At SeaTac airport…

My sweetie just dropped me off at the airport. Checkin turned out to be a bit complicated as the massive duffel bag he had lent me turned out to weigh 72lbs -11lbs over the 50 lbs limit. I took some stuff out placed it in the Ortleib bag and checked in two bags toal for $40 ($15 for the first bag and $25 for the second – $&*@# airlines!).

Security check went through smoothly. Now to wait for 1.5 hrs for flight CO 274 U to arrive. I feel really tired and hope I can catch some shut-eye on the various flights.

‘Cos no adventure is complete without a pickled beets disaster

While I was loading my Ortleib bag int my friend’s car, I froze when I heard the clink of broken glass. Apparently I had tossed in a jar of pickled beets (present for my friend) in there and it had smashed to bits in transit.

Fortunately it was in a stuff sack so the glas was contained within it. Unfortunately the stuff sack also contained all my power and data cables, so I spent an hour picking out pieces of glass and beet from the cables, and wiping them all down. The astonishing thing is that the vinegar seems to have been corrosive enough to create pock marks in the metal prongs of the power cables.

*sigh*

(The other jar of vanilla strawberry jam survived unscathed, so all was not lost on the present front.)

Itinerary for tonight…

Thursday, July 16, 1009
Depart 11:00PM SeaTac (SEA)
Arrive 6:14AM +1 day Cleveland (CLE)
27B, Economy/Coach Class, Boeing 737-800
Continental, Flight 274, 4 Hr 14 Min

Friday, July 17, 2009
Depart 7:30AM Cleveland (CLE)
Arrive 9:15AM Boston (BOS)
22A, Economy/Coach Class, Boeing 737-700
Continental, Flight 1467, 1 Hr 45 Min

Depart 12:30PMBoston (BOS)
Arrive 1:25PM Lebanon (LEB)
Economy/Coach Class, Cessna
Cape Air, Flight 1877, 0 Hr 55 Min

Some last pre-journey words…

I leave tomorrow night on the red-eye to Lebanon, New Hampshire, with no less than two connections (one at Cleveland and another at Boston). I will arrive in Lebanon at 1:25PM (east coast time) where an old childhood friend will pick me up. I might go pick up my bike from Lebanon Motorsports and ride it to her place. I’ll hang out with her part of the weekend and start the big ride on Sunday heading up north towards Montreal.

I don’t have all of the details of the route planned yet, just the first few days where I plan on seeing most of New England, riding some good roads, and stopping at cool little towns, maybe even doing the occassional tourist thing. I hope to be in Ohio on the 31st after which I start heading back out west. You would think that with one month off, I will have all the time in the world to ride without feeling rushed, but I’m sure reality will be far different. On the way I hope to meet many old friends. :)

Assuming my various devices work as they should and I have cell phone coverage, I will post on here as often as I can.

That is all. Thanks for coming along on the ride! :)

Blogging on the road…

So far my attempts to blog while out on my rides have been limited to stumbling across internet cafes in random cities, logging into my account, and posting an update. While on the Alaska ride, I got slightly more sophisticated and set up a discussion list to which people could subscribe to get my broadcast emails.

For the x-country ride, I decided to further investigate different ways of blogging and sending real-time updates via my phone and/or computer. I am carrying a netbook with me to facilitate composing blog posts. I’ll update either when I have access to wifi/internet cafes or from my cell phone.

In my mind, there are two kinds of blogging modes – regular blogging and micro-blogging. Here’s some info on how to set up and use either mode.

MICRO-BLOGGING

Micro blogging is defined as posting mini-updates about your status to a feed that people can subscribe to. The most popular services are Twitter and Facebook. Facebook has a Twitter app that pulls Twitter updates (tweets) and posts them as your Facebook status updated. I figure that the best way to micro-blog would be to tweet via a mobile phone (a Samsung i760 which runs Windows Mobile 6) although you can certainly use a regular computer if you happen to be at one.

Here are various ways to mini-blog. The steps assume that you have a Facebook and Twitter accounts.

UPDATE STATUS IN PLAIN TEXT (VIA SMS)
Be warned that unless your mobile phone plan provides unlimited texting, this is a surefire way to rack up a huge phone bill. When I last checked, Verizon doesn’t allow unlimited texting except between mobile phones, so I decided not to go down this route.

1. Link your Twitter account to Facebook. Search for Twitter app and allow it access to your Facebook account. Note that your Twitter account needs to be set to Public for this app to work.
2. Log in to your Twitter account and go to Settings. Select “Devices”, add your mobile phone number and set Device Updates to “On”.
3. Send texts to the number 40404
4. Your texts will appear as status updates on both Twitter and Facebook.

UPDATE STATUS IN PLAIN TEXT (VIA EMAIL)
1. Link your Twitter account to Facebook. Search for Twitter app and allow it access to your Facebook account. Note that your Twitter account needs to be set to Public for this app to work.
2. Create a Twittermail account. You will be asked for your Twitter username and password and provided with a private, cryptic looking email address like abc123@twittermail.com. In Settings, you will need to set the email account that you will post from e.g. your gmail or hotmail email address.
3. You can set whether just your status update will be just the subject, body or both subject and body.
4. You can also set whether any images you send will be published to Twitpic if you have an account there.
5. Log in to the email account you set in step 2 and send email to the twittermail account.
6. Your email will be published to Twitter and Facebook in a few minutes. There can be a lag of up to 5 minutes.

IMAGE UPDATE STATUS WITH IMAGES (VIA EMAIL)
1. Link your Twitter account to Facebook. Search for Twitter app and allow it access to your Facebook account. Note that your Twitter account needs to be set to Public for this app to work.
2. Create a Twitpic account. You will be asked for your Twitter username and password and your twitpic account will be set up and you will be assigned a pin and an email address to which you can email updates. The email address will be of the form twitterusername.pin@twitpic.com.
3. Send an email from any email account to your twitpic email address with an attached email. If you are on a mobile phone, you can browse to an image you just took with your phone’s camera.
4. ALTERNATIVELY, you can send email to your twittermail email account from the previous section, and if it is linked to your twitpic account, you can post an image the same way.
5. The image you emailed will be uploaded to twitpic.com and your status update on Twitter and Facebook will be updated with a twitpic link.

UPDATE STATUS WITH VIDEO (VIA THE QIK APP)
1. Set up an account at Qik.
2. Link your Qik account to Facebook and/or Twitter. Even if you have linked Twitter and Facebook, a post made to Qik is somehow posted only as one update on Facebook.
3. Install the Qik app on your phone (assuming they support your phone’s model)
4. Start up the Qik app and take some streaming video
5. The video is uploaded to your Qik account and a status update is made to Twitter and/or Facebook with a link to the video

REGULAR BLOGGING

Assuming you have a blog set up via a popular blogging service like WordPress, Blogger, Livejournal etc, you can blog in the following ways:

VIA THE WEBSITE
Obviously you can just log into the website and update your blog. It’s harder to do on a mobile phone, but it can be done. Try and compose your post offline on some word processing app on your phone, or on a computer and then transfer to phone.

VIA A CLIENT
If your blogging software provides a mobile client, that would be one way to go. I don’t know of any client for WordPress or Livejournal that works on WM 6.0.

VIA EMAIL
Blog on WordPress via email
Blog on Livejournal via email

If you attach an image to your email, it will be posted on Livejournal seamlessly. Not so easy for WordPress though because blogging to WordPress via email only works if you send email that is plain text, not html encoded, so there is no way to send images.

The SV has landed…

Lebanon Motorsports in New Hampshire called me this morning to tell me that MY BIKE HAS REACHED THEM. So yay it reached them a week ahead of time, so I don’t have to stress out that it might not get there by the time I fly down next week. Part of me is a bit miffed that JC Motors overestimated and told me it would be there a week later (on the 17th) so I had to postpone my plans by two weeks instead of one. I could have been there now and starting my vacation a whole week earlier if I had known.

