Yukon 125, Tom & Cathy, and facial paralysis

June 16 marked the 125th anniversary of the creation of the Yukon Territory! Dawson City was originally the capital city of the Yukon. To commemorate the occasion, the Yukon legislature moved back to the courtroom on the second floor of our historical Territorial Administrative Building for the day. That is the building that now houses the museum so the museum threw an anniversary party afterwards for the politians and the community!

We had BonTon cater the event, and they made a beautiful big Yukon cake. We put up balloons and had giveaways for the first people to arrive. There was even music and a free bar! I helped bring the food inside, helped set up the bar, then floated around, staffing the bar, pouring wine, and help keep the food line moving.

And my Uncle Tom and Aunt Cathy came all the way here for the occasion! Just kidding! They were on their first Alaskan vacation, and took a side trip over to Dawson City to visit! They arrived during the party, and were able to tour our museum and take part in the festivities!

After the party, we joined them at the Aurora for supper.

They were only going to be in town for two nights, so we had limited time and SO MUCH to show them!

After supper, we had them back to our place, then I showed them the view from the dome. I stole a couple of these photos from their Facebook 😊

The clouds were perfect! A couple of them were raining, and there was a full rainbow!

The next day we toured Dredge #10, took a walking tour of town, had dinner at the Goat, saw the early show at Gerties, and Tom joined the Sourtoe Cocktail Club!

It was such a great visit! I’m glad they came to visit us! I hope I didn’t wear them out by trying to squeeze everything in!

The Friday before, I tried to floss some popcorn shell out of my teeth and a filling came out!! 😲 I had a big hole left behind in my tooth! I called the dentist in Whitehorse who had an appointment available on Thursday, so I grabbed it! I think they always keep some emergency openings for people from the communities. Luckily I didn’t have any discomfort in the meantime, other than trying to avoid eating on that side. The morning after the day I spent with my aunt and uncle, I left town at 6am to get to Whitehorse in time for my afternoon appointment.

While I was at the dentist, they decided to fix two other fillings that were decaying. Do these white fillings not last as long? Or is it because I tend to squeeze my teeth when I’m anxious about something (always work related) and I broke them?

Anyway, within 45 minutes, they replaced 3 fillings, so nice and quickly! But the three needles froze my face. Well, more than that! My eyes were frozen! I left to driveback to the hotel and I’m not even sure I should have been driving! It felt like my eyelids were inside out.

A few hours later, I thought I’d try to walk off the freezing. Ha! That did not work. Not only was my face froze to my eyes, the side that had two needles was paralyzed! I couldn’t move it! Here’s me smiling!

I look like I had a stroke! I couldn’t move the left side of my face at all. Not even a twitch. I couldn’t twitch my nose or flex my nostrils when walking. It was so strange!

Here’s me a couple hours later after a walk. Yeah – guess you can’t walk off a frozen face.

I was starting to think it was going to be permanent! But thank goodness, 9 hours after those needles, the freezing was mostly gone and I my smile was no longer paralyzed. Whew!

I did a quick overnight trip to Whitehorse. It was otherwise pretty uneventful, but the road construction between Stewart Crossing and Dawson City is getting rough again this summer! I used four wheel drive. Here’s one of the level sections where half the road still existed:

I was in a long line of transport trucks and camping trailers. It’s a busy summer up here! There are more and more of these enormous rigs from Europe coming up. They must be surprised when they discover that people actually drive around in cars up here?

Now it is summer, we have a million things to squeeze in!