Fixing the bike

As much as it sucked being stuck in northern Canada with a broken motorcycle and an unclear path home, I couldn't have picked a better place to have it happen.

I really ended up liking Whitehorse as a city. It's a small town that does feel like a small town, but not in the kitschy way that Dawson City or many of the other places I've gone through felt. It's large enough that the businesses exist not primarily to carter to any tourists that pass through, but to serve local residents. While there are some places that are touristed-up a bit, it's not that bad and retains a very real, functional feel. It's big enough that a number of national chains have operations here, and while I know a lot of people might bitch (fairly) about Wal-Mart being everywhere, after a weeks of plodding through tiny towns and trying to find the stuff I needed at absurdly expensive little general stores, that ugly blue sign is a welcome sight. There's also the staples of any small city there, Safeway, NAPA, an REI-type place, and even a Starbucks (Which I avoided in favor of a nicer coffee shop down the street).



The place is a good size; large enough to be convenient with easy access to stuff you need/want, but small enough that traffic isn't worth mentioning and you can walk just about anywhere you need to go. And for getting into the city from the outlying suburbs, there's a surprisingly comprehensive bus system, which was how I got downtown from where I was staying at the Motel/RV Park. The operator had taken pity on me in my situation, and let me pitch my tent in a little wooded clearing area behind a couple of the buildings.



I had damaged the bike on a Friday night, spent most of Saturday taking the side of the engine apart so I could get an idea of the damage, and then Sunday (while the dealer was closed) I mostly rested and searched around online for some ideas of what to do in my situation.

On Monday, when the dealer opened again, I went in to talk to their techs, and showed them the damaged crankcase cover to get their opinion on if it could be repaired, or if I needed a new one.



Unfortunately, they were of the opinion that there wasn't much of a way to repair this, by welding or epoxy, just because of where the cracks were right around a bolt hole. And truth be told, I kind of suspected that the moment I took the cover off.

This left me in need of a left crankcase cover for a 1997 Yamaha Virago 750, which wasn't available through the dealer in any reasonable time frame. They said they could probably get one from Japan, but it would take at least 2-3 weeks and I'd be looking at $350 just for the part. With that in mind, I spend the rest of the day turning to the wide world of the internet for help.

Of the number of motorcycle forums that I'm on, the one that came through for me in this regard was the Virago Owners Group. I posted a thread about my situation and what was broken, and only a few hours later I got an e-mail from a member who happened to have the exact part I needed! Three of them, in fact, laying around his garage. I can't tell you how happy I was to hear from him, and we quickly made arrangements for him to ship one of them ultra-express up to the Yamaha dealer that I had my bike at. I also ordered all of the various seals and gaskets that I was going to need from the Yamaha dealer, which were available on-continent and they said would only take a couple days to get in.

I spent the next few days mostly hanging around the RV Park, taking the bus into town, poking around the internet and generally un-winding. I couldn't have picked a better week to be stuck there: It was warm, almost too warm, getting up to 85 degrees almost every day, and hardly a cloud in the sky. On one of my trips into town, I went to the large sporting-goods store to get a replacement pump for my camp stove, which over the last few weeks had been acting up and not working very well.



Fast-forward to Thursday, and I wandered over to the Yamaha dealer, and look what was waiting for me!



Marty, I owe you one. If you're ever in Chicago, steaks are on me!

Because I was kinda far outside of town (And hadn't thought ahead when I was downtown), I was stuck buying all the stupidly overpriced chemicals that I needed from the dealer's parts counter. Five quarts of oil, brake cleaner, WD-40 clone, liquid gasket and all the various seals and gaskets that I needed totaled up to over a $100 to the Yamaha guys, and just the shipping on the crankcase cover was $100. Ah well, at least I had what I needed. I camped out in the parking lot and got to work.



And I'm not going to lie, at this point I was feeling kinda smug. All day there were people bringing their various bikes into the service department for really minor things, guys coming in for oil changes, brake adjustments, tire swaps, all kinds of little maintenance things that they were dropping the bikes off to have the techs do. And while they were writing checks, I was sitting in the parking lot happily taking apart the left side of my engine.

I felt pretty damn bad-ass :D

But my sense of smug-ness was dampened a bit later in the day, when a guy came in on a big Yamaha dual-sport, in the background here:



As he set about taking off his front wheel to get a new tire mounted, I struck up a conversation and asked him where he'd ridden from.

Now so far on this trip, whenever I asked another rider where they'd come from or how long their trip was, they'd inevitably puff up their chest and say something like "I rode all the way from SEATTLE" or "I've done a whole FOUR THOUSAND MILES!". And I smile and nod politely and probably compliment them on their shiny, clean, farkled up bikes, and then casually mention that I was the better part of 18,000 miles into a 27,000 mile trip. And then I would feel cool because my motorcycle-penis was so much larger then theirs.

So when this guy pulled in on a dirty, well-used bike, I asked him where he'd started his ride from. I wasn't prepared when he pulled off his helmet and said to me, in a thick accent: "Switzerland!"

. . .

Well that put me in my place. He was doing basically the trip I want to do in a few years, only in reverse. Started in Switzerland, went across Austria, Slovakia, the Ukraine, Russia, all around Japan, and now he was heading down to South America. And I thought I was hardcore, I mean goddamn.

Check out his website here (In German, but has a google translator): http://motonaut.ch/

I salute you Markus, for being way more badass then I!

Anyway, as the day wore on and I kept working on getting the crankcase cover re-attached (having to re-do it once when I forgot to put part of the clutch assembly in the correct position), the sun moving was quickly depriving me of my shade. I had to keep moving my workspace so as not to get roasted while working.



That evening, I managed to get everything together, started the bike up, and HUZZAH! It all worked! No leaks, everything was holding, and damn did I feel proud of myself. I even cleaned off the old cover just to take another picture of the hole I'd managed to punch in it.





This was the little plug of metal that the rock had so efficiently dislodged. I meant to hang onto it as a token/memento of my trip, but as I dig through all my pockets and containers now, it seems to have vanished. Ah well. : \

I rode the bike around town a little bit more, just making sure everything was holding, when I noticed another problem. Once the engine was running, it ran fine without problems, and there were no leaks best I could tell. But something was up with the starter, or the solenoid, or the starer gears. About 3/4 of the times that I tried start the bike, the starter would spin, but somehow wasn't engaging with the flywheel, it wasn't turning the engine over. I found that if I took off the little solenoid cover on the side, I could pop the gear into position using an allen wrench as a lever, and then the starter would engage and the bike would start just fine. Weird.

At this point, I had no idea what was wrong, but I was ITCHING to get back to riding. I had the Cassiar highway to take me back south, which I was really looking forward to, and I'd been sitting idle for way too long. And because I could at least get the bike started by bump-starting it, or popping the lever manually, I figured I could at least limp back south to where parts might be easier to find.

I was planning on leaving Friday, but ended up delaying another day because the road was closed to the south because of forest fires. When someone mentioned that to me, it finally clicked in my head that all week I'd been seeing these strange red airplanes taking off and landing like clockwork, and only then did I realize they were tankers, refilling from the river to drop more water bombs on the fires.

