Today started with 59,036 miles, the Liard Hot Spring Provincial Park's checkout time. When I woke up, I explored the park again before leaving. The park has mainly two attractions: 2 hot pools and a hanging garden. Most people visit the park for the hot pools.
The Hanging Garden was unique because the plant life flourished due to the warm water from the spring, even in the harsh cold weather this far north. Anywhere else, people might view the hanging garden as some slimy land to avoid, but here in the park, putting a history sign on it makes it an attraction. Actually, it was a small, beautiful garden. The warm water mixes the air to form toofa, which gives life to the garden.
And the hot pools? I was only 1 of 150,000 visitors each year to bathe in the warm/hot water of the hot spring. After not showering for 6 days, it felt great to have warm water over my body. There was a small fall where a person could sit on the bench and let the water run down their body. Or they could sit at the bottom of the bench and let the waterfall massage their back. This was way better than any sauna.
Now I know why this park had so many people at this time of year. And it's open yearround. This is the kind of park where a family could go to enjoy a quiet time camping and bathing. However, the park didn't have a hiking trail other than the 10 minute boardwalk to the pools. At this time of year, it didn't look like there was any charge to enter the park, just for camping; I believe visiting the pool was free. In fact, I saw some people getting off work and bringing their swimming trunks to the pool.
I'm sure older folks would love the hot pool. Of all the parks I've stayed at so far on this roadtrip, I'd have to highly recommend this one. The hot pool in the cold weather feels sooooo good. I spent over an hour bathing in the natural pool. And to think, I only stopped here because I wanted to make a phone call to my family. The park is located near the Liard River in nothern British Columbia.
I left the park at 1:06 pm. For today, my destination was Whitehorse, the the largest city in Yukon, Canada. And it's really not that big of a city. And after arriving there, I decided that it was not really such a great town, and I headed on out thinking it was going to be another night in the backseat of the Rodeo. For a small city, it sure did have it's share of Chinese restaurants. The welcome sign to the city is about 10 miles outside the city for some reason.
Finally after 3 weeks, I finally found a sign of Anchorage. The sign read 1006 kilometers to Anchorage via Highway 1, the Alaska Highway.
The only real thing to note about the evening was that I met a guy at an RV Park where I had planned to spend the evening. I was looking at some fliers inside the building where the washrooms and showers were located, and the guy came up to me and asked if I had any paper so he could roll up his tobacco. I assume he was talking about hemp paper or something. He said he and his friend flew into Seattle, Washington from Georgia and heading to Alaska to work. They were getting a ride from 2 guys who were driving their trailer homes from Seattle to Fairbanks, Alaska. The 2 guys met the 2 drivers at a hostel in Seattle. It cost each of them $50 each to hitch the ride, which was much cheaper than flying. As I was taking a dump on the clean toilets, I decided I better fly out of this place...one of those gut instincts.
I ended up stopping at Aklane Lake to sleep for a couple of hours on a very windy evening. And during the night, my mind played horror tricks on me; so I ended up driving into the town of Destruction Bay, Yukon and slept at a gas station along with 2 rigs. The temperature tonight was going to be -1 degress Celcius with a strong gus of wind. And I was paranoid about waking up with a flat tire since I didn't have a spare available, but I did have the trusty compressor.
