Last night was probably the best sleep I’ve gotten this entire trip so far. I slowly crawled out of bed, packed everything up and headed to the camp office where they had coffee on the house, I simply couldn’t pass that up and sipped away while I worked on the blog. It came time to leave and I took one last trip to the beach, as I was walking back to the car I almost got ran over by two energetic little squirrels, one even decided to perch itself on a tree right beside me and pose for the camera, I have a feeling this isn’t their first time doing this, born to be a star I suppose.
I started off towards Yellowknife. I’ve gotten better at traveling after my first week on the road, I’ve been grabbing more maps and while keeping my plans incredibly open I’ve been planning out places to stop a little better than before. One of the places I made sure to stop at was Lady Evelyn Falls, a decent detour but a treasure worth pursuing. A short walk took me to a cliff where the torrent of water rushed over the edge as it raced to the bottom leaving a colorful rainbow that hovered amongst the mist.
I got back on the road and continued north. Despite the ridiculous army of insects I found myself constantly stopping to take pictures or view some of the territorial parks, during one of the stops I came across some of the strangest birds I’ve ever heard, their shouts sounded like someone screaming, I even doubled checked to make sure, it had an eerie rather unnerving sound.
Soon I arrived at a gas station around Fort Providence and figured I mine as well top up the tank, while I was there I noticed they were selling bison burgers and knew I had to try it, I’ll never be able to look at a bison the same way again, it was delicious! I chowed down and since the MacKenzie River was right behind the building I took Winnie for a stroll to stretch her legs.
Back on road and still thinking about how tasty that bison burger was I drove past the biggest bison I’d ever seen in my life, cheeks full he was gorging himself on the various greens beside the road, I quickly snapped some photos and went on my merry way.
The roads were long seemingly unending stretches of pavement, I chased the shimmering mirages for hours on end. I could feel the exhaustion taking it’s toll and found myself pulling over to take breaks more often. I was getting closer though, I was determined to reach Yellowknife within the day. The final 100 km to the capital was treacherous for the unaware and speedy drivers, the road constantly dipped and weaved with pot holes and gravel patches scattered about adding to the mess. There were warning signs for some of the dips and bumps but many still remained unmarked and hidden until the last moment as they waited to humble those who thought they could speed along with minimal care.
At last I arrived in Yellowknife, exhausted I found a campground and set my tent. There was a dog park close by so I took Winnie on over to stretch her legs and burn off her energy, she ran back and fourth having a blast in the sunset. The amount of mosquitoes there were staggering, the swarm followed us everywhere, even as I was putting Winnie back in the car after her gallop in the park there must have been at least 20 that got inside before the slaughter started as I hunted them down. When I got back to camp I found myself watching a dragonfly darting back and fourth feasting, I wondered who took out more mosquitoes tonight, me or him, I’m willing to bet it was close.
