Happy Solstice!!  We just returned from the Top of the World Dome overlooking the whole Dawson Valley.  From up there we, along with many others, celebrated the longest day of the year.  I’m not sure which was the most fun–watching the midnight sun hover above the moutains or watching the stream of characters who traipsed up on top of the dome.  If I wrote about the clothes some of them wore, or things they did you all would think I’d lost my mind.  Of course, that could be true anyway since I’ve been given Richard a piece for years.  Not much left. 

What they wore–One guy wore layers of skirts and capes in bright blues and purples.  He also had a scabbard with an arrow or a sword or maybe it was just a big stick.  Who knows?  One girl had one pink sock and one red sock.  Another had a hat that looked like a dragon head. 

What they did–One old hippie sat on the ground, backed into a ground-level pine tree and rolled him a cigarette that when lit made rings of blue smoke which disappeared into the upper branches of the pine tree.  I think a couple of pine cones may have staggered and fell off their branch. 

The police had set up a checkpoint and when we stopped they took one look at us and decided we weren’t the kind who would smuggle wine up to the top of the dome for public drinking.  Jeannie and I smiled sweetly at the cute little fellow and we were quickly on our way up the road with our box wine and red plastic cups hidden in the back of the Jeep.  We were going to celebrate.  What did they expect? 

Earlier today, we took a tour of Dredge No. 4, the largest wooden hull dredge in the world.  It’s a BIG sucker and although how it worked was explained in detail, I’m not sure I thoroughly understood it all.  However, that won’t stop me from trying to give you a few of the details that did stick in my brain.

It weighed 300,000 tons.  It floated in its own pond of water.  The front was a converyor belt of big buckets.  I believe there were 56 buckets.  They would dig into the earth, send the buckets into the dredge where the contents would be dumped on another converyor belt which sorted all material 1 1/2″ in size.  Anything 11/2″ or smaller would then go into a hopper where the dirt was removed.  It was then sent through a sluice box where, since it is heavier than the other material, the gold would sink to a mat which held the gold while the water washed everything else out the back of the dredge through a shoot (maybe about 75 feet long, not sure).  This made piles of the remaining dirt and rocks.  These are called tailings and they cover the land all around Dawson making it look like a giant gopher has been hard at work.  

Dredge No. 4 closed down in 1959 and after thirty years of being abandoned, the parks department took it over and removed the ice and silt filling the bottom floor.  Because it froze quickly, everything on the bottom floor was like it was when it was abandoned–black smith shop with tools still in good shape.  They made a permanant foundation and in 1992, they made a pond and floated the dredge onto the foundation it is on today. 

If we had an extra day here, Jack, Jeannie, Richard, and I thought we would like to go digging in the tailings for pieces of gold bigger than 1 1/2″.  The ranger assured us, that no nuggets bigger than that were ever found in this area, but what if they were wrong.  It is 1:30 am and the midnight sun is still shining brightly.  I could get a little digging done before we pull out tomorrow at 9:00 am headed for Chicken, Alaska.  Yes, there is really a place called Chicken, Alaska, but the most important part of that statement is ALASKA.  By tonight, I’ll be able to say we finally made it to ALASKA.

Until later, Dolores and Richard

1.)  The Midnight Sun

2.)  Jeannie and I freezing on top of the Dome

3.)  Dredge No. 4-a national monument 

Today was sightseeing day in Dawson City.  First we went to the Commissioner’s Residence.  It was built at the turn of the century and now is a historic site.  The bottom floor has been restored as it would have been when the last residents, George and Martha Black, lived there until 1916. 

Martha Black was quite a woman.  Her husband had planned to take her from the US to the Klondike during the gold rush, but at the last minute he went to the Sandwich Islands instead.  Martha decided to go anyway.  She and her brother came over the Chilkoot trail.  She was pregnant at the time.  (A parting gift from her husband.)  She worked placer gold claims, lived in a log cabin.  She became successful owning a mining camp and she managed a sawmill.  She later married Commissioner George Black and at 70 years of age, she became involved in the Canadian government.  Her biography is Martha Black-her story from the gold fields of Dawson to the halls of Parliament. 