I’m not going to be negative though. The guys from the store were totally cool about hanging on to the bike for a week instead of just a day as planned, so I owe them some good quality beer when I go to pick it up. I also talked to them about maybe replacing the kick stand on the bike with a longer one and they said they could totally do that and charge me for 15 minutes of labor (which would be pretty unheard of in these parts). I’d be thrilled if that can be taken of for so cheap while the bike is just sitting there.

The first part of the plan is complete and I’m pleased. I will join my bike soon and together we will have strange, mad adventures together. :)

Day 5… le fin

Day 5

Day 5 woke up somewhat early going by the past few days’ record. Got up, showered and went to Linda’s Restaurant again to get breakfast. Breakfast was a hotcakes shortstack and a side of eggs. The pancakes of course turned out to be so super-size that I could only manage to eat about a quarter of the serving.

I wanted to take the shortest path home that I could while still catching a couple of good roads on the way. I crossed back over into Washington, heading north towards Goldendale and then on a little backroad – Bickleton Highway – that would lead through Bickleton and end at Mabton, where I would get on 82W and then 90W home. The backroad was about 60 miles long and a little out of the way but it really paid off because it was completely remote and scenic. You know it’s a good ride when you’re not checking your speedo, but just going with the flow and responding automatically to the road without thinking about it. The towns that the road went through are hardly even deserving of that description, but it’s what you would expect going through rural America.

Hitting 88W was a reality check of the dreary freeway slabbing through miles of arid desert that lay ahead before I was finally home. I wanted this part to be over quickly. :| Got off at a little town called Buena to catch another supposedly scenic backroad to Moxie City. The road led through the Yakima wineries and I suppose it was pretty but the dry heat was getting to me and I was getting a little hungry by now.

Stopped at Moxie City and went to the grocery store to get supplies for lunch, then rode over to the local state park and sat in a shady grove of trees to eat a well deserved lunch and a bit of a nap.

From here on it was back to 82W where it had gotten really windy – almost as bad as it had been on the gorge. I slowed to a 60mph crawl in a 70mph speed limit zone, which sucked but I didn’t feel safe going any faster when the wind was trying to rip my head off every few minutes. :| Got off at Ellenburg and took Highway 10 to Cle Elum so that I could go a bit slower. It helped a bit with the wind because there was more tree cover.

Getting on I90 at Cle Elum turned out to be a nightmare because of a massive traffic gridlock. The view of the bumper to bumper traffic miles ahead made me worry that that’s how it was going to be all the way to Seattle. This turned out to be unfounded though as the freeway split up into more lanes and traffic finally started moving. I managed to get up to a comfortable 70-80mph pace for the rest of the ride. It was a relief and a delight to finally be riding back through typical Pacific Northwest foliage with the cool weather and the evergreens fringing the freeway. I had never quite noticed how pretty I90 was for an interstate. It was still a bit windy but exceedingly manageable. I pondered all the things I would do when I got home to figure out how I could beat the wind the next time – install my old windshield, try to get a closer fitting jacket so the wind wouldn’t billow around in it, see the suspension could be tweaked at all to make it handle better etc.

I got into Seattle at around 6:30PM – way later than I had hoped – but it was still sunny out. Rode into the parking lot, parked, unloaded. I was home. It wasn’t quite the ride I had had in my head when I had started out, but it had had its moments.

Photos coming soon.

Days 3 and 4

Day 3 saw me leaving Redmond and heading out west towards Sisters. It seemed like a charming little town which I unfortunately didn’t stop at. The weather continued to be marvellous and the route I picked to head towards Eugene – 126 and 20 west turned out to be neat little roads – remote, winding and twisty. There were a few Snow Zone signs which made me a bit nervous, not wanting a repeat of the previous day’s experience, but fortunately all the roads were wide open.

The best ride of all was a little winding backroad called Brush Creek Ln. that led south from Sweet Home to Springfield. It was a glorious lazy, winding road that ran through rural lands with little farmhouses and sloughs – my favorite kind of road. :)

From Springfield, I got on I5 and took the quickest path to Dexter, OR. It was great to see the old familiar faces of people I hadn’t seen in almost a year! I found a spot up on the hill to pitch my tent – happy to finally be using it.

The party was good and mellow. Nobody got shit-faced and fell in the ditch this year, but we did have the gigantic 10 foot bonfire and a live band.

Day 4

Day 4 – Sunday – saw me waking up later than expected (mostly on account of being woken up by loud, chirping birds – why on earth do they do that?! – and not being able to go back to sleep for  while). Got breakfast, said my goodbyes and took off, this time north on I-5 for the shortest path to Portland. I managed to ride 120 miles non-stop before I finally reached PDX.

Had lunch at my favorite Cuban restaurant – Pambiche – sugarcane juice, fried plantains and an appetizer plate of Cuban goodies. I managed to not have a siesta and got back on the bike to head to the Columbia River Gorge.

I was hoping to ride both sides of the river and spend the night at a friend’s place in Washougal. Alas, like the rest of this trip, fate had other plans for me.

The ride started off on the old Columbia River highway which was a cool, historic road that would have been rad to ride early in the morning some weekday, but was absolutely tourist hell on a late Sunday afternoon on Memorial Day weekend. After about 15 miles of crawling along at 20mph I finally got on I-84 which I rode about 100 miles through Hood River and The Dalles.

At The Dalles I crossed the bridge over into Washington to head east to see the mock Stonehenge monument. This is when what had been a glorious day slowly turned into hell with side winds that threatened to rip my head off every few minutes. It was scary enough that at one point I just stopped, feeling a little paralyzed with fear and wondering how to get the hell out of there. I finally wound up going 15 mile east to see the Stonehenge, took some pictures and then went off to find a campground. The closest one was full up though and I ended up crossing back into Oregon to find a motel in Wasco. I called my friend to tell him that I wasn’t going to make it to Washougal after all. :|

So here I am now, in Dinty’s Motor Inn (I kid you not). Dinner, a hot shower and a warm, soft bed has taken the edge off a bit and I’m feeling a little less bummed about my best laid plans all going to hell.

Ah well, win some, lose some, right? Let’s see what tomorrow brings. I want to find the shortest path back to Seattle so that I can get there by afternoon and chill out and enjoy the rest of the day in  my old familiar neighborhood. But I’m not holding my breath.

Day 2…

Day 2 of the ride was again a mixed bag of worms. We got a pretty late start heading out of Portland. By the time we were packed and ready to go, it was almost noon. Our plan was to take 224 south, then hit 26 south to go past Bend and camp in the Deschutes area.

After we went past Estacada though we saw a sign that said that there was no through access because of the snow. We stopped and called ODOT who said that it was a mistake and that the road should be clear. Feeling more assured we went on.

Highway 224 was a blast – mostly remote, twisty and scenic with its views of the Clackamas River. Imagine our surprise when 70 miles down we got flagged by another rider who said that there was 2 feet of snow two miles down the road! And sure enough there was. :|

This meant that we had to double back 70 miles (although a very gorgeous 70 miles of road) and decide what to do from there. After we reached Estacada again, we stopped to get a bite to eat and ponder our options. We ended up deciding to head north a bit, get on 26 and then 97 south. I didn’t think that we’de make it there by dark, especially because I was a little tired after four hours of riding and I didn’t really want to be riding another 3-4 hours.

We made a good effort of it and rode 100 miles non-stop before we reached Madras. The route overlooking was beautiful although with lots of traffic. There were a few spots that made me gulp and slow down because of the heights (curse the fear of heights). At Madras, Sarah decided that she wanted to continue on to Deschutes while I decided to stay put because I was too tired to continue. We separated and I went on to Redmond and found a place to sleep at for the night.

My phone’s LCD screen had inexplicably cracked earlier that day and I was without access to GPS and internet, not to mention phone numbers of people that I needed to meet this weekend. It was almost an imperative for me to have found a hotel room with internet access. I got online and got all the directions and phone numbers I needed. I also tried calling my own number from the hotel room phone until I finally got it to turn on and be receptive (not easy when you cannot actually see the screen on the PDA). The hotel bill will not be pretty.

Today I ride out to Eugene, I’m not sure down which way yet. Maybe highway 126 over to Sisters and then 120 to SPringfield and then south, or 97 south and 58 west. I am leaning towards the former because the latter is the route I followed last year.

