Uh, oh. I have competition. Mom came home with this guy in Valdez. Says his name is Balto. First thing I did was grab him and run out the door with him. Looked like something I should chew the stuffing out of. I have grown used to him over the last few days and today I was even nice enough to pose for the family photo. Mom says she needs a cuddle dog on the top rack, and I am too afraid to go up there. I guess as long as it doesn't go any farther than that I can tolerate him. As long as my food and my puppy cookies don't get eaten....
Mom is still walking me. She wants to ooh and aah about the flowers and the scenery and the rivers and the mountains, but I say walks are all about rodents. There are ground squirrels everywhere, and ungrounded squirrels in the trees chirping at me. The last few nights have been a cornucopia of squirrels.
We are somewhere in BC now. I get so confused sometimes, because it all looks the same at the end of a longline. We left the Yukon a couple of days ago on the Cassiar highway to see new scenery. It sure worked. We have bear sightings everyday, and we have seen a red fox and a moose in a pond. I will have to do some catchup on my animals. The road was supposed to be awful, but we have found that when Dad drives, it is smooth and paved and the sun shines. When Mom drives, the road turns to gravel with potholes and construction zones with flag women. And it rains.
The first night on the Cassiar, we stayed at Boya Lake. Now that was scenery. We went on a lakeside trail hike, and I drank lake water twice. Mom took pictures and I barked at squirrels. Eventually the squirrels moved out of our tree or went to bed and I was allowed out on the longline.
There was a family from Vancouver next door, three boys very close in age, and Anthony came right over to check me out. He has this British accent so he says his name is Antony without the h. He wanted to know how much I weighed. About 60 lbs Dad said. How much do you weigh? Anthony said 70. Mom asked how many kilos? No kilos, he said. There were lots of other questions. His brothers hung back, but not the middle child Anthony. That is why he is in the picture with me.
Anthony's family started a fire with a big old log. It struggled a long time. Mom was trying not to show them the girl scout way and I could tell it was killing her. Finally they fanned it into a flame that began to thaw their burgers. Mom offered to get the grill out, as it was about dark thirty by then. Just then the log finally caught fire, as did their burgers. They all ate and crawled in their little oversized van for the night.
Next morning Anthony and his brothers and his dad all had a dip in the lake. Dad finally jumped in, and the boys all stood shivering up to their knees but no deeper. All of them had on their swim goggles. Pretty funny sight. Mom and Dad both said it was not very nice to keep looking at them, but they were such cheap entertainment. All that and a lakeside view for $15 a night. Just pay the first nations lady when she comes by.
We spent another day on the Cassier, a long one for us, 240 miles, because there was nothing between the park and the next possible camping place. Mom drove a lot because Dad has another cold starting (yick!). Mom said the scenery was Switzerland again. Mountains with snow and wildflowers everywhere.
We stopped for the night at a combo cabin/hotel/rvpark/heliskiing operations. It was quite the palace too. It had a sauna, a workout room and a HOTTUB. The hottub had three employees in it who had spent their day off floating on a lake and freezing their buns off. They were trying to warm up. After a while they got pretty warmed up, thanks to a bottle or two of wine, and one of them started group singing. You know how Mom is on talent nights, and she was pretty impressive when she could remember the first AND second verse. Of course these girls learned the songs on CD's and mom still has the original vinyls in her collection. Janis Joplin, the Beatles, etc. Dad said he couldn't tell if anybody was on key or not. He's a great audience that way. One girl got so warmed up that she offered Mom something Bill Clinton never inhaled. Mom said no thanks, it might make her want to start smoking again, the cigarette kind of smoking, which she has not done for 25 years. Mom headed for the showers and to bake some brownies, just in case the very thought of inhaling made her want chocolate.
We were lazy the next morning, the last RV to leave at 10 am. We had only a 100 mile day planned, a side trip to Stewart and Hyder on Glacier road, so named because in 32 miles you can see 20 glaciers. Bear Glacier is the biggest one. Hyder is in AK, so we made one more border crossing we hadn't planned on. But we had to cross the border and go down the pothole road because there is a bear viewing site where the salmon come to spawn. US Govt built it. Platforms just like the ones at Brooks River on Katmai, except so totally accessible....well, if you want to drive the Cassiar and go to Hyden. When we got there, the ranger said I could not even put one paw outside the RV because it would either run the bears off or make them want to eat me. Phooey. Well, there were only two salmon spawning in the creek, so no bears yet. Any minute though, everyone says, they are going to be fishing and training their cubs to fish. So we bumped back into town and crossed the border again. Empty handed once again in the salmon bear category.
Dad went grocery shopping in Stewart and Mom and I walked out a boardwalk to the estuary. It was raining one minute, sunny the next. That's Alaska. Wait ten minutes and the weather will change.
We found a spot at Bear River RV park where I can have unlimited longline but I have to come in at dark because of the bears. Mom walked me out a very nice rodent smelling road to the river. She was looking for bears the whole time.
I've had a pretty good day. It was a three walk day. Can't get much better. Except if I could catch one of those squirrels, grounded or ungrounded.
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