Day 12 ~ Haines, AK to Fairbanks, AK

We experienced our first Alaskan "summer" night. We fell asleep while it was still light about 10:30 pm. When I briefly woke up at 5:20 it was as bright as it was when I woke up at 8:00. Will recalled waking up around 1 am that morning and it was still relatively light. As soon as we left Haines, we had zero signal and was in for the last long day. When we entered British Columbia it was beautiful. I can only describe it like we were in a dream. We saw snow on the side of the road and drove through clouds. As soon as we got into the Yukon, the scenery changed. It was still very pretty, but we started noticing our windshield accumulating a nice collection of mosquitoes. We stopped to grab something to eat. Will commented to the cashier that it must be mosquito season and the guy responded, "Yup, welcome to the Yukon." I had to go wait in the car because they were everywhere! As we continued our quest, I started noticing little critters on the side of the road. I tried to point some out to Will, but he kept making excuses that it was a stick or I was "seeing" something. Finally, Will started seeing them. My guess was that they were little prairie dogs. I was so excited, I kept clapping, and told Will that this was even better then seeing a Smart Car. We also saw a black bear walking along the side of the road as well. It was pretty cool. We finally reached the Alaskan border (again) and Will was demanding a sign that said something to the effect of 'Welcome to America.' And low and behold there was one! Phew! At this point, we both became well aware on how tired I was when we arrived in Alaska and I told Will, "Welcome to Canada!" We finally arrived in Fairbanks about 9:00 pm. We were completely exhausted and thankful that it was light so we were easily able to stay alert. Unfortunately, there were no moose sightings, but we are still looking!