So that Saturday, exactly a week after I'd rushed into town in a cloud of blue smoke and oil squirting everywhere, I packed up the bike to head south.



If you're ever in Whitehorse, people, stay at this motel. The operator is a sweetheart, the rooms are nice, and every Saturday in the summer they grill out. I don't know what I would have done if it weren't for these people.

Getting back into Canada, and breaking my bike

The evening of July 21st (or 22nd, I can't really remember found me at the northern end of the Taylor Highway. I'd done a lot of miles that day, making it from south of Tok, and finally ended up in the "Town" of Chicken, Alaska.


View Larger Map

And when I say "Town" I mean that best I could tell, there was a general store/burger joint, campground/RV Park, and I think up a bit off the other side of the road were a few more buildings of some sort. Chicken exists as a mining destination, the area is fairly rich in gold deposits, and that was what drew the first people here in the 1900s. The town got its name, legend says, from a native bird that made good food, but had a French-derived name that none of the miners could pronounce. Story says that eventually, one of the miners said "Aw hell, let's just call it Chicken".

The large-scale mines have mostly moved away, but a lot of private individuals still have claims up there for recreational mining. I had stopped into the campground place hoping to get a sandwich, but when I saw that for $10 they'd give you a pan and some dirt and show you how to get the gold out, I figured it sounded like fun.



I spent that evening panning for gold, spend the night in the campground, and then most of the next day panning as well. Panning is something that takes years to really master, and everyone has their own technique, but even in my bumbling through it, I managed to get perhaps $10-$15 worth of the shiny stuff. Not enough to do anything with, but hey, I gots me some gold!



After spending most of 7-22 panning as well, I elected not to pay for another night of camping, and packed my stuff to head out. It was getting dark by the time I did leave, but there was still enough light to take pictures.



This place was absolutely spectacular.



Stunning views looking out over long valleys with rivers winding through them. For reasons I can't quite explain, I was reminded very of New Zealand, the terrain just had . . . that sort of feel to it. Something about how steep the hills were without turning into cliffs, just the way the vegetation grew and the way the rivers were running, it looked like someplace right out of Lord of the Rings.

I only did about 60 miles that day, and I couldn't have gone much farther if I'd wanted. The border crossing back into the Yukon closes at 8pm, so there wasn't much sense in pushing all the way there. I followed a little side-trail off the road and camped for the night near what looked like a long-disused piece of mining equipment.



I awoke the next day to the sound of rain on my tent. I waited it out for a couple of hours, for it to slow down to a lazy drizzle before packing up. I could still see the rain clouds off in the distance.



For almost all of the day, there was a constant rain cloud somewhere on the horizon, but with some very short exceptions I managed to stay out of it the whole time.

The paved road had run out before I got to Chicken, and the gravel ran out sometime after that. The road was a hard-packed clay, but all the rain overnight had turned it to mud.



Once you get to the USA/Canada border crossing (Which reminded me a lot of my home in Antarctica), the name of the road changes to "The Top o' the World Highway". The name comes from the fact that the road skirts the top of the hills and mountains through the area, giving perpetual views for hundreds and sometimes thousands of feet down to the valley floors. The more cynical people say that they just named it that to try and get more tourism to the area, but in my opinion, the name is well deserved.



It was like this for 150 miles without a break.



I mean, goddamn.

This silver post marks the actual border proper between the two countries. The crossing was uneventful; Asked my named, checked the passport, told me to have a nice day.



Looking back at the border crossing from the Canadian side. Those little specs of blue buildings there are the crossing, on the right.



All the literature about the area claims that the road is paved on the Canadian side, but I found that to be a half-truth. I don't know if it was construction or what, but I'd guess at least half the road was gravel or dirt, in patches. There'd be a couple miles of pavement, then a couple miles of gravel, then pavement again, and dirt, on and on.

Even up this far north in this remote of an area, there were still little side roads that spurred off the highway and wandered up into the hills. I followed one for a couple of miles before remembering that I was quite low on gas, and didn't have the range to go exploring.



Much to my disappointment, I will say. I still find myself drawn to these tiny unmarked roads in the middle of nowhere. It means that despite appearances, there is SOMETHING out there. Roads don't exist without a reason, they always have to go someplace. I wish I could find out what that place was. I think on my next trip I'm going to make sure to bring a bike with a bigger gas tank.

With the fuel light on, I refilled the main tank from my spare cans.



Don't let the lack of everything being wet fool you, it was still damn cold. Even with my nice new gloves that I'd gotten in anchorage, my fingers were still going slightly numb from cold, so much so that I had to use my leatherman to un-tie the rope holding my gas tanks on. On northern sloping hills, there were still large patches of snow and ice, even in the middle of "summer".



I did take the opportunity to try out the auto-panorama mode on my little point-and-shoot camera. I haven't re-sized the source image, so click it below to see full size. The result isn't as good as what I'd get out of a program like Photostitch, but it should give you an idea of the road.



You can see the road heading off to the right, before going left and heading down the hills into the valley. It was breathtaking.

A hundred-something miles later, I got to the outskirts of Dawson City. It was a big gold rush town in the beginning of the last century, and now I guess thrives mostly on tourism, selling the kitschy tourist-version of the wild northwest.



Looking down through gaps in the hills afforded views of the Yukon River, where the city itself was located.



A slew of tourist-info turnoffs provided information about the area, mostly about the large caribou heard that used to live here. The "Forty-Mile Herd" was almost wiped out in the early 70s, with numbers dwindling down to as little as 6,000 head. Today, with reconstruction efforts, population is edging back up, up near 35,000, which is a big improvement.

But still not near the 600,000 that the herd numbered as recently as the 1950s. *sigh*



Dawson City sits on the other side of the Yukon River, which is serviced by a free ferry in the summer. In the winter, the river freezes solid enough for heavy vehicle traffic to navigate it without problems.





Other then tourism, I'm not sure Dawson City has much going for it. It's the only city of any size in the northern Yukon though, so I guess that counts for something. They've definitely played up the frontier tow aspect of it though, so much so that I found it kind of kitschy and annoying.





It had been a long, cold and wet day, and I was starving. I hadn't bothered to cook breakfast that morning, wanting to take advantage of the temporary dryness to get packed, and I was in no mood to make dinner again in a pot. I decided long before I got to town that I was paying for food.

I'd had a conversation with another biker on the ferry, a guy who's name I can't remember who was riding a big BMW 1200GS. He'd been to the area before, and said that at this time of night (it was almost 9pm) there wasn't going to be much open, but I should try this place. Wasn't like I had a whole lot of other options, so in I went.



Oooooo food. Food food food, how I love you. Love you so big when you're going into my belly.



The food was great! The service, not so much. It wasn't even close to busy, but I actually had to go and find a waiter when I needed a refill on my water, and the food took seemingly forever to come. Or maybe it just felt like forever, as I was literally getting stomach cramps from not eating.

All told, the meal cost me almost $35, and they even had wi-fi. I poked around on the internet some on my iPod, downloading some new podcasts and things to listen to, and went on my merry way. By the time I did leave it was almost 11pm, which left me with a big problem.

