2019 - North to Alaska

After approximately 3,500 miles over 4 days, I’m home safe. I’ll write up a brief post about those last four days this week. Paul is currently on an Alaska State Highway System ferry somewhere between Skagway and Bellingham. He will disembark on Friday, 8/24, and meander his way back home. Sad to say I did not quite have the luxury of time for the ferry ride, so I had to bust ass (almost literally) back while he sits back to watch the Inside Passage slide by his cabin window. ...

Anchorage to Seward and Back Having swapped a 5hr ride to Homer for a 2hr ride to Seward as our last trip, we had plenty of time to get there and back before dinner with Paul’s family. So we got a super-late start…at about 11am or so. It was nice to wake up in a real house for a change. It felt much more…grounded?…than the usual motel shuffle we’ve been doing for the last several weeks. I woke up initially to a familiar-sounding explosion of noise as Paul’s grandniece ran into his room to get his lazy ass out of bed. Being unrelated and, thus, uninteresting, my lazy ass rolled over and went back to sleep. Anonymity rocks! ...

Denali to Anchorage Once again, we knew we had a relatively short day ahead. So we dawdled a bit in getting out on the road. Seriously, this time. It wasn’t until about 11 or so that we finally headed out! ? We cruised down the road past Denali, stopping in the park for a couple of housekeeping items. First, we needed to take pictures with the signs (which were posted in this blog as if I had taken them on the day before because I am a liar). That done, we also wanted to check out the Denali train station. I expected it to be a bit cooler than it actually is, but maybe I’m just a bit jaded on actual log construction at this point. On the other hand, two independent train station employees scoffed at our plan to go to Homer and instead steered us towards Seward (which is also on the Kenai Peninsula southish of Anchorage. A quick look at the map app told us that Seward was a 2hr trip vs. the 5hr drive to Homer. Sold! Seward was now our ultimate trip destination. ...

Denali We knew it was a slow day, so we slept in, took it slow, had breakfast, and headed out at a leisurely 10am or so. So nice to change it up a bit. Breakfast was interesting, if only for the scenery. The food was tasty, mind you, but I kept getting distracted by the GIANT STUFFED MUSK OX in a box just over Paul’s shoulder. Let me show you: ...

Dawson to Fairbanks to Denali This was a loooooong day. Good though. We rolled out of bed at some point and grabbed some breakfast at the hotel cafe. Then we started loading up the bikes yet again. With repetition this has gotten much easier, faster, and far more efficient. Because of this streamlining we managed to get on the road…at a little after 10. We had stayed the extra day in Dawson for a couple of reasons. We both felt like a break would be nice after almost two straight weeks of pretty heavy riding. Also, Dawson was one of the first places that we’d been to in this phase of the trip that seemed to have some character to explore a bit. But perhaps most importantly, the Top of the World Highway between Dawson and Fairbanks is largely an unpaved dirt/gravel road. With the rains on Saturday night and into Sunday morning we were concerned that Paul’s street bike with street tires would be in deep trouble on the slippery mud. The forecast for Sunday and Monday was clear and sunny, so the hope was that the extra day would help dry things out for us. ...

Dawson City Overnight we realized that we had totally misjudged the hostel situation. We slept like logs, woke up happy and refreshed, and Dieter brought us breakfast in bed. And my wallet was on the tray! Nope. Lies. It just sucked. I have a friend. We’ll call him “Matt” for anonymity’s sake. He travels the world for his job. Mumbai? That was Tuesday. Borneo? Next Saturday. You get the idea. I’m sure he would have loved Dieter’s Sex-And-Murder Hole. I’m not Matt. I like…electricity. Toilet paper. Living through the night. You know, all the modern amenities. ...

Whitehorse to Dawson So this day was one hell of a mixed bag. Mostly good weather, until it wasn’t. Mostly good road, until it wasn’t. Mostly good luck, until it wasn’t. Paul got up and washed his bike. I took the time to go to hike a local trail that had been recommended. It was nice, and it got my legs stretched out a bit. Paul came back and we got on the road at about…10am. The first signs of trouble came as I was waiting for Paul to get rolling. My boot slipped in the gravel and the bike started to go over. I fought it a bit but finally gave in and rolled off as it hit the dirt. No damage, as the engine guards and hard cases did their jobs admirably, but damn was it hard to get back upright. I wrenched my back just a tad, but nothing more than a bit of tenderness really. Too bad the hot spring was yesterday… ...

Northern Rockies Lodge to Whitehorse It’s Day 10. We were promised moose. And yet, there is still no moose. We Want The Moose! This was basically a repeat of the previous day, but with better weather and consistently good scenery. We set out from the Lodge in a loose pack and drove about 40 minutes to the Liard Hot Springs. On the way, we passed some roadside bison, but they sucked at hide and seek, so we knew they were inferior to the Yellowstone specimens of the week prior. We stopped to take a picture and Paul wisely decided to get off his bike and walk closer to the buffalo, you know…for science. He got off a pic or two before the bison seemed to notice that he was nearly close enough to nibble on, right about the same time that Paul noticed the same thing. Next thing I know Paul’s sprinting back to his bike like it’s an event in the Geriatric Olympics and we’re back on the road. ...

Dawson Creek to Northern Rockies Lodge It was cold. It was coooooooooooooooooold. You get the idea. Shrinkage City. It was, in fact, A Dark and Stormy Night (Except It Was Daytime). Up, breakfasted, and gassed, we were good to go at about…wait for it…10am. Breakfast was interesting because we met up with two other groups going our same route. We had an Air Force Lt. Colonel driving his stuff to a new deployment to Elmendorf. With his au pair. His hot, Aussie, hot, blond, hot, 20-year-old au pair. Did I mention she was hot? We called them Top Gun and Top Hun. And a single lady that had just been let go (along with her whole team, I guess) from PetSmart management. We call her “Kim” and we’re approx. 80% sure that’s her name. So she did what you do and tossed her dog in her jeep for a three-month meander from San Diego to Alaska. We overheard the waitress talking about a hot spring near our hotel for the night, raving about it. Apparently, the waitress once saw a man go into the spring in a wheelchair and afterward he was able to crawl! As a group, we decided to meet there the next morning on the way to Whitehorse. ...

Hinton to Dawson Creek Boooooooooo. I was promised a caribou and all I got was this lousy 300-mile ride. That pretty much sums up the day. Oh, and it rained. To be fair, there had to be some sort of let-down after the ridiculous string of spectacular riding days. This would be correct, and this must be the day. Hooray? We rolled out of Hinton at 10 o’clock-ish. Surprise! Things started out nice: sunny, warm, etc. It was all a lie. Pretty soon the truth was revealed and the dark clouds moved in for the rest of the day. And at about the same time, we realized that we were riding through Wayerhouser’s croplands. Acre after acre after acre…. Actually, it’d be better to measure the vastness in square miles. It’s just staggering. And it’s all cultivated trees for logging, since the old growth is pretty much gone. While pretty, it quickly got boring. There was no wildness to it at all. But man do I now know where America gets its toilet paper. And building material. And toothpicks. It also looks like a large natural gas boom is in progress. Perhaps fracking? I don’t know. ...