Country Bear Jamboree

First of all, hello from Whitehorse, YT! We made our goal and only ended up doing about a 13 hour drive today - much better than yesterday.  Also, after doing this trip twice now, I feel pretty good about labeling Whitehorse the nicest town on the Alaskan Highway.  It's beautiful, situated on the Yukon River, away from the highway but with good access, and there's lots of places to stay, things to see (if you aren't traveling with pets I guess) and places to eat.  It seems like a really livable place, too.  Even when we were here in the freezing springtime, people were always out and about, running along the river and doing fun outdoor activities.  If I had to live in the middle of nowhere, I guess I would probably pick Whitehorse.

Today we drove the full length of the Cassiar Highway, which connects the Yellowhead Highway (where we stopped yesterday in Smithers) to the Alaska Highway (ALCAN).  The best part about this is you cut out about 130 miles of driving distance AND you get to miss the ugliest parts of the "normal" drive including Dawson Creek, which I really really hated (to review that part of the trip from the last time we did the drive, go here).  We didn't miss the flat ugliness of NE British Columbia and were excited to spend the day in the mountains.  We were sad to miss the portion of the drive up near the hot springs where we saw all the bison last time, but the scenery today was completely out of this world and I am so glad we took this route.

Even the forest that had been burned was pretty - and such clear water! 

Ignore those idiots passing each other - look at the view!!

Especially because not too long after we got on the Cassiar, I got to cross another species off my wildlife bucket list!!

Not a polar bear...just a pale young grizzly

I have been talking about seeing bears for MONTHS now.  I was worried that because we were going in the summer, we might miss them since I heard they typically come out in May/June and then kind of retreat back into the forest in the summertime.  Well, whoever told me that was wrong! We also saw a bunch of black bears:

We saw maybe three or four more black bears that we didn't get pictures of.  They were really cute...from the car.   Ripley decided to be tough every time we saw them and barked and growled at them out the window - pretty sure they'd eat your face off if you met them face to face, buddy! We also saw a herd of caribou (sped past them, rather), tons of little chipmunks, squirrels, a couple of ducklings (we almost drove off the road trying not to hit them), and rabbits.

Speaking of Ripley, he's been doing really well.  We set him up with a super smooshy setup in the backseat and he's eye level with the windows.  When he isn't sleeping, he's looking out the window.  He takes pit stops with us every couple hours and is even eating a little (those of you who know Ripley know that this is amazing for traveling...he doesn't even like to eat at the beach house).  He seems to enjoy being in the car actually and I know he's happy to have Andy and I together again.  Right now he's hopping between the queen beds in the hotel room (Andy and I each took our own since we're romantic like that) and he can't decide who to sleep with tonight.

This is what I see when I look in the rearview mirror. His cuteness is totally distracting. 

We'll be up bright and early tomorrow to head to Anchorage.  I was just checking out pictures of the Whitehorse-Anchorage trip from back in April and I can't wait to see what a difference a couple of months makes as far as scenery goes.  You can check out the pictures here and see the difference when I post new pics tomorrow.  I'm also praying that they did some road repairs in the past couple of months.  I am guessing no.

Anchorage tomorrow!!