I had been so hungry when I got into town that I'd not bothered to get gas before I did, and now all the gas stations were closed. The shell station closed about five minutes before I got there, and despite my desperate tapping on the windows and waving my arms at the bike and pump, the lady inside locking up wouldn't even authorize them for a CC transaction. Bitch.

I had about ~30 miles worth of gas left, so I figured I'd probably have to head out of town to find somewhere to camp, and then come back in the next morning to fuel up. But as luck would have it, on the way out I found, buried in some industrial area, one of those un-manned automated fuel depots for semi trucks, complete with a credit card reader. I happily gassed up, (At about $5.50 a gallon) and was on my way.

Outside of town, I turned around for a moment to get a picture of the midnight sky.



I rode for an hour or so, finally pulling off in a clearing from the road in some gravel clearing to pitch the tent.

WHAT THE FUCK. At 4am I awoke with a start with every hair on the back of my neck standing up. Something was wrong, my spidy-sense was going nuts, but I couldn't place it why I'd startled. I listened hard for a minute, trying to figure out why I'd snapped awake so suddenly. There was something weird in the air and I had no idea what it was. While I was straining my ears trying to figure out if I could hear something, it gradually dawned on me what was wrong.

It was quiet. Eerily quite. the whole night was still and nothing was moving . . . at all. In any way.

Whenever you're outside almost anywhere in the world, there is always SOME sort of noise. Some tiny, tiny breeze, ever so slight, just enough to create an almost imperceptible rustling of tree branches, there's a bird somewhere fluttering, or here, there's the ever-present whine of mosquitoes. But there wasn't ANY of that.

It was so quiet that it had startled me awake. I got out of the tent for a quick look around. It was mind-blowing how still it was. The air temperature couldn't have been any higher then 45 degrees, but it was SO still that you weren't cold. Even the bugs seemed to have vanished. There were no cars on the road, no wind at all, just . . . . nothing. I've been in professional recording studios back when I was doing voice work, places with thick sound absorption padding and deadening materials that had more ambient noise then this place did.

It was really, really weird. Almost too quite to even fall asleep.

I remember reading an article years ago about psychological studies done on volunteers about the effects of sensory deprivation. The operators of the study removed people's ability to use one of their senses for a period of time, either sight or sound or touch, and found that the human brain is SO desperate for stimulation that when deprived of it, it will create it's own. It was so quiet that I had to put in my earbuds and listen to some This American Life just so I could get back to sleep.

It was a weird, weird night.

The next day dawned partly cloudy and warmer, much warmer then the previous day had been along the Top o' the World Highway.



While the map had indicated that this road back down to Whitehorse was paved the whole way, reality had a much different opinion, with seemingly ever-present construction and gravel roads. Now it's not gravel I mind that much; it's the enormous dust clouds kicked up by passing RVs and pickup trucks towing RVs. Seriously people, just get a fucking tent and stop trying to bring everything you goddamn own with you.



(Actually I guess that's odd of me to say, considering I was carrying nearly everything I owned)



Motorcycles were again encouraged to move to the front of the construction ques while we waited for the pilot vehicles to take us through.

Once I got out of the construction areas, and got away from the small packs of traffic that were the result, the road was simply a pleasure to behold









I did the better part of 300 miles that day. It's pretty easy not to get distracted by side-routes when there simply aren't any, so I made it into Whitehorse by the early evening. And continuing with my tradition of wasting money, I paid for food again.





Om nom nom nom nom!

Figuring that I didn't have any reason to hang around Whitehorse longer then I had to, I mailed off some postcards, and headed out of town to find somewhere to camp for the night.

Now . . . those who followed my blog in real time know what's coming next.

(Because dammit, Yakity Sax makes EVERYTHING better)

In searched of someplace to camp, I headed up what looked like an ATV trail along the side of the road that ran into a clearing for power lines. While I manged to negotiate the steep hill with no problem. I ended up cracking the bottom of the bike on a big pointy rock that I hadn't made note of when I walked the path before I road on it.

At first, I didn't think there was a problem. I'd smacked the bike on all sorts of stuff in this trip, and just assumed that the it was the crash bar that took the impact. I set up my tent for the night and had a sleep.



It wasn't until the next morning when I started the bike, and saw the oil like on that I noticed there was a problem. A further inspection of the area found the grass under where I'd parked the bike was completely soaked in oil. FUCK. The bike was empty, all of the oil had leaked out overnight. I had no idea how bad the leak was; from the outside, the damage didn't look too bad. Just some scrapes.



As luck would have it, I wasn't far outside of town at all. I scribbled a note to leave on the bike, grabbed my tank bag and my water bottles, and started walking.

Two hours later, I came across a gas station, where I bought six liters of oil (AT FUCKING $6 A LITER). This was your standard no-name gas station oil that no one ever buys unless they are totally fucked, as I was. I'm not joking when I say that all the bottles had a good coating of dust on them. After paying for the oil and getting a bottle of Gatorade, I began the walk back to my bike. I had gone perhaps half a mile when a guy on an ATV drove by and offered me a lift back to my bike, which I gratefully accepted. Thanks, dude, wherever you are! I had meant to snap a picture, but by the time I got off and pulled out the camera, he was gone. Ah well.

I packed everything onto the bike, put on all my gear, and as the absolute last thing I did, put in the oil I'd just bought.

FUCK. The leak was way worse then I thought. Oil was drizzling out of the engine at a constant steady rate. I just hoped it would last long enough to get me back to town. I started the bike, got back to the road and headed back to town, where I knew I'd seen a sign advertising a Yamaha dealer somewhere. I had my eyes locked on the oil light the whole time, my thumb on the kill switch, ready to pull in the clutch and shut the engine down the second the light came on.

As luck would have it, I made it the whole way. I rolled into the Yamaha dealer's parking lot in a cloud of blue smoke with the now-hot and pressurized oil literally pissing out of the engine.

I walked into the Yamaha dealer in a bit of a daze, and explained my situation. The parts counter guy said that all their techs were out for the weekend and wouldn't be back in until Monday (it was currently a Saturday), but he could at least look at it and tell me what he thought the problem might be. "How bad is the oil leak?" he asked. "Uh . . . " I replied. "Maybe you should take a look at it"

To the guys credit, he was able to mostly contain his laughter. From what we could see, I'd punched a hole in the crankcase cover, but the internal damage might be worse. Of course, a new cover wasn't available in the states, if I wanted to order it from then it would have to be brought in from Japan, at a cost of $350 and a wait time of 2-3 weeks. Well, shit.

First order of business, I decided, was to take the bike apart and try and find out exactly how bad the damage was. The crankcase cover was cast aluminum, so maybe there was a chance I could epoxy it, or get it welded. The dealership said that it was okay if I left my bike in the parking lot over the weekend, so around 1pm, as they were closing up, I set to work taking the left side of the bike apart.



Once I got it open, I did an inspection of the damage. It looked like one of the Allen bolts had taken the brunt of the impact.



And that impact had been transmitted into the crankcase . . .



As well as the crankcase cover.





By the time I got everything apart, and then straightened up my mess and wheeled the bike behind the shop, it was getting late, and I had to think about where to stay for the night. There were some pretty dense woods across the street, and down past the dealer looked to be a large lake that would offer pretty camping. But my stomach was a more pressing concern. Next door to the dealer was a nice-looking Motel/RV Park, and given that there was no place else around, I figured I would inquire there.

