Lions & Tigers & Bears.....or is it Deer & Moose & Goats....

We stayed in Fort St. John in British Columbia two nights ago. When we awoke in the morning, the sky was grey and it wasn't long before huge snow flakes started falling. Once we got on the road, the snow didn't really last too long. It sure helped make the roads a filthy, slushy mess though. Our cars are absolutely trashed! Jensen also informed us yesterday that he was ready to go home. Bad luck for him! From here on out, we'll be on the Alaskan Highway and about an hour into yesterday's trip, the scenery became quite breath-taking. The road conditions were constantly changing from the slush mess, to completely clear, to just a bit of snow, with a few icy places. It's really been quite an easy drive, especially considering that we're so far into the mountains at this phase. Even though the road conditions really aren't that bad, for some reason they don't seem to have heard of guard rails as there are very few of them. This makes us even more thankful for the road conditions.

We saw so much wildlife just chillin' on the side of the road, or in the road itself, it was unbelievable. Of course, there were countless bucks and deers, we saw several goats on the side of a mountain, several herds of caribou and a couple of moose. At one point, John decided to pull over and check out one of the moose. Grandad and Beau followed and the kids and I thought it best to stay put in the car. I hear this ridiculous noise and it turns out to be Grandad trying to "call" the moose back. Shockingly, it didn't work.

Just as it started getting dark outside, we pulled into the "town" where we had planned to stay the night. It's a place called Muncho Lake. As we pull in, we only notice one motel to the right and it looks like one of those motel's that if you stay the night, you may not live to see morning! Our GPS wasn't showing that there were any other lodgings, so we pulled over to consult with the "Hutch and Beau Show." Their GPS showed that a few miles further up, there should be another place and thankfully, it turned out to be a really charming log cabin type hotel with most importantly, vacancies! I wasn't able to blog last night because being as we're in literally the middle of nowhere, they didn't have wi-fi and they only had one computer for guests to use that not only was it super slow, but you also had to pay every several minutes that you were on it. We all went to bed exhausted, but were unable to get much sleep. Sometime right after we had gone to bed, another family must have checked in. They were given the room above ours and we knew for sure that there were at least 2 children who were currently letting off A LOT of steam. They sounded as if they were going to crash through our ceiling at any moment! It went on and on and on and on. Needless to say, John and I are pretty wiped out this morning. When we went out for breakfast this morning, it was immediately obvious who our upstairs neighbors had been. There was a family of 2 heftier parents and 4 small kids. But here's the kicker, those dang kids made not one peep during breakfast. You would have thought them to be completely mute. I was ready to start throwing my french toast at them!! It was so irritating, especially in my sleep deprived state, to watch them sit there so calm and good.

We start to load up and it is BRRRR cold this morning. Definetly the coldest it's been so far. We see huge buffalo feeding on the side of snow covered mountains. It's so awesome to see them standing there. I don't know how they don't slide down. Further up, there's a huge herd of them feeding at the side of the road. Amazing! We had been told that there are some natural hot springs that we would be passing today and that we must stop at them. So, this morning I put bathing suits on the kids and myself, under our clothes, before knowing how frigid it actually was outside. When we get to where the springs are, you must walk down this trail to even get to them. Molly is sound asleep and Jensen says that he doesn't want to get out of the car. I end up sitting with the kids in the car, all of us in swimsuits, while John goes down to check it out. Realizing that there is no one around (everyone else must have more common sense than us) and not particularly wanting to wear a swimsuit top around all day, I figure what the heck, and change then and there in the car. Mike did come and trade off with me so that I could go down and see the springs. It was about a 10 minute walk down a trail and once I got there, there were several people in the water including John and Beau. I opted not to get in, but did put my hands in it and it was really nice and warm. It was really cool to experience the hot springs in the middle of all the snow and one degree temperature.

Our next stop was at a place where there is supposed to be a naturally forming whirpool. When we pulled off at the exit, we should have been clued in that this was going to be a lost cause as we couldn't even get down the exit road because of all the snow. Did this stop us though, oh no. We all get out of our nice warm vehicles and decide to walk to where you can see the whirlpool. Now, as hard as this may be to believe, there was no whirlpool. When it's only 3 degrees outside, water freezes! We could actually tell where the whirlpool was supposed to be had it not been frozen. It wasn't a totally wasted stop though as Molly had a yucky diaper that I was able to get changed. I put her on the heated front seat and had had her diaper bag on the floor so the wipes were actually really warm from the car heat. The funniest thing was when I pulled her yucky diaper off, there was actually steam rising from it because of how cold it was outside. I know it's kind of gross, but it cracked me up nonetheless.

We decided that it was now time to try and get some miles behind us. We have officially entered the Yukon Territory. John and I did have our first road kill. We had a bird fly straight into our windshield, and according to the "Hutch and Beau Show" it just looked like a cloud of black feathers dispersing as we drove through. Then, not 10 minutes later, we hit another bird. Couldn't believe it! We had a hotel plugged into the GPS in a village called Rancheria and as we entered the town, we passed a rather rough looking motel, but out GPS said that the one we had programed was still 2 miles ahead. Next thing we know, the GPS says that we're arriving at our destination on the right. Funny thing is, there is absolutely NOTHING to our right or left of anywhere, except for trees. We drive a little furter, and then pull over to consult with Beau and Grandad. They say that their GPS says that we still have a few more miles to go before we reach the hotel (that the Mile Post had suggested) that we were planning on staying at, so we tell them to take the lead and head off again. What do you know, there also is no hotel at their GPS destination. Bummer, because now we have to turn around and head back to the rough looking motel that we passed earlier because it's about another 2 hours before we would get to another village, it's already getting dark, and we have no idea if that village would even have a hotel or be open at this time in the season. So here I am, sitting in a rather rough motel (though it does have wi-fi), actually thankful that we have somewhere to stay tonight. Sorry for such a long blog, but in 2 days, a lot has happened. Until next time.......