I didn’t get much sleep last night due to mice running around in our van. And none of our traps caught one. So when my alarm went off at 6.40am I was very groggy.

We took our car into Peter’s tire and auto, which is a very messy mechanical shop with old cars sitting around, probably abandoned projects. Lots of junk in the front yard. And a mechanic who looked like a zz top member.

Paul, the mechanic was there trying to open his shop but he’d lost his keys. This is not good I thought.

They certainly work on country time as it was about an hour later they finally got around to removing our wheel. Turns out there is no major problem. Just that a spring had broken. Paul found an old spring he had lying around and fixed it for us. They also told us our brake shoes will need replacing soon , and after 30000 kms driving in our van I’m not surprised. We’ll get it down in Anchorage which is over 1000 kms from here.

We spent the dreary ole morning in the library, getting a movie completed and uploaded. Once we’d finished the sun had come out and it was hot!

Haines is a neat town and a lot of alternative types live here. Only small cruise ships dock here and usually only one at a time. Mike looked around the hammer museum while I sat in the sun.

We found a high powered vacuum and gave our van a good clean out. If the mouse has nothing to eat maybe he won’t stay. All our food is stored in a plastic box which we call the pantry.

It was 4pm by the time we finished but still decided to keep driving. We know it doesn’t get dark until midnight so we’ve got plenty of time. After sitting for a few days we were keen to move on. and we were glad we did.

Just out of Haines we saw our second grizzly, right on the side of the road. We were within feet of it! I wasn’t winding my window down to take a photo though! He was really cool though and seemed a little wary of us.

We crossed back into Canada today and got grilled at the border. He asked so many questions, mainly about the van. We felt interrogated! But he let us through

The drive today was absolutely stunning. We drove to altitude again and suddenly we were driving through snow and frozen lakes again. The mountains were thick with snow. We kept stopping and just looking around in awe. This would be a completely different trip in a couple of months with the snow melted.

We hadn’t seen anybody since crossing into Canada and we felt all alone out here, but in a good way.

At 7.30pm we found a trailhead carpark at the base of two thickly coated mountains and still thick snow on the ground. A couple of vans were already stopped here and it seemed like the perfect place to stop the night, surrounded by snow.

And just as we were settling down to sleep, rustle rustle. The mouse had invaded our sleeping area. We turned the lights on causing it to panic and run into a trap. Phew, one down at least. Mike took it over to the bin, getting his first taste of midnight sun!