Another “short” drive – only 4.5 hours.  I checked out the sign post forest on the way out of town.  It was far more impressive than pictures online showed.  I stopped in another town for breakfast.  No animal sightings today.  It was a pretty drive, but not spectacular.  The leaves started changing to brilliant yellow and orange.

On my way into Whitehorse, I saw a race.  There were people running along the highway with race bibs on.  People and motor homes lined the highway, cheering them on.  It was not as unique as chatting with a bear, but it was interesting.  

After I checked into my hotel, I did laundry. The dryer worked and dried things in one go. That’s a new experience in travel for me. Laundry made my day!

I had dinner at a packed restaurant downtown.  There were hardly any cars in town, but all restaurants seemed packed.

I had an 8:00pm reservation for Eclipse hot springs, which was about a half hour outside town.  Again, hardly and cars, but packed with people.  They have at least 4 warm pools, maybe more.  And there is a cold pool nearby each warm pool.  They have steam rooms and saunas also.  It was a bit of a process:  take shoes off, check in and get your locker key, get a blue bin, take a shower using your blue bin as a shower door lock and way to hold your stuff, put everything in locker, choose a hot pool and sit and relax, then get in a cool pool, repeat pools.  The first warm pool I chose was covered in people. As I sat, they all seemed to know each other.  Was this the party place of Whitehorse?  It was adults only – fan of that!  With some time, I realized it was many large groups of people.  They were the racers I’d seen earlier.  It was a relay race or team race.  I tried the cold pool.  I remember trying it in Norway and thinking it was ok.  Now, it was not ok.  It stung my feet and legs.  I gave up after 30 seconds and went back eavesdropping  on the race.  Every other pool I tried was also filled with runners.    I only counted 4 other people who didn’t seem to be racers.  It was a beautiful place.  It would have been awesome if it had only been 5 of us.

I looked it up online later.  I think it was the Klondike Road Relay Race, which is a 175-kilometer race from Skagway Alaska to Whitehorse Yukon.  Running over mountain passes is not on my bucket list,  but I can appreciate the skill, coordination,  and training that goes into this.