The four of us took a walking tour through Dawson City.  As the young man dressed in period costume told us the history of the town, we strolled along the boardwalks and went inside several of them which are only accessible by going on the tour.  We saw the post office, the bank, a saloon.  We saw the outside of small buildings still standing from the original red-light district.  The last brothel closed in the early 1960’s.  The tour guide did a good job.

We went to the 10:30 show at Diamond Tooth Gertie’s.  It is a casino and has dance-hall type revue complete with can-can dancers.  They changed costumes several times and did an amazing show.  All the things to see in northern Canada and into Alaska are operated by people (young and old) who come here from May until the end of August and work doing all kinds of jobs-waiters/waitresses, singers, dancers, tour guides, store clerks.  The list goes on and on.  It ’s fun to talk to them and find out where they are from. 

We all enjoyed downtown Dawson City.

Until Later,

Dolores and Richard

1.)  Can-Can Dancers

2.)  Upscale Saloon

3.)  Commissioner’s Residence Dining Room

4.)  Bank

5.)  Diamond Tooth Gertie

6.)  Commissioner’s Residence

Jeannie and I went into downtown Dawson City yesterday.  We walked the wooden sidewalks and gravel roads.  All the streets are lined with buildings that have been restored to the days of the Klondike Gold Rush.  Dawson City is located on the confluence of the Yukon and Klondike River.  It was on the Bonanza Creek where gold was first discovered and shortly thereafter the stampede of hopeful miners started. 

Today, we went out to the exact spot where the first claim was made by George Carmack.  A little farther up the creek, Richard, Jack, and Jeannie tried their hand at panning for gold.  I took pictures of the big event mainly because if I got down there like they did, we would have had to borrow a piece of machinery from one of the active gold mining companies near by to get me out of the creek.  By then hypothermia would have kicked in and Richard would have had to write this blog.

Tonight we went to poet Robert Service’s cabin.  He is one of my favorite poets because he is funny and his poetry rhymes.  My favorite of his poem is The Cremation of Sam McGee.  A man dressed in period costume told us a humorous story of Robert Service’s life including the years he lived in the Yukon. 

As I said, I’ve always loved the poem about Sam McGee since junior high school when I had to memorize a part of it.  While we were visiting a museum in Whitehorse, I learned that Sam McGee was a real person.  He wasn’t cremated and he wasn’t from Tennesee, but he was an acquaintance of Mr. Service and the poet asked permission to use Sam McGee’s name in his poem because it worked better than the name he’d originally used.  Sam McGee’s actual cabin was part of the museum.  If you ever get a chance to read some of Robert Service’s poetry, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.

Until later,

Dolores and Richard

1.)  Jack London’s cabin where he wrote Call of the Wild

2.)  Robert Service’s cabin

3.)  Klondike Jeannie

4.)  Richard, Jack, and Jeannie panning for Gold

5.)  Exact spot where first gold claim was filed

Yesterday we left Whitehorse headed to Dawson City in the Yukon.  We went half way and then pulled into a pull-out along the way.  We dry camped overnight along with other travelers in motorhomes and some pitched tents near the tree line.

We arrived in Dawson in time to eat.  Jeannie and I take turns cooking our evening meal.  It was my turn and we had just sat down to eat when Richard looked out the window and started yelling, “Look, there’s a bear.”  The big, black bear had come out of the woods and knocked over a trash can just on the other side of Jack and Jeannie’s motorhome.  For the next 20-30 minutes Richard and Jack were in the Jeep playing bear wranglers.  A couple of rangers showed up and shot the poor thing with rubber bullets.  He ran off into the woods.

We went scouting the area for an hour or so and when we got back the ranger was back and had chased the bear away again.  Last night, the critter returned and was playing around in the kid’s playground.  We were told that if he continues they will have to trap it and dispose of it.  He is so cute, I hate to think about that, but they assured me it would be necessary.

Here are some pictures of the road to Dawson.  The flowers along the way are fireweed.  They are the state (?) flower of the Yukon.  Forget-me-nots is Alaska’s state flower.  It should be fireweed because I remember it being all over the place up there as well as wild orchids and roses.

Until later,

Dolores and Richard

1.) Black bear eating something out of a cup

right next to our motor homes.

