Panning for GOLD with plastic Dollarama plates.

Today marks two weeks that we have been on this Wilson Family Road Trip. In 2 weeks, we've visited 6 provinces (actually the Yukon is a Territory, but we'll count it as a province, in this case), crossed 4 time zones, and visited 19 different playgrounds. It has been an action packed 2 weeks, and we're excited to see what the next couple months will entail.

Yesterday we left Watson Lake, YT and headed to Whitehorse. Whitehorse surprised me. I expected it to be mostly Inuit people, some native craft/souvenir shops, and maybe a totem pole or two set up around town. However, it was quite modern. it had multiple Starbucks, and the 'downtown' core had lots of people in business suits and clothes that weren't from Giant Tiger wandering around. We went to an awesome playground on the shores of the Yukon River, and all the moms and dads there seemed like Burlington moms and dads. Yeah, I had it pictured all wrong. Anyway, Whitehorse was great for running errands and stocking up on things we needed before we entered the 'wilderness' again. Andy had to do some banking at TD, I needed some Timbits from Tim Hortons, Andy wanted his philly cheese steaks from M&M Meat Shops, and I wanted to re-stock on kids movies and President's Choice products from the Real Canadian Superstore. In other words, we knew we were entering the U.S. the next day and we needed to do some 'Canadian' things while we could.

We camped last night in Kluane National Park and Reserve, and we were the only ones there. Sawyer woke up early and Andy bundled her up in her snowsuit (it's very cold in the mornings) and took her outside. He came back in a moment later because there was a grizzly bear right outside the R.V. I have never seen a grizzly in the wild. It was awesome. We followed him around (in the RV) so I could get a close-up picture. So in homeschooling today, we learned about bears. Seemed appropriate.

We crossed into Alaska this morning (no problems at the border, but I had to give up my oranges in case they had something 'suspicious' in them) and stopped for gas. At the rest stop I took my kids into the gift shop…which is a bad idea with Annika. She always wants to buy the worst stuff. I am definitely not a souvenir person, so this desire of hers to buy cheap trinkets is hard for me to grasp. Anyway, I lured her away from the vial with fake gold nuggets in it by promising them an ice cream sandwich. Kai chose a neopolitan ice cream sandwich and later declared that the best part of his day. Seemed ironic that the first thing we did in Alaska was eat ice cream sandwiches. Andy explained that when you are in Alaska you are to call them 'Eskimo Pies'.

I got to go for another awesome bike ride; this time along the Alaskan Highway. We made an evening stop at a creek and Andy and Kai tried their luck at panning gold. They were using plastic dollarama dishes and searching for flecks of gold in the sand. Didn't pan out too well for them. Tonight we are in the North Pole. For real. North Pole, Alaska. We are headed to the Santa Claus house in the morning with the kids.