I found the manager, told her my story, and asked if they allowed tent camping at their facility.

"No, I'm sorry we don't" was her reply.

"Well, do you know if there's a restaurant around here anywhere?"

"Well, no, but . . . " She paused and surveyed me up and down. "Follow me!"

I followed her out to where a bunch of people were grilling burgers at a picnic area. She pulled out a chair, took two burgers off the grill, put them on a plate for me, and commanded "Young man, you sit down at this table, and eat these hamburgers!"



Now, who was I to object to an order like that?

I introduced myself to everyone, told them my story, and listened to theirs. Some of the guys here were part of the road crews working on a bridge a few miles outside of town, some were here vacationing, and others were just locals who came to hang out at this place. After much conversation and eating of hamburgers, potato salad, chips and dip, the manager called me back into her office.

"Now, we don't usually offer tent camping here", she began. "But, you're in a pretty tough spot, and we've got a lot of tasks around here that we could use an energetic young man to take care of. So, I think we can work something out, yes?"

In the end, we agreed that I could pitch my tent in a little clearing behind one of the buildings for as long as I needed to get my bike fixed and make use of all their facilities, for $20/week and $5 per shower. In addition to that, she had a list of chores around the place that needed to be done, things like cleaning the hot tub out, clearing some brush, other yardwork and things like that. I couldn't have been happier. I walked back over to the Yamaha dealer, got my stuff off my bike, set up my tent, and had a great shower. This woman was a saint!

The next day was a Sunday, and the dealership wasn't open. I spend most of the day resting and catching up on things. I updated the internet on my status and situation, did my laundry, and took the bus into town to go grocery shopping. I figured as long as I was stuck in once place for a while, I should do some real cooking.



Om nom nom nom nom!

I spend the rest of the evening checking the internet, talking to people online and trying to sort out how I was going to get out of this place.

Heading out of Anchorage

Oh, man, where the hell was I when I last updated?

Oh, right. Anchorage.

My last day in Anchorage was a Sunday, a day which I spent changing my rear tire, running minor errands and doing . . . other things.

Hogman, Norm, and ShortguyonaBMW had left earlier in the day, with plans to make it to Tok, 320 miles away to spend the night before heading up to the Top 'O the World Highway. My plan had been to get my rear tire changed and the leave mid-day, hopefully to catch up with them in Tok and then continue through the rest of Alaska and into Canada together. They were a great set of guys to hang out with, and I'm really glad that I spent the extra few days in Anchorage getting to know them.

Unfortunately (or, very fortunately), fate had other plans in store for me, and I didn't get out of Anchorage until almost 11pm, as the sun was starting to set. I thought that maybe, maybe if I pushed the miles and rode through the night, I could make it to Tok and catch up to the guys.

I rode out of Anchorage that night, heading back up Highway 1 and going East, towards Glennallen and eventually Tok.

The first hour of riding was okay, but as I got up into the mountains, it did start to get cold, so cold that I had to put on a bunch more layers under my suit and suit liner. The twilight lingered for a while, giving enough light through the thickening clouds to show that this was some really, really spectacular scenery I was riding through.

Of all the roads I was on in Alaska, I have to say for pure distance and quantity of amazing scenery from a road, this was the best so far. I was disappointed in myself that I was riding through at night under very dim light; there was no way I could take any sort of pictures that would have done it justice. Many times the road was carved into the side of a mountian going up from a valley, giving vertigo-inducing views a thousand feet down onto the vally floor, and off in the distance you could see the shapes of mountains that seemed to march on forever. Someday, I'll get back up there and do that road in the light. Highway 1 going from Anchorage to Tok is not a road to be wasted by night time.

After the first two hours, things started to take a lousy turn. It started raining, gradually at first but then more persistently. It was getting even colder still, so cold that I was starting to wonder if I needed to worry about ice.

At one point, I pulled into a gas station that was closed, just to get out of the rain for a couple minutes. I was running on the reserve by now, only had perhaps another 30 miles left, and both of the gas stations in the "Town" I was in were closed for the night, and didn't have automatic Credit-Card readers. The whole area was deserted, nothing in the way of any locals around that I could ask if there was another station anywhere close.

Truth be told, I was getting so tired by now that I almost considered just flopping down on the pavement in front of the gas pumps and going to sleep right there. At least it was out of the rain, and I figured whomever came to open up in the morning would give me a kick or something to figure out what the fuck this idiot biker was doing napping in a gas station parking lot. But I was still hoping to be able to make it to Tok, so against my better judgment, I got back on the bike, and got back into the rain. As luck would have it, ten miles down the road I did find a 24-hour truck stop and gas station, where I took the opportunity to fill up the bike's tank, and my water bottles. I made it to the junction at Glennallen, and went North to Tok (South would have taken me to Valdez).

By this time, it was 1-2am, and I started to lose it.

I'd been up at 7am the day before, and spend most of it running around doing errands, working on the bike, and other . . . exhausting activities. I was tired, and very quickly loosing my desire to try and make it to Tok by morning. It was cold, it was raining, it was very remote, and it was very dark. And lingering twilight gained by being this far north was made useless by the heavy clouds, and if there was scenery at all, I couldn't enjoy it.

Soon, I was so tired that it was getting dangerous. I'd blink, but my eyes would then refuse to open again, giving me a second of panic when I consciously had to force my eyelids to snap back up. I'd find myself nodding off for what felt like only half a second . . . but could have been much longer, I don't know. And riding a motorcycle is all about what happens in split seconds, nothing happens slowly on a bike. Half a second is an eternity to not be conscious, and sometimes I'd snap back to it in a different part of the lane, and once I was jolted back away by the rumble strip center line. I was in no condition to stay riding. I needed some sort of a break, anything, and there wasn't a town even remotely close where I might find someplace to get out of the rain. That night, I slept at the Iron Butt Motel.

"Staying at the Iron Butt Motel" is a term coined by hardcore long-distance riders, guys who pride themselves on doing as many miles as possible in the shortest amount of time. Recently, someone set a record for riding from Prudhoe Bay, on the Arctic Ocean, to Key West in Florida, in three and a half days. That's over 5,500 miles. Do the math. When you do riding like that, you sleep as little as possible, wherever you can. Picnic tables at rest stations, gas parking lots, anywhere you happen to flop down, you grab just enough sleep to keep you going.

In my case, I parked the bike, put down the kickstand, and flopped my body forward onto the tank bag.. Sitting on my bike in the side of the road, feeling cold, wet, exhausted, and generally miserable, I went to sleep.

Or at least, what passed for sleep. I have no idea how long I was there, at least twenty minutes and no more then an hour. It was enough to keep me from completely loosing it though, and I did another 60 miles that night. Finally, when I started to see the first peaks of sun just after 4am, the rain started to let up some, and I decided that was all I could do. I pulled into a clearing at the side of the road, pitched the tent, and called it a night. I'd given up on making it to Tok that day, and although I was disappointed I wouldn't get to see Hogman, Norm and ShortguyonaBMW again, I needed some sleep.

The next day dawned warmer, clear with patchy sun.