2.)  Jeannie in front of remnants of old roadhouse between Whitehorse and Dawson City 

3.)  Fireweed along road to Dawson City

While in Skagway, I learned about two characters from the gold rush days.  Jefferson “Soapy” Smith was known as the “King of the Frontier Con Men.”  We was born in Newnan, Georgia to a wealthy plantation owner and lawyer who, by the end of the Civil War had met financial ruins.  The Smith’s moved west.  By the time Soapy was 18 he was well on his way to becoming the best known confidence man in the west. 

In Denver and Creede, Colorado, Soapy had a major hand in setting up organized crime.  Eventually he moved to Skagway.  He got his nickname because he would set up a box on a tripod in the streets.  As people gathered, he would wrap paper money ($100-20-10-5-1) around several bars of soap.  He would then wrap the soap in plain paper.  Then he would sell the soap to anyone who wanted to take a chance.  With slight of hand, he would give them soap with no money, but to keep people interested he would have a couple of his gang members planted in the audience to open soap with $100 bills in it.  Worked into a frenzy, the audience would start a bidding war.

That was how Soapy got his name, but he did many other things to separate people from the money and gold the miners had brought back to Skagway from Dawson City.  Soapy had an office in Skagway called Jeff Smith’s Parlor.  People would go into the parlon where Soapy had a telegraph key which wasn’t connected to anyplace.  He would take money for his service of sending telegraphs which of course never went over the airways.

July 8, 1898, three of Soapy’s gang members cheated a man out of his $2,800 worth of gold in a rigged card game.  When the man balked at being cheated, the town formed a vigilante group and went in search of Soapy and his gang.  When they came face to face, one of the vigilantes, Frank Reid, and Soapy engaged in gun fire.  Soapy died instantly with a bullet to his heart.  Frank Reid lived for 12 days with a bullet in his groin.  The two men are buried close together.  Reid’s headstone reads, “He died for the honor of Skagway.”  The three gang members who bilked the miner of his gold received jail sentences and the rest of the gang dispersed.

There were a lot of women who came to the Klondike during the gold rush days.  One was Mollie Walsh.  She went to Skagway from Butte, Montana.  She worked as a waitress and was very involved in her church.  She had a run in with Soapy Smith, and because of the way his organized crime gang operated, Mollie moved north to Log Cabin (actual name of town) next to the Mounted Police station.  There she opened a grub tent, feeding the miners.  She met a man named “Trapper Jack” Newman who was quite taken with Mollie. 

She also met a man named Mike Bartlett.  She married Mike and they moved back to Seattle.  They had a son.  Mike’s business started to fail and he began gambling and drinking heavily.  Their marriage fell apart and she ran away with her son in tow.  Mike found her and he brought her back to Seattle.  In 1902, she tried to get the police to arrest him because he “abused her in all ways and threatened to do away with her.”   She withdrew her complaint.  A week later Mike chased her down a alley by their home and shot her in the back.  He claimed temporary insanity and was acquited.  Two years later, he hung himself.

Had it not been for Trapper Jack’s love for Mollie, she would have disappeared in history.  Jack commissioned a bust of Mollie and it has been placed at a children’s park in Skagway named for Mollie.

That is only two of the hundreds of characters who stepped upon the stage during the Klondike Gold Rush.  But I thought they were interesting. 

1.)  Street in Skagway, Alaska

2.) Mollie Walsh bust at children’s park

3.) On the road to Skagway.

While we were camped in Whitehorse, we took a side trip (108 miles one way) to Skagway, Alaska.  The road winds through beautiful mountains, lakes, glaciers and waterways, dropping from an elevation around 3,000 feet to 0. 

In 1896 gold was found in the Klondike.  In the summer of 1897 thousands of men and women chasing their dreams to become rich sailed into the harbor of Skagway.  From there they had to make their way up the Chilkoot Trail (shorter but more rigorous) or the White Pass (longer but less rigorous) for 33 miles.   During the first year of the discovery of gold, many lives were lost because the minors were unprepared to survive the wilderness and artic weather.

At the pass at the top of the trail, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) required the hopeful miners to have 2,000 pounds of provisions before they would be allowed to enter Canada.  In order to get their “ton of goods” to their destinations, they would have to carry what they could a ways and then go back and get more, making several trips to get it all. 

After they had made it over the pass they then had to hire or make a boat to make the 500-mile trip down the rapidly moving water of the Yukon River to Dawson City where the gold mines were.