I’m not sure when I will be online next. Maybe tonight or in two days, whichever comes first. :)

Day 1 of Memorial Day Ride…

I left home at around 2:30PM on Thursday evening to catch the 3:00 ferry to Bremerton. Made it there a few minutes before they started loading. Rode on, parked, went upstairs to the deck and took a few photos of the gorgeous skyline with the Space Needle in the distance.

The ferry ride was about an hour spent in silence and contemplation. Finally for a long ride by myself, I think. Alas, fate had other plans for me.

Got off the ferry a little before 4:00PM, rode off and promptly missed the turn to 403 and got hopelessly lost. Google Maps stopped working so my GPS fob was useless. Finally made it back on the freeway in 15 minutes, thinking – “Away I go! To freedom! The open road! The wind on my face!”

And got stuck in a bumper to bumper traffic for the next 1.5 hours in 80 degree weather and a rapidly overheating bike, not to mention a slowly cooking me.

Apparently the Hood Canal bridge closing up north was forcing a lot of people to take a detour south and head back north via the route I was on. To think that the only reason I hadn’t taken it was because I wanted to avoid the gridlock in Tacoma. :|

At one point the heat got so unbearable that I pulled off the side of the road. I saw another bike stopped a little ways ahead and rode up to her to see if she was okay. She was, we chatted a little, then got back on the road and rode side by side for a little while. Her name was Dina and she rode a Harley Sportster. She was a typical Harley rider in leather jacket, chaps and a half helmet – the kind I never dreamt I’d be chatting up, but bad traffic makes for strange bedfellows. She was pretty cool too so I invited her to stop with me at the next rest stop where I planned to wait until traffic got better.

Finally we reached Belfair and I saw a McDonalds which appeared to be an oasis (a clear first indication of a heat stroke), I turned off the main road and went in to get ice cream and a long drink of cold water.

We waited in there and chatted about our biking adventures. She had had an interesting life – she had lived in England, New Mexico, and all over Washington state. She rode and camped a lot.

We sat there for about an hour by which time the traffic had subsided. I was beginning to have doubts about ever reaching Astoria before 10:00PM (when the hostel said they would be closing) especially with the Memorial Day traffic heading down 101 towards the coast. The heat had sapped a little bit of my strength and I wasn’t looking forward to riding another 200 miles before dark.

I decided to ride with her to Olympia and then south towards Kelso, where I’d decide to either head south to Portland or west to Astoria.

It was dark by the time I got to Kelso, so Portland it was! Portland, and Sarah, and a pint and a soft, warm bed for the night.

And so here I am, getting ready to load up the bike again and head on south to the Deschutes area in central Oregon. They say there is an obsidian flow that you can walk through. More on that tomorrow.

Off soon….

It’s almost the long weekend!! A few more hours before I skip town. I am taking the day off tomorrow and WFH today so that I can leave early and ride down to Astoria. I’ll spend all of Friday wandering down the Oregon coast, enjoying one of the most scenic rides in the United States. On Saturday I need to be in Eugene, OR for a party in the evening (same biker party I went to last year), so depending on where I spend Friday night, I’ll have to find some cool roads to explore during the day.

The party should be great. I’m looking forward to meeting a bunch of people that I made friends with last year and haven’t seen in a while. Last year they had a HUGE bonfire and flaming tetherball, which was good times. ;) Sarah’s riding down from Portland too and between the two of us, you can bet there will be trouble.

Whenever I am ready to get out on Sunday morning, I’ll hit the road again and head up north to ride the roads around the Columbia River Gorge both on the Oregon and Washington side. I’m not sure if I can do both banks on the same day or if I’ll have to split it up to the next day, but I intend to spend the night at a friend’s place in Washougal chatting again about bikes and his big adventure ride from last year. Monday morning I’ll be seeking to find the fastest way home and get back to Seattle mid-afternoon so I can relax and maybe catch a SIFF film.

It strikes me that this is the first time since the summer of 2007 that I will be doing a somewhat long solo ride! While I have ridden a lot between then and now, it has always been with other people – a little strange for a loner like me.

All my bags are packed  and waiting to be hitched to the bike. I’m bringing my tent and sleeping bag as I intend to camp for at least a couple of nights (solo camping! eek! yay!). I’m bringing my netbook and of course my camera and attempt blogging while on the road. Basically I’m trying as much as possible to simulate my upcoming X-country ride on a smaller scale to work out all the kinks and get a better idea of what I need to bring along and what to leave at home.

A few more hours!! Can’t wait… can’t wait!! :D

Bonehead Enduro 2009

(more…)

Stopping in Slana

HUCK HOBBIT’S HOMESTEAD

We managed to get my GS back up after unloading the majority of luggage off of it and a lot of concerted pulling and dragging. That done, we pulled her KLR out of the mud. In my fogged memory, I don’t even remember how we got the bikes back down to the bridge.

We finally called the hostel and the folks said they’d come out at once to come get us. We unloaded what essentials we needed for the night. I hated to leave the bike there and not have all my stuff with me, but there was no way to carrry everything with us.

Finally a green van came down the hill and a man who introduced himself as Steve got out and helped us with our luggage. We dumped our tank bags, packs and riding gear into the back and clambered into the front with him as we set off back up the hill. Even his four wheel drive vehicles kept sliding around alarmingly and I didn’t feel so bad about not making it on the bike after all.

By the time we rolled into Steve’s front yard, I was tired, hungry, cranky and just wanted to get clean and dry and sleep for a good ten hours. We parked a little distance away from a two storey house with the windows lit up, as if someone was waiting up for us. This looked promising.

We got out and unloaded our gear, but instead of walking to the house he led us in the opposite direction, down a narrow, dark path. Before long we saw a little house down below us with a woman standing outside it, carrying a lamp. We treaded carefully down some rough, wrought steps that appeared to be carved out of mud. He introduced the woman to us as his wife.

They took us inside the little house and after he had set down our stuff, I looked around to get my bearings. We were in a little room about 12 feet by 10. We were standing in the little kitchen area . There was a stove in the center of the room with a little pail of water standing next to it. To the far side of the room were four little bunk beds. High up on the wall between the beds were two small windows that looked out onto the night sky and an enormous bear skin – head and all – stretched out between them.

At the back of the room was a little makeshift shower area that used a solar panel to heat water. It turned out that there was no running water or electricity in the place. The fire was going on the stove, which warmed the place up somewhat, but it would need to be stoked throughout the night if we wanted to stay warm. There was no bathroom – just an outhouse a little way down the path.

They told us to come over to the main house for coffee in the morning and with those words they departed.

By this time my crankiness had led to disgust and disgruntlement. There was to be no hot dinner or shower. At this point all I wanted to do was eat the sorry remnants of whatever food I had left and curl up into bed.

Sarah was quite a bit more enthusiastic than I was – does nothing dampen her spirits? She told me that I was behaving like a spoilt brat and that this was the real adventure – out here in the wild in a cabin made by someone with their own two hands and a skinned bear hanging up on the wall!

“I’m tired,” I mumble before climbing under the covers and pulling them over my head. Thank heavens for a real bed, at least! Let’s just hope that the mosquitoes don’t decide to lay seige tonight.
 THE NEXT MORNING

I woke up the next morning to see the light streaming in through the windows. It was cold after the last of the fire had died out. I got out of bed and padded softly across the floor. There was just light enough to see around the cabin. I turned the doorknob – made out of a real animal’s horn and stepped outside. And my jaw dropped open.

It had been pitch black outside when we had arrived the previous night, so I hadn’t had much of a chance to peruse the surroundings. I don’t know exactly what I had expected but I stood there gaping at the foggy morning that shrouded the forest in the distance. I felt like I had been transported back through time and across a universe into a fairy tale world. The mist that hung in the air gave it an even more convincing aura of unreality. It was like being in a dreamlike state.

The air was so unbelievably still that you were afraid of breathing too loudly for fear of shattering the silence. There were none of the sounds one associates with civilization – no birds chirping, no sounds of traffic, no hum of machinery, no comfortable clinking and clattering of everyday objects. Out here it was silent – a quiet, muffled silence like as if the land was wrapped in cotton wool. Is this what the first visitors to Alaska had felt? Had they fallen silent in turn, forced to be in turns respectful and awe-stricken?

