Day 20 - Kind of boring day...until I got to Beaver Lodge

So here it is 20 days of riding and I am sick of it!  I need a break from the riding.  But I got on Red Velvet at 7:30 AM this morning and got the heck out of my gross hotel.  As a rule shag carpet from the 70s and bathroom towels that a dark brown should be a high alert to avoid, but I was stuck because of the wreck on the mountain last night.  We pointed ourselves towards Edmonton because I have never been there and it was due east.  It was nice and foggy going up the mountain this morning and a crisp 57F.

Once I got to Dawson Creek, I had breakfast at McDonalds....I know, but it was handy.  Then I hit Walmart next door, and bought Fixaflat (dang slow leak on front tire is getting worse) and a new headlight bulb for Red Velvet (a casualty from our trip to Arctic Circle).  I got all that taken care of and got back on the road.  This mornings music was Pantera, Metallica and Foo Fighters.  It does not get much better than that.  

I cruised through Beaver Lodge and there it was.

The biggest beaver I had seen in a long time.  It dwarfed Red Velvet.  This jogged a good memory from work.  Some know this story, so may not, but here it goes... Several years ago I was doing what I did each day and walk by my teams cubes and said good morning. I went by one office and to my surprise, there was a giant rodent in one associates office.  Not a real one, but it was a beaver suit and head for an adult to where.  The person who shall remain nameless, just sat there like nothing was different and said good morning to me.  This person had dressed up as a beaver for a children's party over the weekend and it needed returned after work.  This person brought it in the building because he could not safely secure it in their Jeep.  That's your clue.  It was great, and I really enjoyed going by the cube to see the beaver head sitting there.  Thinking of it makes me, happy, happy, Happy!  So ther is my beaver story.

Here is another happy picture.  I've seen all kinds of cars, trucks, etc.

Bless him, nice VW rig and he had to have it wide open and hitting 70 clicks (Canadian for going 70 kilometers).  I just noticed this but I think in my rear view, that just might be John Boice flying as my wing man in his Honda Ridgeline.

Here is a great selfie.  Wow I look good!  My visor actually looks clean.  I have mastered cleaning it as I am riding down the road.  I spray on a little cleaner and use a small cloth...and 20 minutes later, repeat.

Check this out...what is this contraption next to this bridge?

If the bridge gets washed out, this thing is used to get people from one side of the river to the other during an emergency.   Scary looking to me but I'm sure Zach would have jumped right on it.

The rest of the day was boring.  I rode through big rain storms in Edmonton and Calgary...but I put my rain gear on and stayed dry.  

I have not gotten questions about the name of this blog.  So I will wait until tomorrow to try to explain.  On the road tomorrow, I will repeat what I did today except the music will be a little more mellow.  Have a great day everyone!

Day 19 - Canada, me and hail

So today started off decent as I left Muncho Lake.  I slept great and was ready to put some miles behind me.  I blasted off and the roads are awesome, running along the lake and then a nice river
for many kilometers. 

I stopped and had lunch here.  Nice lady, that Kathy. 

Right next door was a welding shop and I liked their sign.

I had a request for close up pictures of bugs and my butt pad.  Power to the people.

Technically, both are covered with bugs.  I think a few are living in the buttpad.

Not long after the sky started to look like this.

And I kept riding and did not, that's right, did not put on my rain gear.  Then I saw several bicyclists and it was a family of riders.  They were looking at the same storm as me.

It seemed like the storm was staying south.  And it did for about 30 minutes, then it sprinkled a bit.  Then it rained and the temperature dropped from 84 to 53F just as I was climbing a mountain.  I passed a minivan and then the hail started, at first it was sleet.  I saw white stuff along the edge of the road and was talking to myself, saying, that is not snow, right?  Then it hailed hard for 10 minutes or better.  Really hard, marble or grape size as reported by others that I talked to later.  They just looked at me and shook their head.  Since there was no where to get under protection. I kept riding up and over two passes like this.  No rain gear...what an idiot.  I was soaking wet, cold and pretty sure I had welts on my arms.  Then the hail stopped.  And it rained, and rained and rained again.  I had 200 kilometers to Dawson Creek and I could dry out there in a nice warm hotel, with maybe a jacuzzi.  I was fantasizing.

It finally cleared off a bit but never got warmer than 74F, which feels cold when you are soaking wet.  But I rode on, it would be better.  I thought of a good reason i need to take up yoga, so iI could raise my legs up high enough to drain the water out of my boots, while riding. I am pretty sure i had 8-10 mm of rain in each boot.  One good thing was Red Velvet was cleaner and had less bugs on her.  I could tell her drag coefficient was less and she was cutting thru the wind better.