Here is what the miners were required to take into Canada:

• 150 lb. bacon
• 400 lb. flour
• 25 lb. rolled oats
• 125 lb. beans
• 10 lb. tea
• 10 lb. coffee
• 25 lb. sugar
• 25 lb. dried potatoes
• 2 lb. dried onions
• 15 lb. salt
• 1 lb. pepper
• 75 lb. dried fruits
• 8 lb. baking powder
• 2 lb. soda
• 1/2 lb. evaporated vinegar
• 12 oz. compressed soup
• 1 can mustard
• 1 tin matches (for four men)
• Stove for four men
• Gold pan for each
• Set granite buckets
• Large bucket
• Knife, fork, spoon, cup, and plate
• Frying pan
• Coffee and teapot
• Scythe stone
• Two picks and one shovel
• One whipsaw
• Pack strap
• Two axes for four men and one extra handle
• Six 8 inch files and two taper files for the party
• Draw knife, brace and bits, jack plane, and hammer for party
• 200 feet three-eights-inch rope
• 8 lb. of pitch and 5 lb. of oakum for four men
• Nails, five lbs. each of 6,8,10 and 12 penny, for four men
• Tent, 10 x 12 feet for four men
• Canvas for wrapping
• Two oil blankets to each boat
• 5 yards of mosquito netting for each man
• 3 suits of heavy underwear
• 1 heavy mackinaw coat
• 2 pairs heavy machinaw trousers
• 1 heavy rubber-lined coat
• 1 doz heavy wool socks
• 1/2 doz heavy wool mittens
• 2 heavy overshirts
• 2 pairs heavy snagproof rubber boots
• 2 pairs shoes
• 4 pairs blankets (for two men)
• 4 towels
• 2 pairs overalls
• 1 suit oil clothing
• Several changes of summer clothing
• Small assortment of medicines

Today, hikers can walk the Chilkoot Trail in 3 to 5 days.  It took those in the gold rush 3 months to make the arduous trek.

1.)  Emerald Lake-sunlight reflects off white river bottom

2.)  Jeannie and Jack-small glaciers in mountain behind them

3.  White Pass train going from Fraser to Skagway passing glaciers, falls, ice fields.

Watson Lake to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory–We’ve had a couple of wilderness travel days.  Pictures do not do the magnificent scenery justice. 

The last time Richard and I were in Watson Lake, we were traveling in a van from Vancouver to Anchorage to join a 15-day train, bus, cruise ship through Alaska.  We were delivering the van to family in Anchorage.  We left our motor home in Vancouver.  That is where the cruise ship landed after our trip.  Anyway, on our last trip through this area, we stayed in the lodges.  Most had been built shortly after the Alaskan Highway became a tourist route to Alaska. 

At Watson Lake we stayed in one of those lodges.  I asked the YOUNG lady behind the counter when the lodge had been built and she said it was REALLY old.  It was built in 1949.  I resented that because I was built in 1949.  This time the lodge had all its windows nailed shut.  Like so many of the old lodges, it was deserted.

Right next to the lodge is one of the most memorable attractions along the Alaskan Highway.  During the construction of the highway, some of the builders made a sign post with their hometowns on it.  Since then travelers have added their own signs.  Howard and Mary Jane added one on one of their trips through there.  Jack and Jeannie added one of their Arkansas tags.  The signpost forest holds well of over 60,000 signs.  It is quite a sight.

We also went to a museum which explained the distance from earth to other planets and beyond.  They talked about light years and how the images we see from our satellites were sent to us millions of light years ago.  Huh?  Bake chocolate cake in 350 degree oven 30 minutes or until toothpick stuck in center of cake comes out clean.  I understand that.  Light years away goes way over my head.  Pardon the pun.  We were in reclining chairs looking at a dome ceiling traveling through space with actual pictures taken.  After that they did a really great show of Northern Lights set to music.  Really great.

We spent the night at Swift River on the continental divide.  We decided to eat at the lodge.  We had meatloaf (two huge slices each–enough to feed a lumberjack), mashed potatoes, peas, salad.  We took our rhubarb pie with us for another day.  They had internet, but only if you were parked in front of their building.  Once we were in the campsite, we didn’t have it.  Around 11:30 at night, Richard and I took my laptop and walked toward the front hoping to get online.  We made it to the playground, set it on a pole next to the swings.  We were able to hear “You’ve got mail,” but we couldn’t see the screen because it is broad daylight!!  We gave up.  I’m sure we were quite a sight zigzagging through the park in search of the illusive internet signal.  However, I’ll bet we weren’t the first travelers to do that.  Some people watch for wildlife to take pictures of.  If I owned that lodge, I’d take pictures of people roaming the land with laptops.  I’d make an album with description.  “June 12, 2008-Couple from Florida–man standing on rock steading his wife who sat on top of bear-proof trash can.”