After a while I tore my eyes away from the hypnotic sight of the trees in the distance and looked around to my immediate surroundings. All the trees and leaves and grasses were impossibly green. I didn’t know if it was dew or rain drops, but every blade of grass, every flower petal, every twig that lay on the ground was covered in tiny water droplets that caught and reflected the daylight. I have lived in rainy places, but I’d never seen anything like this. I marvelled at the form nature could take if left undisturbed.

There was a stream on the other side of the cabin – one that Huck had engineered to bring water over from a nearby river. And that ultimately was the charm of this place. After spending a lifetime in apartments and houses and office spaces created by some nameless, faceless construction crews, it startling to be faced with a place where someone had built every part of a house, built the paths and stairs and streams, rigged up the water supply and energy conduits, sewed the curtains and bed spreads, killed the animal that would yield the bones and skin towards decorating the place – all with their bare hands. This truly was a spectacle of the pioneering spirit of humankind – the kind that said that if there were raw materials to be had, humans would persevere and survive.

 

 

 

 

Sarah made some coffee – as per usual – which we sipped as we walked around and explored our surroundings some more. Following it up with a poor breakfast of protein bars  and nuts, we decided to head over to the main house to say goodbye to our hosts, pay them and get a ride back to our bikes.

In the light of day, their house looked even cheerier, made entirely of wood, with a clothes line hanging outside it demonstrating a fine spirit of optimism, I thought wryly. We mounted the stairs and knocked and waited and Steve answered the door. He welcomed us inside and as we walked in, I had another jaw dropping moment. This time it was at the sight of the interior of the house – in many ways like any regular suburban house altough entirely constructed with logs, with comfortable looking fuirniture, photographs lining the walls, an old computer and stairs leading up to the second level, except that there were animal skins and animal heads of every kind hanging up on the walls. The couch and all the chairs were draped with soft animal fur of some kind. Even the stairs were lined with fur. The vicious bear skin hanging in our cabin must have been one that didn’t fit in with the decor, or possibly something they had gotten tired of.  

I remember Steve having mentioned something about being a hunter trapper the previous evening and now I realized to the fullest what that meant.

We sat down with them and grateful accepted their offer of coffee. On being asked, we told them more about our ride and how we ended up there. I tried my best to not be rude, but it was impossible to not gape at the dead fox skin hanging a few inches away from my head and running my hands over the soft skin of the chair I was sitting on. On the table were various hats made of animal heads, one of which he identified as a lynx. I was almost scared to touch them because they were so real. I imagined that not a few months ago, these animals must have been alive and vicious and free to roam the wild.

You would think that the animal lover in me would have been revolted by this experience and indeed hunting for sport does provoke a certain  reaction in me. However, out here in the back woods of this primal land, it felt right. These were humans living as they did hundreds of years ago – on the land and making the best they could of it. They hunted the animals like our ancestors did – for food rather than sport, and they did it with a profound respect for the creatures. They used every part of the animal – skin, bones, meat. Every kill went toward feeding families and stocking up for the harsh winters. Out here it felt right.

And I cannot deny that I still felt like I was caught in a spell. I took the fox skin off of the nail it was hanging on and stroked it, feeling its fine soft fur underneath my hands. The head and paws were still intact so that it wasn’t a disembodied piece of material added to some fashionable garment.

 They showed us around their greenhouse attached to the house where they grew vegetables and flowers. The flowers exuded a strange perfume that made you want to breathe in deeply.

We had intended to stop for a few minutes, but we ended up staying and talking for many long hours. As lunch was being prepard, I peeked into the backyard to look at the baby moose that had wandered in, while Steve and Sara took turns jamming on his guitar.

Lunch was a delicious meal of salmon patties made out of fish caught from the river the previous evening and vegetables grown in their garden. This was the first time I ever had a meal that comprised entirely of materials grown in and around the land. It might have been this or the fact that I hadn’t eaten a good meal for two days, but I devoured it and finished every last morsel. 

 

 Meals done and goodbyes said, we were driven back out to the muddy road where our bikes waited for us. It was quick work to saddle up and get going. As we rode over the Slana river and made our way out towards the Alaskan Highway, I thought to myself how very fortunate we had been in making the choice to get off the beaten track and ended up there. Adventures do seem to happen to you when you least expect them.

The Richardson Highway

The Richardson Highway stretches from Valdez, AK in the south to Fairbanks, AK in the north. We got onto it fairly late in the day. Our ferry from Whittier docked at Valdez at around 4:00PM. We descended down to the deck, unhitched our bikes and departed tooting our horns and waving at the sailors who disappeared from view as we rode out of the ferry docks and into the little town of Valdez, AK.

In 1964, Valdez acquired notoriety when the Enron tanker spilled oil into its waters causing massive destruction of wildlife and rendering the destroying the economy of the fishing town – an incident that the residents are fighting for damages to this day.

The town was quiet and sleepy. We needed to drop off Sarah’s oil from her oil change before we took off and hit the road. The Port of Valdez harbor toxic waste dump was where we got pointed to. The deed done and the light already starting to fail on us, we left Valdez to turn onto the Richardson Highway, intending to end the day at Slana, AK.

The day was gray and listless with not a shred of sun to brighten the way. We were still going pretty slow because we were both tired from a long day’s riding. About 20 miles down the road, we stopped at some waterfalls to take pictures. It seemed to be a bit of a tourist hotspot with a big tour bus parked outside it and throngs of people in and around the area.

That was the last we were to see of a crowd of people for the next few days though. As we left the waterfalls far behind, and entered deeper into the heart of wilderness, we rarely saw more than a couple of vehicles an hour.

 

The mountains thronging the Richardson Highway were unbelievably huge and green and lush – again reminding me of the Scottish highlands – and the highway snaked through them in isolation. As I rode, I had this feeling of being the only person on the planet carving my way through unknown territory. It was a strange feeling with mixed emotions – there was triumph, freedom, excitement, fatigue with the slightest hint of danger and fear of the unknown. One thing I did know is that we had to keep going forward and onward.

…until a hundred miles later when we hit a wall of fog.

Visibility suddenly went plummeted so that we could barely see 30 feet in front of us and we were forced to slow down and crawl along. Suddenly the beautiful valley seemed hostile and dangerous. After about fifteen minutes of slow inching along, I pulled over and Sarah stopped behind me. I was feeling a little frustrated. We had almost a hundred miles to go before we hit any civilization but there was no way I could ride at that pace for too much longer. It was too late to turn around and go to Valdez though. As we discussed our options, as if out of nowhere a bicyclist rode past. We stopped him and asked him how much further the fog was and he told us it would end in just five miles.

Five miles – that didn’t sound too bad. I was relieved and we got back on again. The fog was still bad and I didn’t care for it very much but at least it was a known enemy now. Pretty soon as predicted we broke out into sunshine and the world was a warm, friendly place again.

And that was my first experience of riding through a cloud – at times cold and clammy and almost consistently unnerving.

The road now seemed almost a little rural with little settlements whizzing past as we made good speed. Pretty soon we started seeing glimpses of the famed Alaskan Pipeline. By now we were both tired and in need of rest and nourishment.

We pulled over into the gravel parkway of a little roadside shop. The owner was an older lady who welcomed us with a warm smile. Her little store was full of little knick-knacks. At the back though, there was food – we helped ourselves to frozen burritos and pizzas and heated them up in the microwave and wolfed them down. Some hot cocoa to go with it and we started feeling human again.

Now we finally felt able to look around and talk to the owner. She was a sweet woman who told us how she had come out to Alaska twenty years with her three children before to escape from an abusive marriage because she knew that her husband would never find her there. She told us a bit about her life there and about her kids who had all grown up and left Alaska but had returned within a couple of years. I could understand that. Live here long enough and it gets in your blood. As someone who grew up in a big urban city, I couldn’t imagine making my home in such a place, there was no denying the thrall of the complete isolation and the appeal to a certain spirit of hardiness.

