Foxy

This morning we woke to this fine-looking fury lady “Foxy” picking through the trash. She was less than 10 ft away from the camper and didn’t seem to mind Benz going nuts at the window. In fact, she seemed to rather enjoy his rants, even taunting him with that bushy tail of hers.

We had a long way to go today from the campground just West of Dawson Creek so we had to get on the road early. On this morning OB and Mert were in perfect sync with one another. Dad was up and getting la jefa unhooked from the utilities of the camp lot and mom was tidying up the cabin readying it for another travel day. We needed to get to Watson Lake (526 km) by day’s end to stay on track to be in Anchorage by the 16th. The morning started out with clear but cold (42 degrees) weather and it looked like it would stay that way for a while based on the horizon. Today we were to reach another milestone of the trip and cross over from British Columbia to the Yukon.

The rolling meadows and hardwood forests of yesterday were soon replaced by a dense forest of pinion pines that seemed to go on forever. It’s crazy to think such a beautiful landscape can get boring but when you travel through hundreds of miles of it that’s what it becomes.

Mama Griz

Then around the next turn mother nature gives you this! Lady Griz and her two cubs. This is the first time I have ever seen a Grizzly Bear in the wild this close to the road. She was less than 25 yards away and the woman at the store just down the road said that she brings her cubs there every day to eat the grass and play in the road. Wait a minute, play in the road? Yes, that’s right, for some reason the cubs like to roll on the warm blacktop she said.

Mama and the Cubs

There were a few cars stopped by the road taking photos and the Grizzly bear seemed to be uninterested in the onlookers. I heard one lady say “Oh look, honey, see I told you they aren’t scared of us” as she crept closer with her camera in hand. I thought to myself, of course, they’re not scared stupid, you get any closer and you’ll find out!

The highlight of the day for me (as much as I liked seeing the Grizzly Bear) was getting my folks to mile zero of the Alaska Highway. 

This was a milestone moment for me. I have been dreaming about this moment for over two years. When I sprung the news to my folks last November that I was going to resign from the best job I have ever had and take them to Alaska they thought I had lost my mind! I have learned over the years that dreams are nothing without execution. If you want to realize your goals in life, you have to be willing to make the change and deal with the outcome. I have always been the driver of my destiny. Sure, you can’t foresee things out of your control but a very wise mentor of mine was constantly driving home the message “control what YOU can control”.

See you tomorrow in Whitehorse!

MM