Zen and the art of riding to Alaska: Day 18

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.