She showed us a little blanket she was making from seal skin – caught fresh by an Indian hunter friend. It was the softest thing I had ever touched!

Sarah and I went outside to the back of the shop to look at the numerous antlers for sale – they gather them from the forests after the deer shed them – and got one each to mount on the backs of our bikes. I picked mine out for a friend back in Seattle who was fond of collecting skeletons and dead things.

We finally said our goodbyes and took off, but not before she had told us how to find a good spot to get a closer look at the pipeline. We had to ride a couple of miles down the road before hanging a left down a gravel road which led to the pipeline.

Out came the cameras again as we walked below the pipeline. It was a curious thing – to see stark, clean technology here amidst wild nature. The pipeline stretched all the way north to Prudhoe Bay up in the Arctic. We wouldn’t be able to go that far north on this journey but we would follow it at least for a little while further.

Pictures taken, we got back on to finish the last leg of our journey – to Tok – back where we had come from.

It was really late in the day though and it didn’t seem possible to make it as far north as we wanted. We pulled out the list of hostels and found that there was a stop a little earlier than Tok that seemed like a likely possibility – a place called Slana at a hostel called “Huck Hobbit’s Homestead”. We had to stop at a place called Huck Hobbit’s Homestead! It seemed like the thing to do.

From here on it was about 50 more miles before we went through the cursed town of GlennAllen. Not too many happy memories attached to this place after the horrendous rains we had encountered there the previous week!Slana was about 60 miles north of here. We knew we were going to be pushing the limits of energy what with the gathering darkness and the rain that was starting to fall, not to mention our own flagging energy at the end of a long day, but we wanted to get in those extra miles and get to Slana.

At the gas station in Glenn Allen, we stopped and got a rude meal – a cold sandwich, some fruit and protein bars along with the old familiar gas station coffee. I sat outside on a bench eating and trying to get warm while Sarah called the hostel to find out if it was okay for us to show up. They did have room and told us that they’d be expecting us. The lady on the phone gave us directions – off the main highway for about 10 miles – although the last five were a bit muddy. She told us to call them when we got there so that they could come and pick us up in their truck.

“Oh don’t worry about it,” Sarah said, “We’re on dirt bikes.”

And as it so often happens, those words would come back to haunt us.

———-

The sixty miles between GlennAllen and Slana were an ode to willpower. That particular stretch of highway hadn’t been fun the last time we had ridden through it five days ago and it still didn’t have very much to commend it. We went a steady clip of 70mph on a lacklustre road where everything looked gray and blurry, punctuated with gravel patches – gravel not bothering me anymore as we rolled straight on through it. It was raining profusely now.

We took turns leading. At one point she pulled over and pointed at my headlamp as I came up close to her and said – “Did you know that your lamp is dead? I had to keep turning around to assure myself that you were still there!”

Uh-oh. Not the greatest news. But I wasn’t too worried because I had enough light to see by and we weren’t exactly in the most trafficked place in the world. I figured I’d replace the bulb the next time we were stopped for the night.

And so we kept going until finally we saw the turnoff in the distance and we got off the main highway to go toward the little Slavic sounding town called Slana. Just a few more miles – I thought to myself – before we can stop, peel off our soaking wet clothes, get warm, eat, get a hot shower, and curl up in a warm bed with thick blankets and know that we earned it.

The smooth tarmac road soon turned into uneven gravel which wasn’t much fun, which soon turned into mud – yet more non-fun. I wasn’t very happy at the way things were going anymore. It was a struggle to keep the bike going in a straight line. We eventually reached a little bridge with signs that said “Bad road ahead. Do not drive unless you are on a high clearance vehicle”.

This sounded ominous and I didn’t care to disobey the sign. I hated to quit but I’d rather have called them and have them pick us up as they had offered.

“C’mon! It’s only two more miles! We’re almost there!” Sarah yelled.

Two more miles of this sticky, gooey shit along tight little turns that led into who the hell knew where? No can do. I didn’t have much of a choice though as she kept going.

The next few minutes were some of the most hellish moments I’ve had on any motorcycle as the bike kept sliding around no matter what I did until it finally slid halfway into a ditch and I landed on my side caked in mud and furious. A few yards away, Sarah’s KLR was completely stuck in the mud and refused to move.

 

And there we were, two bikes stuck in the middle of nowhere, one of them literally so. As muddy, tired and near to tears I was at that moment, little did I know that just around the corner was the best part of our adventure yet, and a story that we would remember and recount for the rest of our lives.

Heading North

LET’S GET ON THE ROAD ALREADY

It appeared that I had spent a good part of the past two months doing nothing but obsessing about the trip, planning, shopping, packing, and all at once the day was here – the day I had penciled into my calendar as the day of departure.

Sarah had ridden down from Portland the day before. We had spent the afternoon exchanging notes, showing each other our purchases, and finishing up last minute errands. That evening we got together with Jasen and drank to the success of our journey.

On the day of our departure – June 21st, 2008 – I spent a good couple of hours sorting through all my stuff and setting aside at least half of it.Nothing like last minute unpacking and repacking? My bike was still unbelievably heavy. All of the bike’s movements were exaggerated by the heavier load. I knew that I would get used to the weight after a few hours, but at the time I fervently went through every single item I had thought was “indispensable” and tossed whatever I thought I could live without. The trouble with going to a remote place like Alaska was that a lot of things that you could live without in the lower 48 you really wanted to have with you “just in case”.

I finally declared the packing done at noon and we decided to get lunch before taking off. We rode down to a little Moroccan restaurant close by – the B&O.

One would expect that I would have been excited beyond words and chomping at the bit to get out on the road, but the reality is that I was feeling not a little nauseous and stressed out as I always do when I am on the cusp of a new adventure. It finally dawned on me that this was it, I was on my way and there was no backing out. My body reacts to stress in extreme ways so that I was feeling physically sick and wanting to lay down and curl up in bed for the rest of the day. The extreme heat of that afternoon wasn’t helping either. The food tasted like ashes in my mouth and I ate more for the sake of eating than out of any real hunger.

Lunch eaten and paid for, it was time to gear up and hit the road!

Within minutes were on I-5 north headed towards Vancouver BC. As we g0t on the freeway, I cast one last wistful look at Capitol Hill, my home and all the comfort and familiarity of the place, missing it already. Leaving home is always gut-wrenching.

Still, part of me was itching to get out of the country. After the first 50 miles or so, it dawned on me – 0ur adventure had begun! We were truly on our way! Alaska, here we come!!

Traffic on I-5N at 2:00PM was what we had expected. It moved quickly and pretty soon we were nearing the border. We had decided to cross into Canada at Sumas rather than Vancouver in the interest of saving time. The route from I-9 to Sumas was along a narrow, winding, charming rural road – the kind of road that I would think longingly of up in the Yukon and Alaska. The sight of a police car along the way made me curb my enthusiasm just enough to ride a sensible pace. No sense tempting fate and picking up a ticket on the very first leg of the journey!

BORDER CROSSING AT SUMAS

Crossing the border at Sumas

The border crossing was fairly uneventful. We parked our bikes outside and went inside with our paperw0rk. The official gave my passport and visa a cursory look and stamped it with the date of entry.

From here on it was about a hundred miles (I hadn’t begun to think in kilometers yet) to our first stop. Even though the scenery and surroundings weren’t very different from Washington, I was acutely aware of being in a different country and I could feel a part of me trying to come to terms with the lack of familiarity. Little things like the measurements of distance and gas seemed far more important now than they should have been.

Every time we stopped at a restaurant or gas station, people came over to talk to us and to admire Sarah’s gorgeous new KLR. I felt a little bummed that nobody remarked at my 0ld crummy bike.

After riding for about a hundred miles from the border, I started feeling really tired from the stress of the day and my flagging efforts in trying to coax some amount of acceleration out of my heavy bike. We stopped at the first RV park sign I saw. Our spot was a rather scenic one overlooking a river. We didn’t have very much time to enjoy the view though as night fell speedily. We cooked a small dinner from our dehydrated meals over a small camp stove and sipped some of Sarah’s home brewed bourbon.