It was still another 100 miles to get to Tok, and with a head full of rest and some warm air to dry out my soaked suit, I could really enjoy the ride again.







Tok was the same as I remembered it when I passed through on my way up to Anchorage. A little oasis of flatness and straight boring roads in the middle of mountains. I turned right, heading Southeast down the Alcan to where the highway going up to Dawson City eventually turned off.

There was some construction on the way, a lot of mud on the road, which would turn into dust. They tried to keep the dust down by watering down the road, but it wasn't enough to actually wash the crap off. So while it kept the dust down, it also made it slick as hell. I locked the back tire a couple times under what I thought was pretty normal braking.



I got to the Taylor highway a couple hours later, and turned around to go north.

If you look on google maps, at first glance it appears that there's only one main road going into Mainland Alaska from Canada; the Alcan Highway. But zoom in a lot, and go a couple hundred miles north, and you'll see that there's another route into Canada, a much longer way on far less developed roads. On the Alaska side, it's called the Taylor Highway. In Canada, it's named "The Top o' the World Highway". I'd taken the Alcan up, and given how I hate backtracking, this was the way I was going back.



What does this 400-something mile detour get me? Pretty scenery, for the most part.



I can't remember exactly what the weather was like. At some point, I stopped to either take off my suit liner, or put it back on, I can't remember. Either way, no matter where you looked, the hills made you feel small.





Again, more evidence of recent fires.



And what a beautiful drive it was, winding casually through the hills.





Some places I passed through, entire hills were brilliantly purple, sometimes as far as you could see. Alternating patches of magenta and green marching off to the horizon.





The road was paved for most of the way, but the farther north I went, the more frequent the construction or patches of gravel were. Eventually the pavement ran out completely, giving way to mostly decent clay, although there were a lot of sections where it was fresh and loose gravel that were a bitch sketchy.



And the road just marched on and on, over an endless line of hills.



That's it for this post, hopefully my next one will be soon.

Anchorage, Part 2

After a couple days down on the Kenai Peninsula, I was back in Anchorage. I'd actually gotten back into town in the middle of the night, setting up my tent again at the Harley dealer just as the sky was starting to lighten at around 3am on Friday.

After waking up and greeting the others at the campsite (Hogman and Norm were still there), I went about spending lots of money.

First step was to head over to Alaska Leather for a tire change. The store isn't really a motorcycle repair shop, nor do they only sell leather. It's a small place that's packed to the gills will all sorts of riding gear, from the cosmetic-leather vests for the pirate crowd, to full-on touring suits.



And I thought my Olympia Phantom suit was expensive, goddamn.



This shop has a big following amongst the ADV rider crowd, and for good reason. The owner of the shop is there most of the time, is very friendly and helpful, and while the tire prices are about 3x what you'll pay stateside, most of the other gear is in line or below MSRP. And while they don't really advertise it, they do have a tire changing machine in back and will put new rubber on for half the price of anywhere else in town (and a quarter of the price of the Harley dealer). The catch is that, well, they're not a repair shop, so you have to pull the tires off yourself.



Not a problem for me!

While I was waiting for the new front tire to be put on, I poked around the store some. First order of business was some new cold-weather gloves, to replace the ones I'd lost somewhere south of Whitehorse. After trying on all the gloves they had, I picked the most comfortable and best-fittings ones . . . which of course happened to be the most expensive gloves in the whole store. And knowing that they'd probably get soaked after an hour in the rain (no matter what the big "Waterproof!" claim on the gloves say) I got some rubber over-gloves as well.



And then I did something kinda stupid. I started looking at proper riding pants.

While in the southern USA at the start of my trip, I'd been wearing Draggin' Jeans for protection. Contrary to what the pirates claim, even the thickest denim is no match for pavement, and will wear through in just a few feet when you're sliding along it. To combat this, Draggin' Jeans are lined with Kevlar in the knees and hips, the two spots most likely to wear through, to protect you from the worst of the road rash in the event of an off.

But truth be told, many riders don't consider this adequate protection, and after some time on twisty roads I understood why. When you're hanging off the inside of the bike at 60mph with your knee just a few inches from the pavement, that Kevlar and cotton doesn't feel like much protection at all. While they might protect you from some road rash, you're still at very high risk for shattered kneecaps, fractured hips, and all sorts of unpleasantness. To count as adequate protection, you need to have some sort of armor or at least padding.

After poking through endless selections of 42" waist stuff (I guess the manufacturers assume that everyone riding a motorcycle is fat), I settled on some Olympia Airglide 2 pants, which I'd heard stellar reviews of from people online. Padding in the knees and hips, with huge mesh sections for tons of airflow and a zip-out wind/waterproof liner, similar to my Phantom suit. And damn did they fit well. Of course, what was the size that ended up being perfect for my scrawny ass?



Women's size 8. (And that's my front tire with it's new rubber in the bottom left).

By the time I walked out of Alaska Leather, I'd spent over $500 there, counting the tire, mounting, gloves and pants. *sigh*

I had to wait until the next day to get my rear tire mounted. It had turned out to be cheaper to have my dad buy the tire in Chicago and mail it up to me, and it had been shipped to my friend Etherwolf. I stopped by his place of work to get it from him, and strapped it to the bike in a way that would make an Indian feel right at home.



I didn't get any pictures of changing the rear tire, because . . . well it's complicated, but let's just say I was very distracted for the next couple of days by someone pretty special.

Food

When I was planning this trip, me being the nerd that I am, I laid out everything I thought I would need on a spreadsheet in Excel, and attached a dollar value to it. The goal was to assimilate some kind of budget to figure out how poor I was going to be at the end of the trip. And while the single largest expense was of course gas, food was a very close second.

Of course, like everything on this trip, I did this on the cheap. Frequenting restaurants would have quickly blown through the small funds I had, and even fast food was usually too rich for my budget. I indulged occasionally, but the majority of my food was cooked on a camp stove.

And even then, I could have spent a lot more money then I did. Go through the cooking section at REI, and you'll be amazed at just how much you can spend on fancy-ass freeze-dried backpacking food. You can spend $15-$20 on one meal for yourself if you buy your stuff there. (I know those dinner packets CLAIM they serve two people, but they don't even come close to filling me up) Fucking hell, for that price, why wouldn't you just go to a restaurant?

I found that with a little bit of creativity, you can feed yourself plenty well for a couple of bucks per day at any grocery store. Even going to the store today, when my trip is over, I still find myself scanning the back of instant-dinner boxes, finding what can be cooked with nothing but boiling water in a single pot, calculating in my head how I could pack it onto the bike.

My preferences for food changed as I went through this trip, mostly being altered by what I found worked, and what didn't. Three things that stayed with me the entire trip, and are staples of any long-distance riding, were granola bars, peanut butter, and instant oatmeal.

Peanut butter is an old stand-by for anyone traveling solo. It's got a shit-ton of calories in it, it's very dense, and leaves you surprisingly full after less then 1/4 of a jar. It's got plenty of protein and other vitamins, it doesn't have major problems with freezing or melting, won't easily rot or dry out, and at just a couple bucks for a jar that can last the better part of a week, the cost per calories can't be beaten. The only downside is that jars are sort of bulky to pack, as they don't squish down to fit around other things. But combine with oatmeal and bars, you can get a lot of your nutritional dietary needs taken care of easily with just it and oatmeal.

