View Larger MapIt was a humid night because it started raining in the night (and it didn’t help that we had the room full of hanging wet clothes). It also was a small double bed, but we slept enough. It was raining HARD all night and it was still raining in the morning. The forecast was for continuing rain throughout the day. Most of our clothes were dry, but our socks were still wet. We waited for them to dry (and the rain to magically stop) while we slowly got ready. The rain never let up. We checked-out at the 11:00 limit and there were no rooms for that night at Klondike Kate’s Cabins. We called around Dawson to the other hotels on our travel list and we had no luck. We contacted the Dawson Visitors Centre and they said there were absolutely no rooms in town. The campgrounds were also full. Instead of putting up our tent illegally, we decided to ride up and over the top of the world highway.
We rode around Dawson looking for gas and ended up needing to go to the south outside of town to get gas. At that gas station 2 different people heard that we were planning to ride the Top of the World Highway. They both very strongly said “DO NOT ATTEMPT THE TOP OF THE WORLD HIGHWAY IN THE RAIN”. One of those guys at the gas station said we should go to his hotel because he checked-out 1 day early and we could probably get his room. We called that hotel and the person who answered the phone said maybe there would be a room available later, but they had to check with the Manager who would not be back until 14:00. We tried the Visitor's centre again and still no rooms were available. While we were waiting for 14:00 we decided to ride the ~25 miles south out of town to the Dempster highway junction’s Klondike River Lodge to check for rooms.
It was about 25 miles south with nothing else around them, but they had 1 "overflow" room available for relatively cheap. 
The room was 4 beds (2 bunks) with a commercial freezer handle for the latch and had a padlock on the outside. 
We received the room padlock key, the Men’s shower/toilet room key, and the Women’s shower/toilet room key when we checked-in. Also there was a coin laundry room next to the washrooms. We had sandwiches for a late lunch in the Lodge restaurant and returned to our “refrigerator”. It had a nice fan for circulation, a space heater, and a screened window. After our wet morning it was warm and dry. We hung-up our wet rain clothes and with the fan and heater running they were really drying out. We took naps in our bunks for a little while and then headed back to the restaurant. The restaurant kitchen was closed but they were still serving limited meals and the bar in the adjoining room was in business. We just sat in that Cafe drinking water we got ourselves and felt sorry for the girl who was single handedly running everything. She needed help, but apparently no one has applied for the job (we couldn’t blame anyone for not wanting to work that far out). They posted forecasts by the lodge office every few hours if requested. In the late evening 22:00/10PM (isn’t usually evening, but this far north the sun was still up!)the sky cleared up and it was sunny.
We hoped it would stay that way. We called our daughter Jessica to check on business issues and then called Eric's step-mom Betty in Kenai AK.
In this pleasant evening weather a few people were walking around outside the overflow rooms. We met Steve and Vicki who were leaving the next day for their own adventure, a covered wagon trip up the Dempster Hwy. Steve was out watering his mules.
Their power was 2 Mules (Jenny and Jack Mules) and they were riding in a covered Wagon with rubber tires. 
They were planning on going all the way to Inuvik (~460 miles away on bad roads). They had mounted a tilt-up double bed inside the wagon. They were carrying bear spray, but were mostly counting on a 12Gauge shotgun loaded with alternating Slug, 000 Buck, Slug, 000 Buck, …. 
They were even towing a trailer behind the wagon with a bunch of bales of Wheat Hay. They said that Alfalfa was too much like children on candy for mules and they were too hard to handle on Alfalfa. Steve also said that the grass at this northern latitude did not have enough nutrition for Mules. They drove up from New Mexico driving a big dually truck pulling 2 trailers: a Horse trailer, followed by their rubber tire wagon (with the hay and the hay trailer inside the wagon). He(Steve) is a Truck Instructor/Tester for commercial drivers licenses in NM. She(Vicki) is a Counselor for their County. They were a very nice couple!
A local girl who was raised in Inuvik volunteered to drive their rig up to Inuvik in a few days when she got some time-off. Their truck and horse trailer would pass them on the Dempster Hwy while they were traveling in their wagon. The sun was still up, but we went to bed by 23:00. The weather report for the next day said 40% chance of rain. We decided that we would wake as early as logical and if was raining we would head South and ride long and hard to AK. If it was not raining we would attempt the "Top of the World Hwy" to AK.
