I don’t believe in coincidences and today was a perfect example of why.
I was offered the morning off from work and took it to catch up on things at home. This made it possible for me to have an earlier lunch than usual, which put me at the café just in time to run into friends I made in Inuvik who were just going through town for the day. We had lunch together then met up at Gerties tonight for drinks.
Needless to say, it’s been a great day!
Eagle Plains is a complex located on a plateau. It was built in the late 1970s at about the same time the Dempster highway was completed. It is completely self-sufficient and self-contained. There is a service station, motel, lounge/bar, restaurant, apartments for highway workers, and a campground. It must have been a remarkable establishment back in its day, but now it is showing the signs of age and isolation. Still, the facilities are clean, if shabby, and the staff is friendly. A tent site cost me $15.75, including free hot showers, and remarkably good food is available at the restaurant at reasonable prices. A beer with a fancy chicken burger (real breast meat with fried onions, cheese, and BBQ sauce), fries, dessert, tip, and taxes came to $23.
I spoke to the server at the restaurant about life at Eagle Plains. She’s a student for whom this is her third summer at the lodge. She says she never gets bored, what with work, hiking, and photography to be done. I asked her if she is more likely to go north or south on her days off and she said north, claiming the scenery is prettier and that there are more services in Inuvik than Dawson.
It was very windy at Eagle Plains, with the evening, night, and morning being quite cool, but comfortable enough for sitting out while dressed in a reasonable number of layers.
I got gas before going to bed and blanched at the cost–$1.39!
This tiny tent is the one I use when I’m setting up and taking down daily. I have one that’s almost bigger than my RV for extending camping in one location.
these rocks represent latitude marks, including the Antarctic and Arctic Circles, and the Equator
motel
service station
view of the motel
What a neat RV! I love how much ground clearance it has. The licence plate appeared to be German.
5:30am at Eagle Plains
5:30am at Eagle Plains
breakfast at Eagle Plains (that little stove and I have done some serious traveling together!)
Today was brightened considerably when one of my blog readers walked in the door at the office. This person posts comments under a pseudonym and likes privacy, so I will not reveal who it was, but I was not surprised when the person was matched to a commenter name.
We went out for a beer at Bombay Peggy’s and had a capital time talking about the state of full-time RVing in Canada. It was a good reminder that I’m not alone and do not live in a bubble. I found it interesting to see how small and close-knit the RVing community is, how we know the same people, or of the same people, and how all our paths cross and intersect at some point.
Many of the pre-conceptions I had about RVing were blown out of the water in my two years on the road, but one was bang on: becoming a nomad does not mean having to give up on having a sense of community.
Thanks for a fun night! 🙂
The only thing missing to make Dawson a perfect homebase for me (falafel and injara notwithstanding) is a movie theatre. Well, a group decided to remedy that this year, to a point, and launched the Dawson City Museum Cinema. The venue, a conference room in the Dawson City Museum, is probably the best choice in this town. The image quality isn’t even remotely comparable to what you’d get at a theatre and the chairs aren’t that comfortable, but it’s still very much the cinematic experience of watching a picture with other people with the smell of popcorn in the air.
Of course, I work most evenings, so I haven’t been able to coordinate my schedule with that of the cinema. I decided to move heaven and earth to get to a showing tonight, though. Last year, I missed every single movie I wanted to see over the course of the summer, but this year there was only one on my list, Ironman 2, and it was playing tonight in Dawson!
I decided to make an event of it by pretending to be an adult and taking our young worker out for the night. We had chicken burgers at Sourdough Joe’s, got ice cream next door, then took a brief stroll around town as we finished our cones since we were a tad early for the movie.
The movie wound up being even better than I would have expected, the kids who filled the room behaved, and the popcorn was delicious. Who cares that my legs are still numb from that seat; what a fun evening!!!
One of the dancers from Gerties commented on my post where I shared pictures from one of the shows and asked for copies of the photos.
Tonight, I finally burned them to a disc and dropped them off at the casino for her. Since I was there, I figured I might as well have dinner and bought a slice of pizza, a big chocolate chip cookie, and a glass of Yukon Gold. There is just something about the combination of the sweet cookie with the slightly spicy beer! I’ve gone to Gerties quite late on occasion just for a midnight snack of a cookie and beer, sometimes going for chocolate chip and sometimes for macadamia. Doing so is a nice change from all that ice cream. 🙂
I didn’t hang out long since I need to be up early tomorrow. The next couple of days aren’t going to go as planned. I was supposed to be off again tomorrow afternoon through to Thursday morning, but the manager took off for Whitehorse and I’m covering for her. This means I have to be in the office for 9:30 tomorrow and Wednesday mornings! I’m quite happy with the arrangement; the extra responsibility will be just what I need to shake up my routine a bit. Plus, I’m looking forward to getting a pineapple!!!