I became a fucking connoisseur of cereal/granola bars and instant oatmeal. Which stores had it cheapest (Aldi), which had the best flavors in the generic store brands (Albertons), and which gave you the best bang for your buck (Safeway's store brands usually had smaller packets then the others). Instant oatmeal was cheap, easy, and hot, which was exactly what you want when it's 40 degrees and raining. Just boil a cup of water, pour it in a cup, dump in a couple oatmeal packets, and you're done. All that you have to wash is the cup and the spoon.

Granola bars are great as well, but surprisingly expensive when you added it up. Part of it was that I turned to them often because they were so readily accessible and convenient, but if I wasn't careful I would find myself blowing through $10 of granola or cereal bars in one day.

Actually, all the usual snack foods that seemed like a great idea would cost a lot when you actually ate them regularly. Beef Jerky is a fantastic road-trip and touring food on the surface. Lot of calories, nice and salty (I don't really like sweet foods), packs very small, but is SHOCKINGLY expensive. Banana chips, which I love, are very hard to find and quite expensive when I did. Any sorts of candy are out of question, and even dried fruits, while healthy, just don't have the caloric density to make up for their cost.

Some things I started out eating a lot of, but ended up dropping through the trip. Canned soup was one of those things. It's cheap as hell ($$0.49 at Aldi), quick and easy, but the cans are bulky and hard to pack. I soon discovered the instant chicken soup packets, often sold in the perfectly cup-sized serving pouches, but after a few months I stopped using these even. Watery soup just wasn't filling enough, the instant packets were mostly broth with a pitiful smattering of noodles.

One thing that sustained me for the first half of my trip was instant pasta packets. In the US, and less remote parts of Canada, you could get them for around a dollar per pack, and all they required was two cups of boiling water. Some called for a cup of milk, but I made do with a few spoonfuls of milk powder. They were simple enough: Boil two cups water, add contents of pouch, stir for around 7 minutes, and eat. If I'd eaten at any other point in the day, I was usually satisfied with one pouch: If I hadn't eaten in more then 12 hours, two pouches would set me. The only downside to these was that my stove was so finicky about how much heat it put out that it required fairly consistent stirring to prevent burning noodles to the bottom of the pot. And cleanup could have been better, the sauce would sometimes require a bit of scrubbing to get out, which could require a lot of water.

About halfway through the trip, I discovered a replacement for them, actually while I was in Anchorage. Now, this might sound stupid to most people reading this, but . . . I'd never had instant mashed potatoes before.

I was pretty spoiled growing up; my mom was the sort who insisted that all her meals be made from scratch, so I hardly even knew there WAS such thing as instant mashed potatoes. But when I glanced at them at the grocery store in Anchorage, and noticed that all they needed was two cups of boiling water . . . well hey, I gave it a shot.

I found they had a lot of advantages over the pasta packets. For one, prep time: The pasta packets needed to be cooked for 7-10 minutes, and the instant potatoes were done as soon as the water was boiling. They were easier to clean up too, as long as you didn't let the remnants dry to the pot overnight. They cost about the same, and were comparable in terms of how much space they took up on the bike. After discovering them, I hardly bought any more pasta packets for the whole trip.

As the trip wore on, and I got back in the USA after time in Canada, I got progressively lazier about my food. I had started the trip making every effort to cook all of my own food, and if I did eat out, to avoid eating at chain restaurants. After two or three months on the road, though, I'd largely abandoned that. I found that if I didn't feel like cooking, and wanted something quick and easy, I had some options without spending a lot of money.

Subway was an easy one; $5 for a foot-long sandwich was a decent single meal, but wouldn't last me for a day. Little Ceasers, when I could find them, were a GREAT option. They have single-topping large sausage pizzas for $5-$6 available for instant pickup, and eating that in one sitting can last me for most of a day.

But another option turned out to be supermarket delis. Most of them would have 8 pieces of fried chicken for $5-$6, and no matter how hungry I was I could almost never finish that off in one sitting. If I could figure out a way to attach the leftovers to the bike, that was almost two full meals.

That's what I lived on for four months. Peanut butter, oatmeal, cereal bars, instant pasta and mashed potatoes, fried chicken and pizza.

And yet somehow, when I got back to Chicago, I found I'd lost at least 20lbs. When I'd left Antarctica, almost a year before, I was up to 165lbs. But now, as I rested after the trip, my 6'0" frame tipped the scales at 141lbs.

As far as diets go, I can heartily recommend the effectiveness of motorcycle touring.

Kenai Peninsula

After spending a few days farting around Anchorage, flirting with girls in coffee shops and running errands, I decided to take a trip down the Kenai Peninsula, the blob of land that juts off the south coast of Alaska. The place I was getting new tires done wouldn't have my new front tire in for a few days, so I had some time to kill, and figured I'd see the sights.

7-16-09

Setting off down the Seward Highway from Anchorage runs you right along the coast for the first fifty miles, giving stunning views of the tidal flats and mountains. Etherwolf, my internet friend in Alaska, commented that the highway has an unusually high number of accidents on it. For the locals, it's just the main transport link to the towns on the Kenai, but then you also have the tourists gawking at all the scenery. The combination of people not paying attention to the road, and people in a hurry gives pretty bad results, and there's a LOT of little crosses and memorials all the way along the road.

At least there's good reasons to be distracted by the scenery. I mean, goddamn.





(To make it easier for those of you who aren't interested in mountains to scroll past)



After the first fifty miles or so, the road turns inland, heading up into the mountains and Chugach National Forest. By this time, I get an almost visceral reaction to seeing the slightly lopsided "Entering such-and-such National Forest" signs, as it means free camping almost anywhere I feel like.







This being national forest land, there were tons of little gravel tracks and trails off the main road, leading to clearings and things that often had pre-made fire-pits where other people had camped. I took advantage of one of these for the night, vowing to get to Homer the next day.

7-17-09

Almost as soon as I got back on the road, I encountered a reality of driving/riding in Alaska. Almost constant construction.



The road wasn't actually as bad as it looks. There had been some occasional rain for the last few days, but for the most part, the gravel/dirt was solid enough that I didn't have many problems, and the traffic slow enough that I didn't feel pressured to go faster then I wanted to.

I turned off the main highway, heading down to Seward. It was beautiful and scenic, as was just about everything else in this state, so much so that I was almost getting burned out on all the mountains.





This southeast half of the Kenai Peninsula is a huge plateau, feeding many glaciers that cut down through the mountains on all sides, ending in amazing valleys and fjords.



Most of the park is accessible by water only, but there is a road that runs in to a small visitors center which offers a nice hike up one of the glaciers.



Along with the requisite bear warnings.



I like that. "Unless it starts to eat you"

While the hikes did look like they would be pretty, I just wasn't in the mood for it. It wasn't that I was tired, I was just . . . I didn't have interest in anything except riding. It was one of those times when I was glad that I was doing the trip alone, because otherwise I probably would have been cranky if I had to deal with someone besides myself. And while going for a seven-mile hike up a glacier would have sounded neat to me on other days, right now it was totally unappealing. So I got back on the bike, and headed out of the park, going west on the Sterling Highway in the direction of Homer.