We are in Whitehorse (capital of Yukon Territory) and will be here for a couple of days.  We have great internet and, dare I say it, cable television.  WooHoo!!

I’ll be able to post everyday for the next few days. 

Until Later,

Dolores and Richard

1.  Watson Lake Lodge (Closed)

2.  Watson Lake Signpost Forest (Richard and Jeannie)

3. Jack nailing license to post

4. Jack pointing to license on post

5. Beautiful scenery east of Whitehorse

This is the Canadian wilderness I remember.  We travel for miles and miles seeing the most beautiful scenery you can imagine.  Every once in a while we come to a rustic lodge and more than likely they have a bakery where you can buy gigantic cinnamon rolls, Paul Bunyon cookies, and homemade bread.  Most of the lodges in this area have no electricity.  They run generators, some for a certain number of hours a day and some all the time.

We passed through Sasquatch Crossing in British Columbia where the furry fellow was spotted crossing the highway back in the 1950’s (I think that’s when it was).  I’ve been a little paranoid about him since they reported a Big Foot sighting in the Okefenokee Swamp when I was a kid.

We drove past Muncho Lake which is 7 miles long and 1 mile wide.  The beautiful deep blue/green water is attributed to the copper oxide leaching into the lake.  We followed the road with the lake on one side and rock mountains straight up on the other side.  Some of the mountains were as high as 7000 feet.  Remember my comment about where to go in case of falling rock?  Look at the following picture and you will see my dilemma.

 Road along Muncho Lake

 We made a short, nap stop at Toad River.  The lodge there is where people leave their hats and the owner attaches them to the ceiling.  As of today their count was over 7400 hats.  I love the lodge cafes.  They usually seats about 12-14 people, and they serve some of the best comfort foods.  Toad River’s specials today were white beans and ham and homemade bread.  They also had salmon burgers.

Hats on ceiling of Toad River Lodge

 The four of us are becoming jaded wildlife watchers.  We came upon a few buffalo.  They appeared scragglier and darker than the ones we had seen and taken a million photos of in the Tetons, Yellowstone and northern Montana.  Richard and Jack talk back and forth on the CB.  They talked quickly and it was decided we had enough buffalo pictures.

When we arrived at our destination to spend the night, (Liard River Hot Springs) we discovered that British Columbia’s buffalo are wood bison and they are becoming extinct.  There are only 250 left in the whole province.  We had seen extinct wood bison and didn’t bother to get a picture.

Liard River Lodge and RV park had no electricity, but did have a generator.  It had no hookups other than water and electricity.  They had a dump station, but you had to pay an astronomical amount to use it, but it didn’t have water to rinse the tanks.  This is what Richard calls roughing it.  We had no television (satellite or local) and no internet (ours or theirs).  That’s what I call roughing it.

Since I didn’t have internet to post this to the blog last night, I will add a little about our morning’s trip from Liard River to Watson Lake.  The sun is beautiful on the mountains and glistening across the lakes.  Wildlife has been plentiful.  We got some great shots of black bear.  One did a show for us.  He crossed the road and went right between the motor homes parked along the way taking his picture.  A little ways down the road we saw a dead bear on the side of the road.  We’ve seen wolf, a fox, deer, and we got our picture of the extinct wood bison.

1. Bighorn sheep

2. Extinct wood bison

3. Liard River Hot Springs where 14 species of orchids grow in artic weather because of hot springs

4. Snow-capped mountain peeking through cloud at Toad River

5. Black Bear

Until later,

Dolores and Richard                                                                                     

Before we left Dawson Creek we strolled through a pioneer village.  It is made to represent a street from 1912-1935.  The collection of original buildings were carefully moved from the surrounding countryside.  With the addition of painstakingly rebuilt historical replicas, boardwalks, gravel street, vintage vehicles parked along the street, and artifacts, the village tells the story of the area’s first settlers. 

