Watson Lake: Twas the best of times; Twas the worst of times

They warn you about the roads. You try to come prepared. It is a paved road mostly but don't let that fool you.

The road into Watson Lake, home to the very famous and now very large 'Sign Forest' is as I mentioned for the most part paved. For the other part it's gravel road made up of some of the sharpest, bone-jarring, car-rattling, tire-eatiing lack of pavement  you could wish for. And did I mention the dust? They have signs, which you quickly learn to dread, telling you of upcoming "loose gravel" sections and warning you of "Extreme Dust Conditions". If you've ever seen YouTube videos of Arizona Hoodoos or other assorted dust storms of Armageddon you have only to double the intensity of E.D.C. You can't see anything when a big rig passes from the other direction but you feel the dust (and rocks aka  'gravel') hitting your car. And you'd  better have rolled up all of your windows and turned your vents to recirculate interior air -either that or don a scuba mask or hazmat suit if you plan to breathe until  the dust clears just in time to see the next semi truck hurtling toward you from down the road.

Our van had good quality tires in good condition when we left Denver. Alas, they were no match for the Alaska Highway. First flat came about 180 miles out of Watson - in other words literally in the middle of nowhere. My mistake was a) believing the road was paved b) thinking it couldn't be that bad and c) not investing in a full size spare tire.   Oh, and d) not having refreshed myself on where the good folks at Toyota went out of their way to hide the little donut spare that came with the vehicle. I can't really be blamed for all of this as I had never experienced  a flat on this car in 90,000 miles. By 90,100 I would have experienced this joy not just once but twice. I consider myself lucky; locals talk of roads up here ( the Dempster Highway is held in awe) where people may experience 6 or 7 flats in a single day.

Watson Lake known for the "Sign Forest"

So on goes the little donut spare (rated for about 90 miles and recommended speeds of no more than 50 mph). Reading the instructions which emphasize the spare is "for temporary use only" we set off for Watson Lake which is not only the closest town but the ONLY town within several hundred miles that boasts those two magical words: TIRE REPAIR.

Of course driving at 50 mph for 180 miles guarantees in particular one thing - you will arrive shortly after the TIRE REPAIR facility has closed up shop for the day. So it's off to find a place for the night. There is an RV park but it doesn't look very inviting (picture row after row of RV'S parked like sardines in a can). Up the road there is a campground so we head out of town and down, you guessed it, another gravel road until we reach the Watson Lake Government Campground and at 2 o'clock  in the morning (which is dusk in these parts) finally put an end to a very harrowing day.

I titled this post the best of times and the worst of times and the Watson Lake Campground was definitely the best. While in town all those RV'ers were listening to their neighbors snores we were tucked into a beautiful pine forest with one other camper in the entire campground. The next morning we met Paul, the gentleman who maintains the campground who couldn't have been friendlier  or more helpful.

First up on the agenda was making good use of the TIRE REPAIR facility which of course couldn't actually REPAIR  the tire but might be able to replace it if they had the right size in stock. They were nice enough to ask if I wanted a new or used tire. I graciously declined used having had my fill of one very used and very FLAT specimen. Thankfully (and I mean down on my knees praise be to God thankfully) they did have one in the right size and as an extra bonus it was a full fledged snow tire (I passed on having it studded what with it being only June). Since beggars can't be choosers I told them to mount that snow tire up and $194 lighter off down the road we rolled.

32 miles later, on the 256 mile drive to Whitehorse, our next destination, on came my tire inflation light and the flat fairy had struck again. But that's a tale for another blog so stay tuned!