Finally we retired for the night. I crawled into my tent and snuggled inside my sleeping bag for the first of many nights. It was comforting to be able to see the profile of my bike a few feet away from my tent. A motorcycle, a warm place to sleep, enough money for food and gas, and endless days and nights of adventure on the horizon. What more could a girl ask for? In this, my little microcosm of the world, where all my needs had been stripped to these bare essentials, and all my belongings could be socked away into my panniers, life was simple, life was grand, life was intense, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

000

TO CACHE CREEK, BC

I woke up early the next morning with the first rays of sunshine coming through the clear dome of my dent. I got up and crawled out blinking at the light. I had been periodically awoken during the night by the sounds of freight trains in the distance, but outside of that I had slept well and felt refreshed. Sarah was still asleep. I called out to her and she grunted in response. Taking that to be a sign that she wasn’t ready to stir yet, I started breaking down camp and putting things away. That done, I walked down the gravel path to the center of the campground to find the bathrooms and clean up.

Morning ablutions done, I filled up my camelback with water from a tap. The people in the RVs were now awake and sitting in camp chairs, cooking breakfast and making coffee. Fresh coffee, I thought ruefully as I walked back to camp thinking of the espresso shots we had brought to mix with hot water – our version of coffee. Not nearly the same thing, but it would have to do. I’m not the biggest caffeine addict compared to the general populace of Seattle, but coffee and cigarettes is something I closely associate with motorcycle rides.

By the time I got back to camp, I found Sarah awake and lighting up her stove. I pulled mine out too and together we made some hot water for “coffee” and cooked eggs – the first of our dehydrated meals.

Breakfast time!

Breakfast things done and put away, we were ready to saddle up and take off. We hoped to make it to Cache Creek by that afternoon.

The riding up Highway 1 was brilliant. It was a crisp, clear morning and the bike handled really well. I found that accelerating was no problem and soon I was ripping down the highway reveling in the beautiful scenery. Sarah was doing a more relaxed pace and taking time to stop and take photos – a trend that would continue throughout the journey. Some parts of this ride were gorgeous and unusual enough that I finally felt that we had indeed left the United States far behind.

We reached Cache Creek that afternoon as predicted, rolling into town and pulling into the first gas station we saw. We were greeted by a bunch of bikers who sat outside the station and waved at us as we went past and stopped to fuel up. I filled my tank to the top, parked and went inside to get some protein bars and get water. When I came outside, I chatted with the bikers who said that one of them was having engine trouble and was waiting for a tow truck. There were four of them who had ridden across the country, up through Alaska and back and now three of them would continue on down while the one with the downed bike would fly home.

Before we got back on the road, Sarah and I made a stop at the local bank. Even though American money was generally accepted in the area, I had been a bit troubled by the fact that I had no Canadian money. I soon remedied that and got about $200 in Canadian money which I stashed away, hoping it would be enough for the rest of the week.

On we rode now, passing through 70 Mile House, 100 Mile House, 150 Mile House, Williams Lake. The weather continued to be brilliant and we were delayed only once by s0me construction.

We were hoping to make it to Prince George by the end of the day but that hope turned out to be a bit ambitious. After doing a particularly long stretch of road after the last gas stop, I realized that I was in danger of running out. The next gas station was almost fifty miles away and I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold out until then. We decided to pull over and siphon gas from Sarah’s tank into mine. We pulled off of the main highway and took a little side road to where we saw some houses and a sign announcing cherries for sale.

The transfer of gas was easily done and we set off to search for cherries. The owner of the house we were parked outside sold us some mighty fine cherries – I bought two bagfuls, one for each of us, and some apples.

We heard sounds of song from the house and on inquiry found that it was a church group that had gathered to sing hymns. Sarah looked delighted – “I know those songs! I grew up signing them.” The old man invited us to come in and join in the singing. She looked hesitantly at me and said that we should probably get on our way.

I looked at her with disbelief and said – “This is what we are out here for. To meet people and have these experiences. If you want to sing, we should go join them. It’s more imp0rtant than clocking miles.”

She didn’t need much convincing and we headed over to the house, stopping to take off our boots as requested and into the living room where were greeted by the sight of almost 30 people – men, women, boys and girls – some with hymn books in their laps, all of them smiling and singing. They paused briefly to welcome us into their home and hand out a hymn book to us which we shared.

Sarah was raised in the Southern Baptist church and she had most of the hymns memorized. I found that it wasn’t too difficult for me to follow along either. While I am by no means religious, I was struck by how happy everyone in the room looked and how joyously they sang out. How often does one encounter family members of such varied ages gathering together and sharing such happy moments?  There were husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, teenagers and toddlers alike sitting close, some holding hands or with their arms around each other, some with their heads on the others’ shoulders, the little children crawling on the floor or playing with each other. They all seemed to know most of the songs, and every time one hymn was done, someone called out a request for the next one to the man playing the piano.

We must have spent a good hour there. When we were finally ready to leave, we said our goodbyes quietly and left with the strains of music still leaving the house.

As we got ready to get on the bikes, I asked Sarah – “So – do you think they all voted for Bush?”

She replied – “They can’t. They’re Canadian.”

“Oh.”

We laughed all the way back to the road.

That night we stopped at an RV camp and set up our tents in the midst of a big, open, windy field.

TOWARDS PRINCE GEORGE

Day3: 97N, Prince George, 16W, Vanderhoof, New Hazelton

We made good progress on our third day. We reached Prince George by mid-morning where we made an uneventful gas stop and reached  Burns Lake by mid-day. Parked outside a pizza place we saw a group of BMW motorcycles parked. We pulled into the parking lot and as we got off our bikes, the riders walked out of the restaurant. This time it was my turn to have my bike admired and talked about as none of them so much as glanced at Sarah’s bike. Typical BMW riders!

They told us that they had come down from riding to Inuvik up the Dempster Highway. The ride had been rainy and miserable and the road had been so muddy that it had been like riding on grease. One of their group had had a bad crash with his bike landing on him and he had broken his back and had to be flown to a hospital in Fairbanks. This was very sobering news and for the first time the dangerous nature of some of the routes we had planned on dawned on us. Sarah hadn’t been very keen on riding the Dempster, but I was very intent on at least attempting to get to the Arctic Circle. It would be very tough going if the weather continued to be rainy though and we were going to have to make a decision as to whether to continue going north towards the Dempster or turn west towards Alaska. Still, we didn’t have to decide today. We still had Hyder to look forward to, which we hoped to reach by the end of the day.

We spent more time in Burns Lake than we had intended to, glad to find a place with good food and able to stretch out and relax for a little bit. This cost us dearly however and when evening started to fall we realized that we wouldn’t be able to reach Hyder that day after all. We stopped at a little town called New Hazelton.

NEW HAZELTON AND THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE BEAR THAT VISITED EVERY NIGHT

Sarah found us lodging in the backyard of a lady’s house who said that we could camp there. As an afterthought, she told us to be careful about the bear.

“The bear?” – we asked politely. She told us that a particular bear visited there every other night and we should be careful about not leaving any food lying around. Oh, good to know, we replied.

We set up our tents under the shelter of the barn and proceeded to eat some sandwiches that we had picked up earlier in the day.

It had been a good day but unfortunately this was where we had our first fight. Spending hours together with one other person can take its toll and the frustrations and disgruntlements that had been building up between us finally spilled out. I had been particularly exasperated at her wanting to go off on gravel roads at the end of a long, tiring day to find places to camp at.

My idea of touring had always been to put in long hours in the saddle and finally stop someplace comfortable to wind down. I was content with stopping anywhere for the night, even an RV park, as long as we stopped riding and had some daylight hours left to kick back and relax. I had toured long enough to know that I would regret it if I did nothing but ride without spending some time off the bike and really experiencing what the place had to offer. While I obviously enjoy riding, the best part of touring is the time off the bike with meeeting people and talking to them, roaming around little towns, finding secret spots and having a quiet smoke while looking out at the water. Thus far we hadn’t done very much of that and I had felt pressured to keep riding until the light started to fail. I have stated before that I was not into  camping and I was even less a fan of riding off-road, having little to no experience with it. The last thing I wanted to do at the end of a long day was to ride my overloaded heavy bike up and down unpaved paths, trying to find a spot that she felt satisfied with. We had done that a couple of times now and I was pissed off about having to do that again tonight.