This part of the ride wasn't as scenic as the first part. The south and east part of the peninsula is rugged mountains, but the west side is gently rolling hills. I had it in my mind that I'd make it all the way to the end of the road at Homer, some ~150 miles away, although I didn't know exactly why. I just wasn't in a great mood, and didn't have motivation to do much of anything, let alone something touristy. So when in a semi-cranky mood, the best solution is to just keep riding.

I stopped for my version of lunch (Peanut butter) in the town of Soldotna, which seemd to be a mecca for fisherman. I wandered down a boardwalk to the river, where there were tons of people up and down the banks catching large fish with surprising regularity.



As I sat there, this girl came and sat on the bench across from me. I toyed with the idea of talking to her, but she seem more interested in just reading, rather then this funny-looking guy in a neon yellow suit, so we just exchanged smiles and left it at that. Too bad, though, she was hot. And reading books makes almost anyone look more attractive. I did manage to sneak this stealthy picture of her because . . .well because I guess I'm sort of a creep :(



Inside the visitors center near the river, they had stuffed two of the record-setting fish caught here. I guess this river is renowned the world over for the colossal size of the fish, and I understand why. Fucking hell, I'd crap my pants if I saw something that sized swimming next to me in the water.



Continuing south down the Sterling Highway, I got to the end of the road a couple hours later, the town of Homer, on the mouth of Kachemak Bay. The road comes into the edge of the bay still up in the hills, and I stopped at a scenic over-look to snap some pictures.





The town of Homer is sort of in two parts. There's the business and residential areas that are on the mainland, and then a peninsula juts way out into the bay to house the port facilities, and touristy stuff.



After passing through the town (which wasn't notable in any regards), I went out onto the peninsula.



The end of the peninsula is a strange mix of tourist traps, condos/hotels, and port facilities. As generic as bits of it did feel, it was surrounded by some spectacular views.







Recreational fishing seemed to be a big draw here, with the rocky beaches covered with people in chairs holding fishing rods.

And even this far north, I found more evidence of exactly WHY the bottom fell out of the real estate market. Sure, smart people will tell you that it was mostly due to the securitization of home mortgages, which were packaged into CDOs and bought and sold so much that no one knew who the fuck owed who money anymore, but I disagree. The REAL reason that real estate prices died was because developers insisted on building places like this.



Seriously, who the fuck would want to live in something like that? Or even within eyesight of it?



Someone had told me that I should stop in here for some food, but . . . again, feeling cranky and anti-social.

The main drag of the peninsula was packed with mostly generic little tourist shops, but as I rode by, one of them caught my eye.



At first glance I thought it was a coincidence, but then, that was a picture of the Time Bandit itself . . . And that really was a crab pot.



The F/V Time Bandit is one of the ships featured on the reality TV show "Deadliest Catch", which chronicles the day-to-day goings on of crab fishermen in the Bearing Sea. It's called the deadliest job in the world, and is the only reality TV show that I allow myself to watch: Rather then the psudo-manufactured drama that permeates just about every other reality TV show on the planet, crab fishing really is fucking dangerous. Apparently, the show has gotten so popular that the Time Bandit (which is based there in Homer) has it's own gift shop.

As much as I would have liked to buy something kitschy, being on the bike leaves precious little room for souvenirs. Talking with the lady inside though, I did learn that the captain of the boat, Captain Andy Hillstrand, would actually be there the day after the next. *headdesk* I'm not kidding, I was sorely tempted to wait around a couple days just to meet him. Crab fishing is . . .

Okay, this sounds retarded, but it's a job I would love to have a shot at. Why? Because I'm fucking stupid, that's why.

As anyone who's ever seen the show can attest to, there is NOTHING about the job that is good, at all. I mean, sure I worked in Antarctica, which had it's crappy moments, but overall was fun, comfortable, and relaxing. Crab fishing is none of those. You're on fairly small (100-200 foot) ships in some of the roughest seas on the planet, in the stormiest time of the year, doing back-backbreaking hard work for hours and hours on end. The injury rate is nearly 100%, and each season sees at least a few guys killed, usually from being swept overboard or boats getting capsized by waves that can exceed 40 feet. The pay is good (very good) for seasoned deckhands, but greenhorns (newbies) make very little, and have to do the lousiest jobs. You spend the majority of the time in way sub-freezing temperatures, exposed on deck and getting regularly drenched in sea spray, while having to manhandle around those 800lb pots which are usually swinging from an overhead crane, while not getting tossed off the ship.

And if given a chance, I'd do it. Hell fucking yes I'd do it. And I already told you why: Because I'm fucking stupid.

It's the same reason that I took a job in Antarctica. And the same reason I went to school in India. And the same reason I decided to take a four-month-long motorcycle trip to some of the weirdest parts of the continent. Because for the last couple of years, my main interest has been on throwing myself into absurd situations, just to see how I react to it. Call it insurance against myself, against my future boring life.

Even if I do settle down at some point, and get a nice safe office job with a reasonable commute and good benefits, get a good 401k going and a low-interest mortgage on a condo, get a big fucking television with 500 channels, get a sensible car with good safety ratings and gas mileage, get a wife and some crotch-fruit, get to the end of my fucking life and realize that I'd spent my professional career working to some pointless fucking goal that ended up being completely empty when I got there . . . even if I get all that, I can look back on my life and realize that for a few years, I really did live. I did stupid, illogical things that left me poor with nothing to show for it expect pictures, experience, and a few scars.

That's why I want to go crab fishing. Because I think it would suck. And I think it would make me a better person.

And, ironically, that's the reason I probably won't ever get to go crab fishing. I don't think I could make a career out of it: I'd be a tourist, there for a season or two and then gone. And right now, the industry is hurting. Recent changes in regulations have put a lot of guys out of work, so there are a lot of fishermen, real fishermen to whom this is a career and a way to feed their families, who need the work a lot more then some shithead tourist kid needs it. The majority of the people out crab fishing aren't there for the adventure or action or because it'll give them good stories for picking up girls in bars, they're doing it because it's their job and what they've done their whole lives.

So really, my reasons for wanting to go crab fishing are all the wrong reasons.

So I suppose I'll stick to riding my bike to places that no sane person would want to go.

So I elected not to wait around for a couple days to meet the captain, which I'm still kind of split about. Maybe I should have. Who knows. But there was . . . besides the fact that I needed new tires, I had . . . an interesting feeling about a girl I'd met in Anchorage. So with little other reason for being in Homer, I turned around to head out of town.

It was getting to within a few hours of sundown, so out of curiosity, I pulled into a tiny little state-park-run campground on the beach to see about camping there for the night. And who did I run into by ShortguyonaBMW, from the campground up in Anchorage! We talked for a few minutes, but ultimately I decided not to stay there. It was right on the ocean and windy as hell, and they wanted $16/night. I said goodbye to ShortguyonaBMW, and headed out of town, stopping to take pictures of strange things as I went.



A . . . pirate ship?



Heading north back into the hills, I stopped to snap pictures of a couple of things I'd seen on the way in.



