Day 115: Whitehorse to Jade City

August 7, 2014

Surprise! We have Internet tonight! Still don't know about tomorrow night.

This morning we woke to beautiful sunshine but quite cool 43 degrees. We knew when we first woke up that it was cooler last night because neither one of us wanted to get out from under the covers. When we did we discovered there was a reason for that. Oops! We left the window open at the foot of the bed all last night. Yep, needed a little heat this morning. That's OK because the forecast is great and as we are heading south the high temps are also going up. We plan to be in Hyder by Saturday and the forecast there is for sunny and 85. We haven't seen 85 since last summer.

This morning before leaving Whitehorse we topped off with fuel since the station was right there at WalMart and then got back on the Alaska Highway. Just a little way out of Whitehorse a red fox crossed the road in front of us. We have now seen several red fox on this trip. They are such pretty and graceful animals.

Since we drove this section of highway on the way to Alaska we didn't stop much for pictures. We went back through Teslin and crossed the Teslin River Bridge which is the third longest water span on the highway and then the Nisutlin Bay Bridge the longest water span on the highway. We also went by more of the rock writing on the banks on the side of the road and hopefully these pictures are better than the last ones.

We didn't know Smokey had dual citizenship

We then came to Mile 649 of the Alaska Highway where it intersects with Highway 37, the Cassiar Highway. We made our turn on to the Cassiar and said goodbye to the Alaska Highway (sad) until our next trip north – if and when that happens.

The Cassiar Hwy was completed in 1972 and is a 450 mile road connecting the Alaska Highway in Yukon Territory to the Yellowhead Highway in British Columbia, and provides us a way to visit Hyder, Alaska. It is a narrow 2 lane road with no center lines. It was filled with pot holes and frost heaves on the most northern section but is slowly improving the further south we go. Still not good, but better.  We had been warned about the first section and told not to give up and that it would get better. The scenery is quite nice with some beautiful lakes. 

Scout got tired of his head bouncing on the floor so he took Anne's purse for a pillow.

We made it as far as Jade City - population 75 - 76 miles south on the Cassiar today. This is a much more remote area with very few services, fuel stations, etc. This area of the Cassiar Mountains provides 92% of the world's jade, producing about 1 million pounds of Jade each year. We are currently at Cassiar Mountain Jade Store. They kindly provide free RV parking, WIFI (that actually works) and coffee. We will tell you more about it tomorrow when we enjoy our morning coffee, do a little shopping, and watch a jade cutting demonstration.

We drove about 8 hours today and are tired tonight. We haven't decided if we will make tomorrow another long driving day or it we will break it into 2 short days before arriving in Hyder. Eight hour driving days aren't bad when you are on good interstate highways, but on the roads up here – that's a long hard day of bouncing over rub boards and dodging pot holes. Leftovers tonight for supper and time to curl up with a book. Hope you check back on us tomorrow.