Aunt Cecilia is my special guest!

She flew up to spend my last week in Dawson (for now) with me! I bet she didn’t expect to also be helping me pack, box things up, and move furniture!

To make that not sound so terrible, we’re still doing fun stuff! The first night we went up the Dome to see the sunset. It was SO windy up there. Cold too!

She hasn’t explored this part of the Yukon for 30 years, and she had one request – let’s visit Tombstone!

Our fall weather forecast is always so cold, damp, rainy, foggy, and I wasn’t convinced Saturday was the best day to go, but Cecilia saw a preferable weather window, and we went for it! (She was right!)

Tombstone Territorial Park is up the Dempster Highway about an hour (the driving was slow after our recent rains – so many potholes and plenty of thick mud!)

It was also very windy and cold!

We caked layer after layer of mud onto my truck!

While we were at this rest area, I connected to the INTERNET!!

The future is now!

Actually, I just got a Starlink Mini on a roam subscription so I can have internet access anywhere, including while I’m driving in the remote Yukon! This will set me up so I can work from anywhere over the next year. It pairs nicely with my Jackery battery that I’ll have in my truck for our road trip (because it’ll power my portable cooler fridge).

It was so windy that clouds were blowing through the valleys!! It almost looked like incoming snow!

There is snow already on the peaks in Tombstone! The autumn reds are already gone from the landscape, leaving the rich browns and yellows behind.

It was so windy that the only wildlife mammal we saw was a red squirrel! Fortunately, the Crocus Bluff black bear has been out on the hill above the ball diamond in town, so Cecilia saw a Yukon black bear already.

For birds, we saw a few in Tombstone: Tundra swans, surf scoters, ruffed grouse, a golden eagle, lots of ravens, a couple dark-eyed junco, a rusty blackbird, and a goshawk!

We brought a sandwich with us, but ate inside the truck because it was so windy and cold.

The road was pretty gross and slow-going, so we only went up to km 101 on the Dempster and turned around.

We had to get back home so we had time to wash the mud off the truck, eat supper, walk cone head Hank, and get to Gertie’s for the final night of performances for the season! I’ll blog about that next!