We had a short drive to our next stop at the Downtown RV Park in Watson Lake, Yukon Territory. We made stops at 2 different “Welcome to Yukon” signs for more photo ops. The first one was barely recognizable but the second one was a nice sign. During our travels on the Alaska Highway we cross back and forth about 7 times between British Columbia and the Yukon Territory. We noticed that British Columbia keeps a large area (about 600’) on each side of the road mowed that allows us to keep an eye out for wildlife. Once we crossed over to the highway maintained by the Yukon, we noticed this berm is allowed to grow up, which does make it more difficult to spot any wildlife. After the incident with the deer a few days ago, we are constantly looking for anything that will wonder out into the road. In the last couple of days, we have spotted several bears, bison, rabbits, deer and some type of wolf/coyote/dog that were not close enough to identify.
We departed the campground early so that we could search for the sign Randy and his family left at the Sign Post Forest in 1966. Again, we had no cell service during our travels. The Sign Post Forest is one of the most famous locations along the Alaska Highway. It was stared in 1942 when a homesick soldier posted a sign of his hometown, Danville, Illinois, 2835 miles. We stopped for fuel next to the Sign Post Forest and the owner told us we could keep our RV parked in his driveway while we searched since we were too early to check into the RV Park! Unfortunately, we could not find Randy’s Maryland Parks sign, and after checking with the staff at the visitor center, we learned that most older signs were removed over 10 years ago when the wooden posts rotted off. Some of the older wooden signs were kept, but since most of the metal signs were rusted, they were thrown away. Randy was very disappointed that he could not find his Maryland sign that they put up, but at least we could erect our Key West Mile 0 sign. I didn’t think to ask Kristina to put the miles on the sign, but not all had the mileage so our sign was OK. I did find other signs from Maryland, including one from Annapolis, MD. Our 2019 caravan sign that everyone signed was also erected as well as several other individual signs.
We really enjoyed the movie at the visitor center that talked about building the Alaska Highway and the Northern Lights Central theater that showed 2 movies about the northern lights. We had time to walk to the grocery store next to the campground so we could restock our supplies, and even got 2 delicious steaks for dinner.
Randy noticed the electric at the campground was fluctuating erratically so we decided to unplug from their generated 15 amp system. It was cool so we did not need the air-conditioners.
Watson’s Lake – Sign Post Forest