Sarah on the other hand had started riding with an off-road bike and was far more comfortable on that kind of terrain. She had been steadily frustrated at the fact that we had been doing nothing but tarmac and that I got cranky every time she even suggested going off on a trail. She liked the idea of finding a nice, cosy grassy spot by a river to camp on and she was willing to hunt around for a while to find the perfect spot. She was also intent on riding long hours every day until she felt that she was far enough away from home. She had spent a great deal of money on her bike and equipment, not to mention all her vacation for the next two years, and she felt like the ride was turning out to be a terrible disappointment.

We proceeded to have a heated conversation, neither one trying to find a middle ground. I had the sinking feeling that the adventure was not turning out to be quite as idyllic as I had thought it would be. Here then was the danger in riding with a complete stranger. For all that we had been friends, good acquaintances rather in the past few years, we had never once ridden together and had never discussed what kind of riding we liked to do or what pace we liked to keep. Now it turned out that our ideas of what would make this a ride worth it to each of us were so poles apart that there wasn’t very much we could do to salvage it. We talked briefly about separating and going our own ways, each to finish the ride the way she best wanted.

Neither of us really wanted to separate though, and considering the trials of the road ahead of us, it would have been the worst possible solution to our problems. We didn’t reach any conclusions that night. I half-heartedly said that I would try to do more off-road riding as long as it wasn’t at the end of the day when I was tired.

We finally went to bed without reaching any conclusion. The next morning would see us riding a hundred miles west to reach Hyder, AK. Maybe things would seem different then and we’d be better able to decide where we wanted to go from there.

Prologue

I would like to say that my ride to Alaska came about from an impulsive desire where I woke up one morning, got on my motorcycle and took off. The reality though is that it came about as the result of a few months of calculated planning and preparation. While I knew a few things about motorcycle touring, having spent most weekends in the past year on short road trips in my native Washington state, I realized that doing a three week road trip in the wilderness would call for a lot of research and preparation.

THE BIKE

The first step was acquiring the right bike. While my naked sv650 had tided me over many thousand miles on tarmac, I wanted something that was comfortable for longer rides and capable of being ridden on rough terrain. My choice of bike is limited by my height and short inseam and I shortly zeroed in on a BMW F650GS. It was a popular bike among women due to its low ride height and it had proven credentials for being a good adventure riding machine. I scouted around on the local classifieds to find a likely candidate and after a couple of months of looking, found one that was in the right price range and was already rigged out to be a touring bike, so that the work I’d need to do on it was minimal. I bought the bike a week after I first went and inspected it.

In the following weeks, I proceeded to customize the bike for me. I swapped the seat for the BMW low seat and lowered the handlebars.

The bike rode very different from my sportsbike and it took me a little getting used to. In spite of the low seat, it was still a tall bike and it took me quite a bit of riding and a few drops before I got somewhat used to it. I brought it to a dirtbike class where I practiced riding standing up on dirt and gravel. For someone who had never ridden dirt before, this was really challenging and I found myself wondering a few times exactly why I was doing this and how anyone could call this fun. I was stubborn though and I had a goal in mind. Riding on dirt was just one of the survival skills I would need to have in my pocket if I wanted to achieve my dream.

[As the plans for the Alaska ride got more concrete, I realized that my naked SV650 would not be the ideal bike to bring on the journey. While it has been done before, I discounted the idea for a number of reasons.

The lack of fairings and the lightness of the bike meant that I got easily tired out on longer rides. I found myself needing to stop and take a break every 60 miles.

The smaller gas tank meant a smaller range, which would not be very safe in Alaska and the Yukon where the riding distances between gas stations were occasionally more than 150 miles.

There would be a lot of construction areas meaning unpaved roads with gravel and grade slurry, mud if it had been raining, and a few off-road highways. Even the paved roads were known to have a lot of frost heaves and potholes.

It appeared that I would be much better off on a bike that had off-road abilities, had a larger gas tank and had an established reputation as an adventure bike. I decided on purchasing a BMW F650GS, a bike that I had fallen in love when I sat on it at the dealership. It had everything I would want in an adventure bike – German engineering, a fuel range of 150 miles, fuel injection, dual-sport abilities etc.

I ended up purchasing a 2002 F650GS, which came with all the possible farkles one might need for a trip like this – 40liter Touratech panniers, extra exhaust storage, Fatbar handlebars.

I wasn’t very pleased at its power in comparison to my SV650, but it more than made up for it in terms of comfort. The seating position was comfortable enough that I felt like I was sitting on my couch at home rather than riding 70mph on the freeway on a two wheeler. It chomped up miles and I found myself being able to go longer and longer distances before I needed to stop for a break. The fuel injection meant no need to warm the bike up – start it up and it was ready to go! Initially I had some trouble with it because it handled very differently from my sportsbike.]

CAMPING

My planned route was intentionally routed to go through territories least populated by humans and far from the tourist hubs. In my rides, I’d been used to living cheap and staying at the seediest, cheapest places I could find on the road, but it seemed like even this would be a luxury in some of the places I would be riding to. I was also trying to keep the overall costs of the trip down. All of this pointed towards motorcycle camping – a phrase that until then had made me shudder a little for a multitude of reasons – my camping experience was limited to the point of being non-existent, and the thought of loading the bike down with all sorts of extra equipment was a little contrary to my philosophy of riding light with just a toothbrush and a change of shirts and underwear.

It was time to change all that though and so back I went online to read up on what equipment I needed and the following week found me at my local overpriced sporting goods store, clutching a list of everything you need to have while camping out in the backcountry where I proceeded to spend an entire paycheck. My list of essential purchases that I absolutely had to have to emerge alive from the wilderness included an ultralight tent, a sub-zero rated sleeping bag, a cartridge stove, dry bags, a saw, a headlamp, rope, emergency mirror, a water filter, water carrier…

MAINTENANCE
My biggest fear of being out on the road was having to deal with a emergency like a flat tire and being able to handle and fix it on my own. This is a desirable skill for motorcyclists in the best of conditions, and an essential life and death skill in a place like Alaska. While I had tinkered a little with my bike in doing basic maintenance, due to lack of time, knowledge and a place to work on, my bikes had always been serviced by experienced mechanics.

This is where my friend Jasen came in. An experienced mechanic who had worked on bikes for twenty years, there was very little about motorcycles that he didn’t know or couldn’t figure out. He proceeded to coach me on working with my bike and I slowly started learning basic maintenance like changing the oil, adjusting the chain etc. and proceeded to learning how to change and patch tire tubes in case of a flat.

FLYING SOLO OR NOT?

I am by nature a loner. I found an instant affinity with motorcycling because it allowed me to spend long stretches of time by myself. It allowed me to decide when I was ready to interact with people and be social. A short stint of riding never fails to rejuvenate my sense of self and validation. After a few years of riding though, I have often found myself wishing I had a like-minded companion. Someone like myself who needed their own space but with whom I could share the wonders of travel and kick back at the end of the day with a beer and a cigarette, resting and thinking back to a good day’s riding. I didn’t like the prospect of riding with a group of riders very much, but a couple of other people to go with would be perfect.

Finding a riding companion seemed like the hardest part of the preparation. It was easy to go to a store and purchase material things and it was easy to prepare myself mentally and physically. Finding someone who was also enthused about taking on a mad journey like this, who could get time off at the same time, who could afford the expense associated with it and had an up for anything attitude was difficult, to say the least. To be fair, I didn’t look very hard because a part of me hoped that nobody would come along and I would have to ride alone by necessity. And then I happened to have a phone conversation with my friend Sarah.

SARAH

Sarah Adkins lives in Portland, Oregon. We had been introduced by a mutual acquaintance a few years before and I had been struck even then by the combination of fresh faced innocence and youth combined with a worldly wise knowledge of the world. The soft spoken quiet kid had gone on to become an EMT. She had read the account of my first road trip across the Olympic Peninsula and had written to me about how that had inspired her to go get her own bike. She had quietly acquired a dirt bike and started kicking around on dirt roads. We talked on the phone on and off over the years always making plans to meet up and ride together, plans that never quite materialized.