The MilePost is a must for anyone traveling to Alaska.  It tells you about things to see along the way and are pointed out by mile posts.  Of course, many of the mile posts have been stolen or not yet replaced after the hard winter.  I am addicted to the MilePost.  It says things like:

DC 20.9 (this is 20.9 miles from Dawson Creek which is mile 0) DJ1369.1 (miles from Delta Junction) Kiskatinaw River Bridge  Caution: Strong crosswinds on bridge.  Turnout with litter barrel and picnic tables to east at north end of bridge.  View of unique bridge support.

The MilePost tells you about every little detail along the way.  For some strange reason, I’m so afraid I’ll miss something that I sit with the book in my lap reading every mile to Richard.

“One mile ahead, there is a NorthwesTel microwave tower to the east,” I yell from my desk where I am supposed to be writing on a manuscript I should have finished before I started this trip.

“That’s nice,” my loving husband says.

“Two miles up the road is a truck scales and public phone to the east.  Truck stop to the west; gas, cafe.”

“Great.”

“Be careful.  We are coming to a steep hill with a 10% grade.  Have you checked your brakes?”

“Yes.  They are doing fine.”

“One mile, Peace River Bridge.  Metal grating on bridge deck.  Slow down.”

It’s about this time that Richard says, “Let me know when we find a UPS so I can ship you on ahead to where we will be staying tonight.”

To which I reply, “You are so funny.  Next two miles, watch for falling rock.”

This brings me to a point I wonder about every time we are in this area.  We are riding along on a two lane road, no guardrails on the side that drops several thousand feet to a valley below.  Exactly what are we supposed to do should we see falling rocks rolling down the straight-up rock cliff we are hugging?  Ponder.  Ponder.

The countryside is so beautiful, I only think about things like that once in a while.  Along the way we saw a 30′ statue of a lumberjack, a wolf a few feet from the road, and right next to the road, a black mama bear with a tiny cub.  It couldn’t have been more than a few days old.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t stop for pictures. 

We are leaving Fort Nelson in the morning headed for Liard River Hotsprings.

Until later,

Dolores and Richard 

We watched a movie at the Alaskan House about the building of the Alaskan Highway which started at Dawson Creek, British Columbia (Mile 0) and ended at Delta Junction, Alaska (Mile 1422).  Later it was extended to Fairbanks, Alaska.  Although there had been talk about building a road that connected the United States to Alaska through the Canadian Rockies and possibly on to Russia, it was the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Japanese threat to North America and the Aleutian Islands that started the contruction ball rolling. 

Permission was obtained to build the road through Canada with the under standing that all roads would be given to Canada after the war.  Congress and President Roosevelt passed the bill giving the US Army permission to build the Alaskan Highway.  Hundreds of pieces of equipment were brought by train to Dawson Creek and contruction started on March 8, 1942.  Construction also started in Alaska.  They had to work fast because the Japanese had claimed a couple of the Aleutian Islands and the road also needed to be finished before the hard winter set in. 

The legs of the highway were joined at Contact Creek (Mile 588 ) on September 24, 1942 and the highway was dedicated November 20, 1942 at Soldiers Summit.  It took 10,607 US soldiers 8 months to build the highway which, in the end, was a total of 1,522 miles through unmapped wilderness and frozen ground.  3,695 of the soldiers were black men.  Although, until that time, blacks were not sent into active duty, scarce manpower forced the military to send segregated troops north under white commanders.   

The task they were faced with was a near impossible engineering feat.  According to their commanders, the men did an exceptional job under terrible conditions such as living in tents in mosquito invested land, insufficient clothing, canned rations day after day, and working 20 hours a day.  Upon completion of the highway, many black men were decorated.  Because of the great showing of the men, the US military integrated all units during the Korean conflict.  A first for our government.

The highway was originally named the Alaskan-Canadian Highway, later shortened to the Alcan.  It is now called the Alaskan Highway.  While watching the movie and seeing the struggle of making a road under those conditions made me stop to think.  We would be hard pressed to find young men today (white or black) who would be able to do the job done by the engineers who build the Alaskan Highway.  They would get mud in their IPod’s.  If that sounds like a hard statement, research the building of the highway, look at pictures, and read about the problems they faced and decide for yourself.

Until later,

Dolores and Richard