I liked this set up for two ATVs with a pickup.

About 40 kilometers or 20 minutes from my jacuzzi in Dawson Creek, I saw this.

Traffic was stopped going up a mountain.  And I waited, waited and waited.  I finally got off the bike and took off my wet gear, my helmet.  No movement of traffic.  I started talking to a trucker right behind me, his name was Steve and he hauls goods foe Walmart to Whitehorse once a week.  He told me about all the roads, driving in the winter and how to put chains on a truck, which are required during winter.  When I told him I had seen all kinds of wildlife, but not a brown bear (grizzly).  He told me how he watches some and takes pictures.  He then showed me his latest pictures, which were awesome.  Great guy, I liked chatting with Steve.  So I decided to walk up the mountain a bit and I chatted with two young local girls and they said they talked to someone up the hill and they said an airplane had crashed and hit a semi tractor trailer.  Wow!  I waited a bit longer and then finally grew impatient and went back to the little town I passed earlier to get something to eat.  We were told it would be an hour or two.  That is Steve in his truck along with the long line of backed up traffic.

After diner I was told the road was closed until 11:00 PM due to a fatality.  So I found a small motel and checked in.  It's not great but I won't get hit by hail tonight.  Yep, the same storm is being predicted to hit later this evening.

Another night of worrying about bed bugs.  Tomorrow will be a better day!

-Mark

Day 18 - The long road ahead

I got up and left Haines Junction about 8:30 and stopped and had breakfast about 20 miles down the road.  For some reason I was having trouble waking up and this continued all morning and afternoon.  It is not good to be sleepy riding a motorcycle, unless its Red Velvet.  She kept me safe through the sleepiness.  I finally got to Whitehorse and road through the downtown historic area and checked out this place and had a nice root beer float.

The ride was really nice and the weather continues to be perfect...how many times have I said that the past week or so?  Music helps me get me through the long day of riding...Today's playlist consisted of Johhny Cash, ZZ Top, Amy Winehouse and Air Supply.  I know I am kinda crazy music-wise at this point.  

So I got sleepy again (I blame the Air Supply tunes but i can sing to it) and decided to pull over at a roadside rest.  I have been seeing teams of bicyclists all morning and some passed through the rest area. It's weird how many people bike in the most remote areas...I thought something was wrong with me but some of the bicyclists are out there.  On one of the big gravel areas earlier in the week I saw a family of kids, parents pulling those pull behind deals and they are all huffing and puffing up a mountain and it was raining.  Good thing the Feds were not there or the parents would have been arrested. Anyway this team rode thru, saw me and Red Velvet and high tailed it out of there.

I pulled into a shady area next to some other motorcyclists.  Two really nice KTM 640's identically set up and the owners were visiting for 8 weeks of touring through Alaska, Canada and West Coast of US. They had freight flown their bikes from Zurich, Switzerland and would ship them back via LA on a boat.

Adrian and Ushi were really nice people from Switerland and we had a good talk about travel.  It turns out Adrian is a pilot for Swiss Air. 

About an hour later I stopped for a water break, I was getting hot.  I met an Asian couple from New Jersey and they were pulling a really nice 24 foot camper and were worried about the roads north and asked me a ton a questions.  I took their picture and vice versa.  The gentleman took 8 shots of me, telling me to turn and smile, ect.  I told him to make me look skinny...dang guy got me on the exhale!

We rode and rode, a total of 548 miles today.  My ending destination being Muncho Lake at the Northern Rockies Lodge.  It was a long day because the roads were rough and lots of tar and chip work and plenty of gravel.  I did see Bufflalo and 2 black bears.

Both were right off the road.

Cool to see the bears...really cool...makes me happy, happy, happy.

I stopped again because I liked these rapids.

And it made me think we need more rapids and mountains in Ohio.  Oh well.

So the ride today was boring at times and my mind wandered a bit.  I thought of times me and my dad would ride our dirt bikes on gravel roads similar to what I was seeing. I thought of our family trip out west and the time just me and dad went.  Those were good times and I'm glad we went on them.  It also made me think that I need to do more trips/visits out west.  I am going to do that and I think Cathy is excited to go with me but not on Red Velvet.  There is a bit of jealousy between the two.  :)

Here are some views from where I am staying tonight.  I am coming back for sure...beautiful place here at Muncho Lake.

Good night or good day my friends!

Miss you all, especially Cathy, Conor, Zach & Indy!

Day 17 - Reality knocking on my door

So this morning I got up and decided that I need to start heading south towards home before Cathy and the boys get used to me not being there and starting selling all of my stuff....home beckons.  It was tough leaving Alaska, now my favorite state I have visited.  It's also tough because now I have spend 6-7 days riding back to the US and most of my travel will be in Canada, back to kilometers, liters, Canadian money and strange hard to interpret road signs.  

