Day 12 – What’s That Big Black Cudly Thing? - 120.85 km
I will be the first to admit that today was quite a dull day. At Johnsons Crossing I tried a “World Famous Cinnamon Bun”. It really wasn’t the greatest cinnamon bun in the world. I’d much rather have one from Cinnabon any day.
Right after Johnsons Crossing there was some bridge work being done, and traffic was stopped. I ended up chatting with the traffic controller for about 20 minutes. She told me that so far the spring has been much colder than usual. Another cool thing she told me is that in the winter, the temperature had to reach negative 55 degrees Celsius before they didn’t have to go to school. Ouch! Looks like we have it easy in Ontario!
On my way to Teslin I saw my first black bear of the trip. Upon seeing me he simply ran off into the woods. He really wasn’t that big, I could have probably taken him on. On a serious note I hope all my bear encounters end in this way!
I arrived in the village of Teslin at about 3:30 PM; a quaint, but nice, little town of about 300 people. Here I did some souvenir shopping, visited the post office, and then sat in a restaurant for about two hours. No, I wasn’t eating for two hours, but this is usually the only way I am able to charge up my iPod, laptop, phone, camera, as well as access the internet.
Am currently camped (probably illegally again) at some rest stop beyond Teslin. I am actually in the province of British Columbia since this road dips into the province for about 50 kilometers or so.
Day 13 – Roads and Bikes Both Under Construction – 105.40 km
Today’s day started off really, really rough. The first 40 kilometers of the day really took their toll on me. Not only was I tired because I stayed up a little late the night before catching up on missed episodes of ABC’s hit show “Lost”, but I was hit by stronger than usual headwinds. I tell you my dear readers, if there is one thing worse than a steep hill, it’s going up that steep hill against a tail wind. I also happened to pass through a stretch of road that was under construction and thus gravel. What mad it really messy was that they had just sprayed water onto the surface to keep the dust down. Sure, no dust, but on the other hand I got all muddy!
After suffering through 40 kilometers I decided to take a lunch break near a stream, where I made a gourmet meal of tortellini and whole wheat bread. Soon after I hit the road again I saw six deer by the side of the road. They were unfortunately scared off by a car, otherwise I would have gotten a picture. That seems to happen a lot to me.
Following that I hit some construction, which is very common in the Yukon. However, this time they wouldn’t let me through on my bicycle! I’m not surprised, the road was all torn up and I would have probably killed myself trying to get across. Needless to say my bicycle went in the back of a pickup truck and I got a ride across the construction zone.
Soon after this I realized that I had experienced my first mechanical failure of the trip. It seemed that my water bottle cage had become detached on one side, and by the time I got to camp, on both sides. No worries, nothing a few zip ties couldn’t fix! The more unfortunate mechanical failure was of my rear view mirror, which snapped when I laid my bike down wrong. It looks like I’ll have to stick to looking over my shoulder!
Another thing I saw today that I thought was neat was a bald eagle. Although I’m not positive, I’m pretty sure it’s not that easy to see them in the wild. I saw this one actually swoop down and catch a fish in the lake. What happened after was actually quite comical. Since there is a layer of ice covering the lake, the eagle actually was stuck and had trouble getting out. At one point he just laid his wings out flat on the ice and looked like he passed out from exhaustion. Eventually he did get out and flew off, with the fish of course.