Month: May 2009

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Heading North

Well, I’m about an hour away from leaving Nugget City! I need to pack up the iMac, go dump, hookup the car, and say goodbye to everyone.

I just got back from Watson Lake. I hadn’t planned to go into town again, but I was paid by cheque so I decided that it would be wise to go deposit it, especially since I’m running low on cash. At the same time, I popped into Watson Lake foods to see what the specials are this week. That’s how I tend to shop, by stocking up on whatever’s on sale, rather than getting what I ‘want.’ There were great deals to be found, sufficiently so that I bought more than I expected, which means I’ll be in less of a hurry to get to Whitehorse. I did buy two things that were not on sale: two loaves of Demptser’s 12 grain sliced bread. This is the only sliced bread that I buy and it isn’t cheap. Whenever I can find the bread for under 4$ a loaf, I stock up. They didn’t have any at the grocery store last time, but they had two loaves today, regularly priced at… 3.99$. I was shocked; I’ve paid up to 4.99$ in BC for this bread, and that was on ‘sale’! I’m also amused that I caught Watson Lake Food’s ‘Buy 30$ worth of grocery, get a free steak knife’ promotion both times I shopped there, so I now have two nice new sharp knives; something that I actually needed. I can now retire my older, and quite dull, knives. 🙂

Whitehorse is about 500km away with the detour I’m taking. What I’m hoping to do is find a territorial park along the way where I can hunker down for a couple days and just recoup from the last two weeks. So, I will probably not be online again for several days. The adventure resumes!

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Watson Lake

Watson Lake is a sad little town, a sorry ‘Gateway to the Yukon.’ Its maligned reputation is well-earned; the town is ugly and there is little to see or do outside of outdoorsy pursuits like hunting and fishing. This is a place to stop at to see the Signpost Forest and to top up on groceries, not a place to put down roots.

That said, I have two months to make a major decision regarding this town.

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Hot Water Tip

A return to boondocking brought a reminder that I needed to deal with my hot water situation by doing one of two things:

1) installing a showerhead with a shut off switch or;

2) lowering the temperature on the water heater

The water gets to be so hot that I have to mix it with cold when I shower. That is impractical when boondocking; by the time I get the mix just right each time I turn the water on and off again, I might as well just leave it on!

One morning, the hot water ignition malfunctioned and the heater didn’t start. I got it going but, since I was spending the day away from the rig, I decided to shut it off once the water was heated just in case the ignition failed again.

I forgot that the heater was off.

The water was still so hot by dinner time that I didn’t even notice that the hot water wasn’t fresh when I did the dishes.

Several hours after that, I went for my shower and discovered that the water coming out of the hot water faucet at full blast was exactly the right temperature!

So, I now turn the water heater on only once a day instead of leaving it on all the time. Even if a whole day goes by without my remembering to turn on the heater, it takes only about five minutes for the water to warm up enough for a shower.

In terms of energy savings, ie. propane, this trick is really negligible. But in terms of grey tank space saving, it’s huge! I just learned that I can only go five days on my tank when I don’t watch how much water I’m using. 🙂

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I Used to Like Painting… :)

WHEW!!! It took six days, five of them straight through, to get the darn deck done!!! Tomorrow, like yesterday, I’m planting flowers, and Saturday I head back out on the road!

Yesterday was the first time since I got here that I got that ‘pang’ that told me it was time to leave. We had a lot of RVs pass us on their way north and I just couldn’t wait to be back out there.

Next stop is Whitehorse, which I plan to get to in two days, so by Sunday night or mid-day Monday. As a teaser for things to come, I will not be taking the Alaska Highway to get to Whitehorse….

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Stuck in Watson Lake

How hard is it to get out of Watson Lake? One couple has learned that it is practically impossible to get out of this town!

Last night, a retired RCMP officer and his wife were en route to Whitehorse for an RCMP shinding happening this weekend when their car broke down about  twenty kilometres from Nugget City. An RVer passed them, turned his rig around (go RVers!), and drove them here. They spent the day trying to find someone going north who could drive them to Whitehorse, but this wound up being a very low traffic day.

Next option was to go back to Watson Lake to get on a Greyhound bus. Greyhound couldn’t simply pick them up at Nugget City; a ticket absolutely had to be bought at the depot in town, no exceptions whatsoever. So, they tried to find someone going into Watson Lake, but struck out there also. Finally, the owners here offered to drive them into town.

When I got wind of all of this, I stepped in and told the couple I would take them in. The owners have enough to do without losing an hour going into town and back! So, I emptied the car of the bike, bike accessories, and kayak bits so that I could free up the back seat and took off with this couple at about a quarter to nine.

Halfway into Watson Lake, I asked them where I was dropping them off. This got me some rather resounding silence. They thought I knew where the bus depot is! I think they had a minor freakout, but I suspected that the Tags convenience store across from Sign Post Forest would be open and directions would be had there. I was right. I took them to the bank, then we headed off to the depot (across from Tags, pretty much behind the bank, in a huge green building!). I took the right approach to the building as even with my myopia I was able to see the Greyhound sign in the distance, to everyone’s relief.

Once there, I insisted on going in with them. After everything that happened, I wanted to make sure that they would be able to get on a bus tonight! I was surprised to find the depot open, with a nice waiting area. It’s going to be a long night for them, but they’ll be in Whitehorse by 4AM and they have a hotel room booked so they can crash upon arrival. The owners asked me to come back up to the restaurant in a few minutes so that we can wave to the bus as it goes by!

This is a good example of a bad situation that turned out well. They could have been stranded a lot farther in the boondocks instead of within easy towing of Nugget City. We have a mechanic on site, so while they’re doing their thing in Whitehorse, their car will be fixed up here. They’ll be able to bus back on Sunday, pick up the car, and head home.

As for my getting out of Watson Lake, it’s in the works! Friday is absolutely and definitely my last day of work and I’m pulling out Saturday! I can’t believe I’ve been here for two solid weeks!!! They have been very good weeks; it’s been great to have been on almost FHU (no sewer) with good internet without feeling a pinch and to know that my next tank of gas is covered. The last two weeks have been the first that truly reflected my dream for this life and I hope they are a portent of things to come.

Post edited 45 minutes later to add:

I just got in from waving the bus with about six other people. We must have been a tad… enthusiastic. The bus passed us, turned around at the first chance it saw, and came back to see if someone had been missed! The group of us didn’t know whether to laugh or be mortified!!! :LOL: