Okay, not really. I like it when people read and comment. But you're also totally pwning my photobucket bandwith with all the looking at my pictures.
The bandwith meter should re-set tomorrow (the 12th), so pictures will work again then. If the bandwith meter keeps getting tripped, maybe I'll bite the bullet and upgrade to a Pro account. Stupid photobucket, wanting money.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
Adding to the "Shit that I've lost" list
I got into Alaska yesterday, but was only able to find internet today.
Adding to the list of things I've lost:
-My nice cold-weather gloves. I think I left them at my campsite in British Columbia a few days ago. So, if anyone is doing the Alaska Highway, about 150 miles south of Whitehorse, you'll go over a little bridge labled "Screw Creek". There's a gravel pull-off area next to the bridge going down to the creeck, with some fire pits and evidence of people camping there. If you search around a little, you should be able to find a pair of really nice XL Tourmaster Winter Elite gloves there. I've been lucky and the weather has been really nice since I lost them, but I'm going to get some new gloves in Fairbanks. There goes $150 that I didn't want to have to spend.
-The power cords for my laptop. I think I left these at the coffee shop in Whitehorse. The good news is that I still have the power brick and the DC cord, so I can still charge the laptop off the bike's electrical system, just not off wall current.
Just . . . what the fuck is wrong with me? Why can't I manage to hang onto ANYTHING?
I decided that I'm also going to swing by an Optomistrist when I'm in Fairbanks, as well. The glasses I'm wearing now are an old perscription that isn't that great, I've been meaning to get new lenses for them for a while anyway. I lost my perscrip sunglasses back in Quebec, and have managed to deal without them okay, but it's really becoming apparent just how much of a bad idea that is.
The sun visor on my helmet works okay, but it washes out definition a lot. Which is fine when I'm on paved roads, but when I'm on gravel/dirt, where I REALLY need to be able to see the road conditions ahead of me very clearly, it's just dangerous.
The plan now is to head up to Fairbanks, and get an eye exam there. I figure it'll take a week or two to get the sunglasses lenses, so I'm going to use a larger chain or franchise store, one that has a branch office in Anchorage as well. I'll get the eye exam, and have the lenses ordered and sent to Anchorage. I'll go up the Pipeline haul road, and then down to Anchorage and spend a couple days riding around the Kania Peninsuala. By the time I leave, hopefully the lenses ordered should be in at the branch office in Anchorage, and then I'll be able to actually see where the hell I'm going (hooray!).
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Canada is full of cute girls
I've made it up to the Yukon, and so far, the scenery is excellent here.
View Larger Map
Not just the mountains and things, but even though we're basically in the middle of nowhere, they still have managed to import an entire army of really cute girls, many of them covered in ink and piercings. How the hell do they get them all the way up here?! Even the girls on the highway work crews were damn cute.
Oh, that's something else strange that I've noticed. The VAST majority of the highway work crews so far have been female. I've passed a few crews that were ALL female, and even on the larger crews, ladies seem to outnumber guys 2:1.
Quebec was the same way, the vast majority of the female population was well above average in terms of attractiveness (And they wear very short skirts). No, I has no pictures, because I don't feel like being "that guy" who's just walking around taking pictures of all the girls.
Canada is a good place.
View Larger Map
Not just the mountains and things, but even though we're basically in the middle of nowhere, they still have managed to import an entire army of really cute girls, many of them covered in ink and piercings. How the hell do they get them all the way up here?! Even the girls on the highway work crews were damn cute.
Oh, that's something else strange that I've noticed. The VAST majority of the highway work crews so far have been female. I've passed a few crews that were ALL female, and even on the larger crews, ladies seem to outnumber guys 2:1.
Quebec was the same way, the vast majority of the female population was well above average in terms of attractiveness (And they wear very short skirts). No, I has no pictures, because I don't feel like being "that guy" who's just walking around taking pictures of all the girls.
Canada is a good place.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Long time no update. And this isn't a very real update, either. The internet connection I'm on is quite slow, so I'm not able to post any pictures or anything.
Since my last post, it rained almost constantly, only letting up yesterday evening. And I don't mean just kinda drizzly. I mean epic fucking Noah's Arc type rain. When it stopped raining, it would be hailing. And for the record, hail hitting your helmet at 60mph sounds like a machine gun going off next to your head
I took the Mackenzie highway across the northwest territories, to the Liard highway, which took me down into British Colombia. Both of these roads were "Gravel". Which, in Northwest-territories-speak, means "Mud with some small rocks on the side". They were . . . pretty bad.
That time in the Northwest Territory was probably the lowest I've felt at any point in the trip. After a few days of almost constant rain and EPIC mosquitoes, everything was wet, I was always cold, there was no way to actually get or stay dry, and I'd almost gotten used to just itching everywhere.
Add to that the stress of riding on pretty lousy mud roads that have been soaked by a few days of heavy rain, and it's just . . . it's exhausting. You have to be HYPER-aware at every minute of every hour, you cannot let concentration lapse for a single second, because if you do, you really might die. I had four times where I almost wiped out, once was so bad that I have NO idea how I managed to save it. I got into what's known as a "tank slapper", where the bike is oscillating VERY rapidly side to side, twisting the handlebars back and forth and making your body slap into either side of the tank. I'm not sure how I made it out of that one, but it all happened so fast and was so scary that I didn't even get an adrenaline buzz from it. I just kept my eyes locked on the horizon, and gave it more throttle, and eventually it worked itself out.
Faith. Faith is what you need when riding this sort of bike, in those sort of conditions. Because when the situation gets very lousy, when the bike is flipping side to side and you're slaloming almost uncontrolled through ankle-deep mud and gravel, you have to do what seems like the scariest thing possible. You look up, away from the road, and give it more throttle. And you have faith that it'll be alright, that the bike will steady itself, the ground will eventually become firmer and that you'll be okay. You have to take that all on faith.
And the consequences of wiping out where I was, on this little mud road 200 miles away from anything, where maybe 20 vehicles A DAY pass . . . I'd just rather not think about.
It's gotten better in the last day, though. Yesterday started awful, cold rain and hail, but cleared up around 6pm and has been beautiful since. I spent last night at the Liard Hotsprings, and am heading to Whitehorse. There's a library there, so I'll spend a day or so doing a full picture update there.
Since my last post, it rained almost constantly, only letting up yesterday evening. And I don't mean just kinda drizzly. I mean epic fucking Noah's Arc type rain. When it stopped raining, it would be hailing. And for the record, hail hitting your helmet at 60mph sounds like a machine gun going off next to your head
I took the Mackenzie highway across the northwest territories, to the Liard highway, which took me down into British Colombia. Both of these roads were "Gravel". Which, in Northwest-territories-speak, means "Mud with some small rocks on the side". They were . . . pretty bad.
That time in the Northwest Territory was probably the lowest I've felt at any point in the trip. After a few days of almost constant rain and EPIC mosquitoes, everything was wet, I was always cold, there was no way to actually get or stay dry, and I'd almost gotten used to just itching everywhere.
Add to that the stress of riding on pretty lousy mud roads that have been soaked by a few days of heavy rain, and it's just . . . it's exhausting. You have to be HYPER-aware at every minute of every hour, you cannot let concentration lapse for a single second, because if you do, you really might die. I had four times where I almost wiped out, once was so bad that I have NO idea how I managed to save it. I got into what's known as a "tank slapper", where the bike is oscillating VERY rapidly side to side, twisting the handlebars back and forth and making your body slap into either side of the tank. I'm not sure how I made it out of that one, but it all happened so fast and was so scary that I didn't even get an adrenaline buzz from it. I just kept my eyes locked on the horizon, and gave it more throttle, and eventually it worked itself out.
Faith. Faith is what you need when riding this sort of bike, in those sort of conditions. Because when the situation gets very lousy, when the bike is flipping side to side and you're slaloming almost uncontrolled through ankle-deep mud and gravel, you have to do what seems like the scariest thing possible. You look up, away from the road, and give it more throttle. And you have faith that it'll be alright, that the bike will steady itself, the ground will eventually become firmer and that you'll be okay. You have to take that all on faith.
And the consequences of wiping out where I was, on this little mud road 200 miles away from anything, where maybe 20 vehicles A DAY pass . . . I'd just rather not think about.
It's gotten better in the last day, though. Yesterday started awful, cold rain and hail, but cleared up around 6pm and has been beautiful since. I spent last night at the Liard Hotsprings, and am heading to Whitehorse. There's a library there, so I'll spend a day or so doing a full picture update there.
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