It was hard to point Red Velvet south and eastern away from Alaska but we took off from Fairbanks with Tok as our first destination of 200 miles and then from there were only 90 miles to cross back into Canada.  I just rode and rode thinking of all the good times so far and hoping for a safe problem free return home.  At some point I ran into construction on this bridge and waited about 10 minutes for repairs.  The guy holding the sign told me the top of the bridge had been damaged by a truck carrying an escalator the day before.  They were replacing steel and bolts, while I was sitting on Red Velvet on the bridge.  They guy pointed out an osprey nest above me on the bridge.  It was huge, probably 3 or 4 feet across.

The views south on Rt. 2 were beautiful.

I stopped and had lunch at Fast Eddy's and it was okay, not the best but I did talk to Cathy here and caught up on the weekend events back home.

Not too long after this as I was approaching the Canadian border, this cloud appeared and seemed to be giving me a message.  Was it Alaska saying it is #1 or was it giving me the finger for leaving and going to Canada?  I think it was both.

Stopped and got gas just before entering Canada and I saw this rig.  Big rig pulling a Smart Car..

Then a helicopter landed about 75 feet away and made me eat more dust.  I thought it was the border patrol or DEA at first.  Turns out the gas station gives tours of glaciers with a fill up & an extra $250.  I tried to talk my way into a free ride, no dice.

i made it through Canadian customs and hit their fun curvy roads.  Also,rode on gravel about 50 miles straight again with huge potholes, just like in Columbus without the orange barrels.

The weather was awesome with temps from 67 to 87F.

I had the worst ham in cheese sandwich here, totally gross and I did not eat much at all and I eat anything.  Never stop here.

This scared me for a second, turns out it is made of plywood and eats very few Tim Horton donuts.

Just a perfect day.

So I decided to bed down in Haines Junction and I am in a small strange little motel for the night.  Tomorrow will be here soon!

-Mark

Day 16 - Guess where I went today?

So today will go down as one of the coolest.  Me and Red Velvet made the trip up to the Arctic Circle!

This morning we got up and made the trip north to the Dalton Highway, also known as the "Haul Road" made famous by being built in the early 70s when black gold was found on the northern slope of Alaska, right on the Arctic Sea.  It is the road that made it possible for the building of the Alaskan pipeline that sends the oil down to the lower 48.  The road is also famous on the show Ice Road Truckers.  

The road was everything you might think it would be.  It was paved and smooth, paved and super rough. dirt, mud, dust, gravel with small rocks, gravel with big rocks...some of the riding was world class and some was worst class.  Here are some pictures.

There's the oil pipeline...it is always nearby.

  

This is the mighty Yukon River.  Notice the bridge decking is wood.  Most of the bridges I crossed  today had wooden decks.

 

  

Trucks were constantly passing me going south.  On the Dalton Highway trucks always have the right away...and they make it very clear...most of the trucks had very heavy loads or two trailers.

 

I stopped at the famous "Hot Spot" and had one of their burgers, which they are famous for.  Between Fairbanks and the Arctic Circle there was this place to stop and eat and one place for fuel. It was 200 miles from Fairbanks to the Arctic Circle and it is desolate.  That is Red Velvet in the foreground with her friends.  I ate lunch with the guys riding these bikes.  All three are pilots for large airlines.

So from here it is only 50 miles but I picked up fuel which is recommended and normal, even though I still had 6 or 7 gallons left.  This is what the gas station looks like and it cost $5.19 per gallon.

I ran into a friend of mine "Harold" from Edmonton. He rides a mean KTM that is bad to the bone, love KTM's.  He carries extra fuel with him because his tank is smaller and his bike drinks petrol like water (poor mileage), I think he said he gets 28mpg.  He is quite a character but a helluva a good rider.

The road got muddy.  It was very slippery...I went through this 4 or 5 mile stretch at about 45 mph, one of the slowest sections.

 

This was one of the scariest sections...very steep hill for a long ways, it's called the "Beaver Slide" and is famous for wrecks and has been featured on Ice Road Truckers.

I did not see any wildlife except a lot of birds, big birds, they looked like crows and they hung around the road a lot and I just missed 3 or 4 of them.  It took me 9 total hours to ride up and then turn around to come back.  It was grueling because there's no time to relax, the road is constantly changing conditions and the turns are awesome.  Sometimes the roads were wide and dusty and sometime it was very narrow and slippery.  It was a total of 413 miles today and it wore me out!  

I am ready for sleep and tomorrow I start my progress of heading back towards Canada and eventually home.  Have a great day, I did!