Day 9

On the road.

I realized last night that I'd neglected to mention the weather up here. Because the calendar says August, it doesn't seem remarkable that we've been running around in shorts and t-shirts. Sure, a couple of mornings have been chilly, but for the most part, the weather has been perfect during the day. While the folks in BC were suffering through a rainy summer, a clerk in Dawson said that they'd had days in the 90s and even 1000s. With August only half over, we should be in fine shape, right?

Wrong.

This morning, the Great White North is living up to its name. The "showers" we were told to expect have become a full-fledged snowstorm, hardly the blizzard that Mr. Dempster braved, but perplexing nevertheless. And yes, it's sticking. As we bounce our way north, the surrounding fields of stubby trees are becoming increasingly white. The road is fine, just a bit sloppy, and some travellers from up north say that it's not bad the rest of the way. Still, I wasn't dreaming of a White Labor Day.

Later.

How good are Land Rovers? When it comes to surviving accidents, I'd say pretty darn good. Before I go on, let me assure y'all that everybody's fine, including the truck. And it wasn't the snow that caused our mishap. We just had some bad luck on what the locals tell us is one of the worst stretches of the highway. (Approximately 25 miles south of Ft. MacPherson.) Though we weren't going very fast, we hit a bad spot of mud, spun out and flipped over. You read that correctly, flipped over. I'll save the ao gory details for when I get back, but, again, everybody made it okay. With some help of some local muscle, we eventually got the truck flipped over. Scott drove it to Ft. MacPherson (where the rest of us had gone in stages with our belongings), and, as of tonight, it seems to be running okay.

And we're running okay too. So much so that we plan to take in Inuvik and, once the roads dry out, drive back to Old' Virginny. (How else are you going to get a Land Rover across 4,000 miles of Big Empty?) How's that for the Land Rover Spirit of Adventure!

So, that's the scoop. We've come this close to our objective, the truck runs (safely, we presume; we'll know more tomorro), we have options for getting back, we're walking and talking, and ready to proceed on. Mishaps didn't stop Lewis & Clark, and it won't stop us. We're not eating our dogs yet.