It was getting close to 11pm by this time, and they were closed. Otherwise I would have stopped there for food.

A few more miles down the road, there was this! I think this started life as an Airstream, but was now a giant bee



One day, Blode was playing with his giant bee (Giant bee, bee bee bee bee bee bee bee, giant bee bee bee bee bee bee bee be . . .)

(and if you understood the obscure internet joke that's a reference to, congratulations, you're as big of a dork as me. The rest of you can just ignore this last bit)



Even the mailbox was decked out.



Soon after I took these pictures, it started to get too dim to keep photographing with my point-and-shoot, and then it was almost dark. I was still feeling good energy-wise, and trying to stealth camp in the dark is very difficult. It was only 200 miles to get back to Anchorage, and simply because I didn't feel like sleeping, I rode through the night, getting back to the Harley campground in Anchorage at almost 3am. Just as it was starting to get light.

Anchorage, Part 1

Aaaaaaand we're back. I know that all of you have been waiting with baited breath for me to continue the ride report, but I've been without my own computer for the last couple weeks, so I haven't been able to do much in the way of sorting through and uploading more pictures. But now I've got mine back again, so let's get to it.

Last update, I was just getting into Anchorage, and nearly lost my passport on the way into town after being stopped by a cop for lane-splitting. By the time I got through all the traffic and got into the city, it was passed midnight and I was very much hoping that the rumors I'd heard about free camping at the Harley-Davidson dealer were true.

By tnow,I had not had a shower in, and I'm not joking, almost a month. The last actual shower I'd taken had been at the hotel I got in Flin-Flon, on the border of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, over 4,000 miles ago. I'd had a dunk in the Liard Hot Springs about half-way through, but other then that, I'd been festering in my suit non-stop. I had spent the better part of a week getting rained on in Alberta, hailed on on the NorthWest Territories, and then the incredible (but difficult) ride up to Prudhoe.

And I was tired. Not like, that I needed to sleep, which I did, but really, just . . . tired. Tired of always being worried about bears, tired of always being worried about water, tired of always having to worry about where I was going to camp, tired of always being on the move, tired of always pushing miles, tired of never having decent internet, just . . . tired. I needed to stop and catch my breath.

By the time I found the Harley dealer, it was 1am. True to the internet's word, they did have a small area with some tents in it, with a sign advertising free camping for any motorcyclist. I killed the bike's engine as I rolled into the parking lot so as not to disturb the other campers too much, set up the tent, and went to sleep.

7-13-09

The next day gave me a chance to look around and see what the surroundings were like.



Honestly, it's damn awesome of the Harley dealer to offer free camping like this. Maybe I should stop making so many LOL HARDLY ABLESON jokes. The campground is down a bit of a hill (the parking lot where that blue truck is parked is roughly street level), so you're shielded some from traffic/general street population, and the other side is a grove of trees and a small creek. It's basic camping, no electric hook-ups, and actually there's not even any designated campsites. It's just a medium-sized grassy area with some picnic tables strewn around, and further in back of the dealer (near the service bay) is a small stage and more grass that people with towed pop-up trailers would set up on.

The bathroom is on the outside of the building just outside of the frame above, which is spacious and clean with a toilet and hot shower. And there was even a little basket full of hotel-sized toiletries, conditioners and soaps and things for communal useage. Along with a basket of jesus propaganda from some christian biker association. And for those times when you do need an outlet to charge something, there were electrical outlets in the bathroom, and on the outside of the building.

I had a small list of things I wanted to accomplish in Anchorage, and first on the list was linking up with a long-time friend from one of the forums I hang out on, Etherwolf. He picked up up in his Subaru and took me on a tour of the area, to some of the more senic lookouts, all the while while we both joked about how much of a nutjob Sarah Palin is (this was a few days after she resigned)



A view of the city from near the airport. Anchorage actually has the busiest private airport in the world, the number of people who own airplanes here is very, very high. It's a necessity for getting around most of the state, a lot of the more remote towns are fly-in only, and a lot of people will have cabins way out in the boonies that are fly-in only as well. I asked Etherwolf how on earth so many people afforded their own aircraft, as even a small floatplane can easily run over half a million dollars used. But as he pointed out, it's just a matter of priorities; live in a small house/apartment/condo, drive a cheap crappy car so that you can have your airplane.





He even took me out to a steak dinner at one of his favorite restraunts downtown, passing a good number of touristy shops selling everything and anything to do with Alaska.



Well, that's special.

By the time I got back to the campground that evening, a good number of people had shown up.



Most of them would be there for the next few days, and I ended up spending a lot of time talking with some totally awesome other riders, Hogman (blog), his riding buddy Norm, and John (facebook, also "ShortguyonaBMW on ADV).


(Photo courtosy of Hogman)


(Photo courtesy of Hogman)

John, who managed to cram a mind-boggling amount of stuff onto his big BMW. He had every sort of farkle, doohicky, and thing-a-mijig you could possibly ever think of on a motorcycle trip, including fancy folding titanium cookware. It was quite a stark departure from my way of doing things, which was . . . you know, as cheap as possible.


(Again, photo from Hogman)

I and John with our bikes under the rear overhang of the Harley service bay.

Even though though Anchorage was to be a rest stop for me, I still had stuff I needed to do. I'd done an excellent job of loosing things so far on this trip, and other various bits of gear just weren't working out. First on the list to buy:



New power cord for my laptop. I'd actually lost the cords back in Whitehorse, I think when I went to a coffee shop for some internet. It was the same way I've lost a lot of other things: Took it out of the seat bag for a second to get at something else, forgot to put it back in, and rode away. Luckily, I didn't lose the power brick itself, just the cord that went from the brick to the wall. And I still had the cord that went from the brick to 12v input, so I was still able to charge the laptop off the bike's electrical system. At that stop in Whitehorse, I think I also lost my great studded belt that I'd had since I was like 14.

Next up: Internet! Or more specifically, the coffee shop at the library, where I engaged in smoothie consumption, internetting, and copious flirting with the barista.


(Ha, bet you were hoping for a picture of the barista, wern't you)

One of the more important things that I had to do in Anchorage was get new rubber put on. Motorcycle tires don't last NEARLY as long as car tires do: Most standard tires will give you between 4-8,000 miles, and even on special, rock-hard touring tires, I was almost out of tread at nearly 16,000 miles. There's a local motorcycle accessory shop in Anchorage called Alaska Leather that is loved by everyone on ADV Rider, and even though they don't advertise it, they do have a tire changing machine in their back room and will mount and balance tires for about half what anyplace else in town will (and about 1/4 what the Harley place charges). The specific tire that I'd wanted wasn't available due to factory backorder, so I ordered something similar and was told it would be in in a few days.

With that in mind, I headed back to the Harley dealer for dinner, and more hanging out with Hogman, Norm, and John. Them, being not-poor, made use of the restaurant across the street. I made use of one of my newly discovered favorite foods: instant mashed potatoes.



I killed most of the next day again hanging out at the coffee shop at the Library (and again, flirting with the barrista), and spent one more night at the Harley dealer. My new front tire still wouldn't be in for another couple days, and I resolved to head down onto the Kenai Peninsuala the next day. Which is where the next update will start off.