Copyright 2006 Lydia HinshawWHITEHORSE, YT -- The Haines Highway is a long and lonesome road, but not a boring one. This young grizzly kept us entertained for quite a while as he munched on shrubbery and and frolicked not too far from the road.
At one point, he even took a quick bath in a small body of water that we couldn't see from the road. We figured out what he'd been up to when he reappeared, dripping wet, from behind some tall grass.
This pictures was one of many I shot out the car window. Rule 1 with bears is "don't get out of the vehicle." This summer I've had to be firm with several tourists who didn't understand why they couldn't get off the bus and walk right up to a bear to pose for a photo.
This weekend's odyssey began with a ferry ride from Skagway, AK, to Haines, AK, Friday night. That trip is 15 miles, takes and hour and costs $100.. We are spending Saturday and Sunday returning to Skagway by road. That will be 350 miles.
We were on the Haines Highway for 150 miles and found the scenery more reminiscent of Wyoming or Montana than the now-familiar alpine landscape north of Skagway.
We camped out at Haines Junction, YT, Saturday night. All went well until we woke up to the worrisome patter of rain on the tent at 3:45 a.m. Sunday. At 8 it was still coming down. The tent didn't leak, but taking down a tent in the rain is one of those adventures we'd like to avoid.
So now we are back in our favorite backwoods coffee shop (free wi-fi!) with our tent fly draped over the car in the hopes that it will get dry before we get back to eternally soggy Skagway.
Just south of Haines Junction this afternoon, we got our windshield broken by a flying rock, which is a rite of passage for folks spending time in these parts. I'm amazed that it took us four months to achieve this milestone.
The tour company we work for has 14 vehicles and every windshield in the fleet had been broken by July 1. No sense in getting them fixed until the season's over, our boss says.
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