Spring 1997 - Cincinnati to Yukon
Journals - 2 July 1997
Day 93 - Past Watson Lake, Yukon
2 July 1997 (sunny with 15 minutes of light rain; mileage = 34.6) -- X - We
got up and left our nice campsite by the lake before the Swiss. My pulley
was OK, but I'm still worried about it. We went through a lot of
construction and dirt roads. I found a 1/2-inch wrench. There were some nice
views of mountains in the distance, but the riding wasn't too bad. We
stopped for a picture at the Yukon sign. We cross the border so many times,
it's hard to know where you're at (B.C. or Y.T.) any given time. When we
got about 5 miles from Watson Lake, advertising signs were every 100 meters
of so. This gave the illusion that Watson Lake was a real town. Not! It's a
tiny, little place that, despite its hype, was no bigger than Strasbourg,
Sask., which I liked much better. We waited a bit for the Swiss, whom we
could see behind us, and we looked at the 1st campground. Nice, but it was
on the front of town. We then went to the town's RV park. It was a gravel
parking lot. We were discouraged by this, so we went to the big attraction
here (we were procrastinating) -- the Signpost Forest. Lots of signs. Yup.
Many from Ohio and Switzerland. Then we looked at our camp info and found a
place that said "Bikers Welcome." That seemed worth it. It was 7 miles out
of town, so we'd have to stock up on groceries. We spent ~ $117, and the
Swiss spent $136, which was still A LOT, even though everything was
sky-high. We then rode our super-loaded bikes to this campground only to
find they weren't so "biker friendly." Pay showers, rocky ground, chained
picnic tables, no fire pits (which the Swiss were counting on), no good
place for our food, tons of mosquitoes (near tall grass and we couldn't
easily move because of the chains on the picnic tables). And for all this,
we paid $15, which was 2 tent site prices. This kind of thing makes me sad.
That's a pie or a pint of Haagen-Dazs, but no, it is just wasted. We had
sandwiches for dinner. I talked with Hanspeter for quite a while and then
read a Yukon tourist magazine.
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