Today I traveled for 9 hours, 585 kilometers = 363 miles. It sounds like a very long day, but since I started at sunrise in the morning, I made good time, had lots of neat wildlife and scenery stops in between, and still got to my destination before sunset.
Today was a bonanza for wildlife. I saw a jackalope, rabbit, squirrels, about 75 bison, and 3 black bears!
I ate lunch at a restaurant Wolf It Down http://nuggetcity.com/wolf-it-down-restaurant/
next to the Baby Nugget RV Park http://nuggetcity.com/baby-nugget-rv-park/
near Watson Lake where I had stayed overnight on the journey west to Alaska in August.
I gassed up in Watson Lake, glanced at the Signpost Forest 
http://www.yukoninfo.com/watson-lake-signpost-forest/
and then continued on. [You might remember that on my journey in August, I came up the Cassiar and joined the Alaska Highway at Watson Lake. This time I am not going to go back on the Cassiar; instead continuing east on the Alaska Highway towards Dawson Creek to go a different, not so remote route.]
Immediately after leaving Watson Lake, there were signs on the highway reminding travelers of two things: 1. Check your gas; a long ways to next fill up and 2. Expect to see bison ahead on the road. Both were very important!
Within a half hour out of Watson Lake, we began to see bison. Bison by themselves, at the side of the road and walking across the road. Bison in pairs and bison in huge herds!
I parked at the shoulder of the road and one bison decided to saunter right past my vehicle and trailer, seemingly oblivious to me or the dog and cat inside the car. I have a video of it, but this site will not allow me to upload it due to size, so until I learn how to shrink it, you’ll just have to take my word for it!
Then a few miles later I saw 3 black bears on the north side of the road. I pulled over to the shoulder and watched them through the window of the car. I thought they might be a momma, daddy and young’n bear. They were munching on stuff in the greenery at first. 
then they began to explore the culvert. First “momma” bear tried to climb inside the culvert and back out, then “baby” bear did the same. Then they started towards the edge of the road behind my T@b. uh-oh! They must’ve realized something different was there, because they all 3 ambled around to the back of the T@b and “Poppa” bear stood up on the back of the T@b!! uh-oh! Now I was concerned that they might scratch the outside of the T@b. So I gently released the Park and rolled forwards a few feet. That got their attention!! The Poppa bear got down on all fours again and then all three turned and trotted across to the other side of the road, where they began eating again. I had been watching them for about 15 minutes, so had my fill and proceeded on down the road.
Notice I mentioned back at Watson Lake the signs reminding to fill up with gas, which I had. Mid-afternoon I had passed several closed gas stations and was approaching a quarter of a tank. My policy had been to not let it get below half a tank, but I had not seen any place to fill up. Looking ahead on the Milepost, I was getting worried. Finally, I saw a gas station, but alas, they were out of gas, but a tanker had just pulled in. They said it would take an hour to fill the huge gas tanks. I decided to wait rather than risk driving on further. The lodge there was beautiful, but only open for gas, not lodging.
After waiting for over an hour for the gas tanker, I was finally able to gas up and continue on down the road. There were a good few hours of daylight left and I didn’t want to waste the time.
The road east of Liard Springs winds around Muncho Lake.
At dusk I arrived at Toad River Lodge/Campground, where I pulled in and got a site for the night. They also had a nice restaurant, where I had supper. The lake is Reflection Lake.
There was truck parking there also, so quite busy with truck noise in and out, but I was tired and the RV site was away from there close to the lake, so I had no trouble sleeping.
Beautiful sunrise in the Yukon!
Prettiest place to fill up with gas–
Lunch stop.
Destruction Bay. So named cause the lake can get very stormy. It was very cold and windy. I drove past Whitehorse, did not stop, as I wanted to get further.
The sun coming up on the way to Fairrbanks.
I saw a red fox at mile 299 near Nenana!
ng; the Rutters were camping right outside the park in another place and the Filardis slept in the back of their covered truck at my camp site. We were all up at the crack of dawn and ready to pull out around 7 AM. The sun was just starting to come up.
It wasn’t quite that green. Most of the vegetation was brown. Further down the road was snow….. I’m going to just let the pictures speak for themselves. We saw bears, moose, caribou, arctic squirrels, ptarmigans, and even a wolverine, although he was too fast to get a picture, streaking across the road right in front of Eric’s vehicle. We saw a friend of the Filardi’s who works for DNP, Ranger Bill at the site of a bear jam! We went all the way to Wonder Lake and Kantishna, where Mt. McKinley, or otherwise known as Denali, was out in all her glory for us! We saw bears, moose, caribou, arctic squirrels, ptarmigans, Dall sheep, and even a wolverine. The wolverine streaked across the road in front of us so fast we didn’t get any photos, but we could see him scurrying down the valley below, crossing the stream, and then going up the other side of the valley through the brush. On my previous trip in Denali 3 weeks before with my son, the bus driver had mentioned that this year was the first time wolverines had been seen in the park in years, and the area where we saw it was just about where the bus driver said the wolverine had been hanging out.
This is just the front of it. Hind end in back of trailer separate from this. I can’t imagine picking it up and lugging it out of the woods!
A fly fishing wheel.
The leisurely ride back was a chance to gawk at all the lovely homes along the river.
I did get many nice souvenirs that will make great Christmas presents! 