Natural Hot Springs & Sign Posts

I wrote this entry up this morning because I was so too tired last night. I took the boys up to the Hot Springs before bedtime and it was so relaxing that I just about passed out when I hit the bed.

After Eric got the Jeep bumper fixed we topped off with fuel before heading out of town. When Eric went to hitch up the Jeep the DC (plug into the cigarette lighter) end for the axillary brake broke apart. He tried piecing it back together, but it wasn’t working. Then we remembered the inverter had a DC plug. Eric cut the wires and spliced the inverter plug to the brake system. It worked and we were on our way. Glad we had electrical tape packed!

We had a beautiful drive to Laird. The views were amazing and we started seeing wildlife. We saw black bears, moose, a stone sheep, and LOTS of bison. We traveled alongside Mucho Lake which is absolutely gorgeous. The water was turquoise and the reflections were breathtaking. I hope the pics I took show the beauty of it all.Overall the drive was good. The road was in great shape and the rain was light. A very enjoyable drive.We arrived at Laird Hot Springs, set up, grabbed a snack and headed to the pools. It was a nice walk along a wooden platform walkway over a marshy area. The springs didn’t smell too bad at all. There was a ‘kids’ area that was about 2.5 feet deep and not too hot. It got cooler as you headed down stream. Everyone really enjoyed it. We saw a moose in the distance on the way back to the campsite.When we first arrived at Laird, Eric checked the jeep and noticed that the bumper was starting to pull away in a different area. One of the bolts was pulling through the bracket. (His vlog entry for today explains it better!) He figured if he could get some big washers and the right tool that he might be able to secure it. After we are dinner I went in search of firewood and stopped at the RV park across the street to say hi to Robert & Nancy (Wandering Woolfolks), whose blog I had been following long. I felt really bad that I woke Nancy up (she went to bed early) but was able to talk with Robert a little bit and explained our issue with the Jeep. He went down to the group and asked if anyone had any washers. One of the guys brought me a few washers, I borrowed (the wrong) tool from Robert, and then headed back to our site. It took a lot of muscle, but Eric was able to get the bolt off, hammer the ripped part down, and attached the washers on the outside. YEA! I was so thankful for the helpful people in that caravan group. It seems like all the bloggers I meet in person are super nice, and Robert & Nancy were no exception to that.

We made a fire, enjoyed some s’mores, and then the boys and I headed to the hot springs. We decided to try the beta pool further down. It’s a deep pool that felt refreshing to swim around. It was quite hot, so we headed to the main pool area before heading back to the RV. I thought I was going to have trouble falling asleep since it was so light at 10:30, but with going in the hot springs I was jello by the time I hit the bed. We slept til about 7:30 and then popped up and got on the road by 8:30.Today’s drive has been pretty good roads so far. Nice wide shoulders and not much traffic. We drove a few hours and stopped at Watson Lake, which is just inside the Yukon Territory. Outside the visitor’s center is this cool area called the Signpost Forest. There are huge wooden poles scattered about with signed from ALL over the world on them. We grabbed a shim of firewood and a sharpie and wrote our names & town on it and hung it on one of the poles at the highest point in the forest. We really enjoyed reading signs. People were quite creative on what they hung up. There were lots of license plates, city & street signs, and a variety of stuff that people put their names on. We figured there had to be a Geocache there, so we went back to the RV, jumped onto an open connection, and found one. The coordinates were way off so we didn’t find it, but it was fun trying. We will definitely do a cache or 2 when we go up to the Arctic Circle in a few days.We are now on our way to Whitehorse, which I think it the largest city in the Yukon. We will actually pass quite close to Skagway, AK today but we don’t plan on going there. We will check how the tow is doing. Eric said it was in good shape when we stopped in Watson Lake. We are hitting more rough spost now, but Eric is taking those really slow. We are starting to see mountain peaks with snow in the distance. We’ve only seen bison so far today, but we hope to see more.