thinking about foreign transaction fees while we were on the road.  I should have been.  I ended up paying foreign transaction fees on a couple of reservations I made for private RV parks in Canada.  Picture me hitting myself in the forehead and lamenting about how I should have paid closer attention.  The transaction fees weren’t huge, but I’ll tell ya, if you use a card that charges them during your entire time in Canada, they’ll add up pretty quickly.  No thanks.  Better in my pocket than theirs.

Before we left home, I also checked on the fees for ATM withdrawals, especially in Canada.  Discover Bank, where we hold some accounts, doesn’t charge an ATM fee. So, I transferred some money to open a Discover Bank Money Market account.  It allowed me to use a debit card for transactions and ATM withdrawals.  Normally, we only use credit cards, and pay them off at the end of the month.  On rare occasions while traveling in the States have we needed cash to the extent that we used an ATM to withdraw funds.  For this trip, I was concerned about acquiring too much Canadian money and then needing to exchange it before returning home.  I like simple.  Our Discover debit card kept it simple.  I think we made three, and definitely no more than four, withdrawals at ATMs in Canada.  We stuck with the Canadian Imperial Bank of Canada (CIBC), but Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) was another large Canadian bank; both participated in at least one of the ATM networks that Discover Bank did, and both had branches in the area through which we’d be traveling.  For each ATM withdrawal, I paid a $4.50 fee (Canadian funds) to CIBC, and no ATM fee to Discover Bank.  I considered those fees a small price to pay for managing our Canadian money the way we wanted to.

And how did we manage our Canadian money, you ask?  Simply, very simply.  I think we withdrew only a couple of hundred dollars to begin with, and paid cash for some purchases in Canada, but I used our VISA or Discover card for most of them.  At the time we were returning to Whitehorse, we actually sat down and roughly calculated how many nights we kinda sorta expected to stay in government or provincial parks while returning through Canada.  Most were $20.00 (Canadian dollars) per night (with either an Iron Ranger into which you dropped your payment or a campground host who came by to collect your fee), but some were a bit higher if electric was available.  We made our best guesstimate, and planned to just pay for our last one or two gas purchases in Canada with cash to use the rest up.  The goal was to arrive back in the States with no Canadian funds – unless we decided to keep some as souvenirs.  (I had never seen Canadian currency before this trip; let me tell you, it is a beautiful work of art!  Seriously!)  So, on our way through Whitehorse, we made our last stop at a CIBC branch we had used before, and withdrew what we thought would be enough in Canadian funds to cover our remaining camping stays at government and provincial parks.

The only time I thought about the exchange rate was when I was trying to decide whether something in Canada was within my self-imposed spending limit.  I checked the exchange rate once at or before the start of our trip, and just started multiplying every Canadian purchase by .75 in my head to see what we’d roughly be paying.  All of the purchases we made on our Discover and Verizon VISA cards were automatically adjusted, and those adjustments appeared on our credit card statements.  Easy-peasy.  Just the way we like it.

Okay, that’s it for today’s tips.  My apologies to those of you who aren’t number nerds like me.  I can see your eyes rolling back in your heads, and now I feel bad.  Or do I feel badly?  Where is Mike when you need him?!

Pics(s) of the Day

I guess it depends on what your definition of "spacious" is.  And, yes, a vinyl banner.

This was our "spacious pull through."

 

The view that greeted us as we pulled out of Congdon Creek and headed east

Kinda makes you wonder about people, doesn't it?

Coffee break with an amazing view!

Lots of beautiful scenery between Destruction Bay and Whitehorse

Sunny skies and snow-capped mountains - pinch me, I must be dreaming.

Up Next - Back to Watson Lake, our last “repeat stop” on our return trip.  With luck (and the early arrival we had planned), we hoped to get a site at the Watson Lake government campground we had stayed at previously.  Plus, we planned a quick stop at the Sign Post Forest to be sure our license plate was still safe and sound.  Then, it’s southbound on the Cassiar Highway!