Day 13 - Watson Lake, YT to Whitehorse, YR

We had another real nice weather day today, which meant that we did not need to put on any kind of gear to ward off the cold or the rain.

After breakfast next door at Andrea’s Restaurant, we rode the Alaska Highway (YT1) for most of the day, except for a brief stint when the route actually takes us back into BC and becomes BC97.

There was a substantial amount of construction to deal with today, with patches of dusty gravel road, to other patches of wet gravel to other portions where pilot vehicles had to get us through the construction sites. I find that makes for a tiring and stressful ride, and it didn’t help when about 100 kms from our destination in Whitehorse, LiB started to feel like she had a very loose back end.

Thankfully, Joe put Vicki on the back of his bike, and they and Romy headed off into Whitehorse to get settled in. Brian and Jana stayed with me as I nursed LiB into town, and after checking it out at the motel – the Stratford Motel – we could see that the rear wheel

bearing was gone. So, after a couple of phone calls, the local Yamaha dealer told me to bring it in and they would have a look at it. They are trying to get in a new bearing and are hoping to get the bike back to us tomorrow morning.

After getting back to the motel, we all took a walk into downtown for dinner at The Dirty Northern – part of the Capital Hotel – and then took a stroll down to the riverside to go see the SS Klondike.
We have now travelled as far as Milepost 885 (MP 1425 km) on the Alaska Highway since our departure from Dawson Creek’s Mile 0.

Tomorrow, once we get LiB back from the local shop, we will veer off of the Alaska Highway for a few days, as we will be taking the Klondike Highway up to Dawson City

Wildlife sightings today were pretty meager – just one curious brown

bear that seemed quite surprised that we were riding by.

For the day, we logged just over 445 kms, bringing the total for the trip to just over 6,702 kms.