I jokingly mentioned to her that she should take a few weeks off and ride with me to Alaska to which she said that it sounded like a good idea and she would see if she could get the time off. I never expected anything to come of it until she called back a week later saying that she had gotten the time off and started looking for an appropriate bike. I couldn’t quite bring myself to believe it. Here I had been dreading being forced to ride with a stranger. Instead I would ride with someone I liked, whose company I had enjoyed and someone who could hold her own in a tough situation. She didn’t have as much touring experience as I did, but what she lacked in experience, she more than made up for with her stolid up for anything attitude.

She acquired a brand new KLR650 and used it as her commuter over her weekly one hundred mile commute and started gradually outfitting it for the ride.

We met up in Oregon to sit and down and hash out details for the very first time. Together we planned the route and essentials. We joked that we were only really riding with the other person so we would have someone to help us pick up our bikes if it ever went down.

Anchorage

The Motorcycle Shop

Alaska Leather

Downtown Anchorage

Toward Seward

The Seward Highway

Leaving Anchorage

Turnout

Lake

Rolling in to Seward

Down by the water

The Glenn Highway

TOK TO GLENNALLEN

We woke up the next morning in Tok, AK to the sound of pouring rain. We  got dressed and parted ways for a bit while she went off to dry her overpants in the campground’s laudromat, while I tore down camp and loaded up the bike. The next hour was a Spinal Tap-esque comical experience wherein we kept trying to find each other in the maze of roads and RVs all of which looked exactly alike. Eventually we did manage to meet up and walked together to the campground kitchen to get breakfast. They had a buffet – the though of which excited me having been starved of real food for a while, but it turned out to be mostly all you could eat pancakes with some dodgy looking syrup and fruit. I did get to try reindeer sausage for the first time, which was exciting for the entire five minutes of the experience.

We managed to make breakfast last for about an hour as we took the time to relax and finish the pancakes and coffee.

As we rode out of the campground, we realized that it was consistently pouring down rain. We stopped at the local gas station to fill up our tanks. A couple of adventure riders were filling up near us. They told us to be extra careful out on the roads due to the pouring down rain and the danger of hydroplaning.

The first ten miles or so of the route was bad. Shortly after, it reached truly epic proportions of miserable. Riding in pouring down rain isn’t fun in the best of times, but it’s even less exciting when you know that you have about 350 more miles to go. Before the first 50 miles were up, I found that I was shivering violently from the cold and I couldn’t feel my hands anymore. For the first time in the journey I realized that being out in complete wilderness also meant that I couldn’t just pull over, go indoors to seek shelter and get warm. Most of the highway didn’t even have much of a shoulder to pull off on, should I inexplicably have wanted to do so. I was pretty much in auto-pilot mode and all my numbed brain could think of was to keep going, ticking off the miles until the next sign of civilization. Sarah pulled over a couple of times to take pictures and this was one of the few times on the trip that I truly wanted to shove her off a cliff, as I pulled over and waited for her and got rained on and froze some more.

After what seemed like a lifetime, I saw what looked like an oasis – a lodge in the distance with an honest to goodness parking lot. I rolled in, parked and barely managed to stumble in. My heated vest had stopped working and I was freezing cold. Everything we were wearing got soaked and I think I was very close to hypothermia. We couldn’t stop there though – it was either turn around and go back to Tok, or keep going to Anchorage. I chose to keep going although I was near frozen and exhausted from the effort of riding in the now near zero-visibility rain.

By the time we reached a town called GlennAllen, I was all but ready to give up. I pulled in at a building that appeared to be the visitor center. I have no idea how I managed to turn the bike off, get off it or walk up the stairs to collapse into the warm shelter because my body had now stopped having any feeling, my clothing was completely waterlogged, and my hands were frozen so stiff that I didn’t have any feeling in them anymore.

At the visitor center we were told about the Caribou Hotel where we could find a room for the night. It was only the middle of the day but I knew that I was done riding for the day.

THE CARIBOU HOTEL

As we stood in the hotel lobby waiting to be checked in, we observed with mild amusement biker after disgruntled biker walking in looking harassed and defeated. We nodded at each other in solidarity, no words needed.

At one point, I counted a total of 17 bikes parked under the front of the hotel lobby.

The room turned out to be a complete ripoff – an unbelievable $120 for a small double bed room where the heating didn’t work right and the toilet kept running. I didn’t care though. I was grateful at the thought of getting into a hot shower, thawing out, and climbing into a real bed.

We hung out all our wet things in an effort to get them dry. Unfortunately the hotel didn’t have a dryer that we could use and we had to resort to air drying. We even borrowed a little space heater and tried to use it to dry out our waterlogged boots.

TOWARDS ANCHORAGE

We left the town of Glenn Allen the next morning eager to put as many miles as possible between us. Anchorage was a mere two hundred miles away and the thought of finally reaching the capital city of Alaska was exciting. We got off to a spirited start, feeling spoiled by the dry roads and warm sunshine.

Perhaps many others leaving Glenn Allen had had similar thoughts and provoked the ire of the local authorities though, because before long I saw what looking like a gleam of red and blue in my side mirror. I slowed down but Sarah was far ahead going well over 80mph. The red and blue lights overtook me and then her with an alarming rapidity and pretty soon we were both pulled over on the side of the road, sheepishly climbing off our bikes and wincing like schoolchildren as the cop walked over to us with the inevitable jaunty swagger. He asked us where we were going and why and whether we knew how fast we had been going. We looked appropriately confused and innocent and tried to bullshit our way out of it, to no avail. My heart sank as he pulled out the ominous book and started writing out a ticket.

“Umm… aren’t you going to let us go with a warning?” Sarah asked him at what I can only describe as spirit of undying hope in the face of adversity. I threw her an exasperated look which she answered with a shrug. The cop looked at her and said, “No.”

He then looked at both of us and said – “You were both going 79 in a 55 and you could get into big trouble for this. I’m going to write it up as a 72 though and I’m going to write out just one ticket. You can decide which one of you gets it.”

I looked at him with a look of amazed disbelief and imagined myself being on a reality tv show where this was the test complete with dramatic tense background music, and the decision would decide the course of our friendship for the rest of the journey.

“I’ll take it,” I said in a spirit of heroic sacrifice.

“What? No, I’ll take it!” said Sarah, not to be outdone with the heroics.

“Now wait a minute…” I started, ready to list all the downsides of having a speeding ticket on her record, when she interrupted me with – “Oh wait, I could lose my job if I had a ticket, seeing as how I need to drive an emergency vehicle around.”

“Okay then…,” I started, a little deflated.

“Hold on, let me call my boss!” she said and whipped out her phone to call her supervisor in Oregon and proceeded to have a chat with him while the cop and I patiently looked on.

“It’s okay. He said it won’t affect my job. I’ll take the ticket.” She said beaming, as she ended the call.

The cop walked back to his car to pull up her license and write out the ticket.

Touched by this act of magnanimity, I turned to her to express my gratitude when she said – “You’re splitting that with me.”

“Oh. Right.”

I decided to make good use of the time and took my camera out to take an incriminating photo of the bikes with the cop in the background. When he came back to us, I asked him if we could take some pictures with him for our family albums. He said yes, but we couldn’t post them on the internet. Busted!

As we got ready to get on our bikes, he warned us to be careful and not get caught again. “We wouldn’t dream of it, officer!” we said meekly and rode off.

Where we had been doing a good clip of 70+mph throughout our journey, we were now slowed down to the regulated 55mph. I wanted to go at least the accepted ten over, but Sarah wouldn’t hear of it. Given that she had just taken one for the team, I respected her decision and kept to slow, snail like pace. We kept our heads low in shame as we were overtaken by RVs and semis. The shame, oh the shame! That was the slowest one hundred miles of the journey.

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The Alaskan Highway

THE ALASKAN HIGHWAY

Into the Yukon and onto the Alaskan Highway! Brilliant weather! Gorgeous scenery. It felt as if we were riding through the pages of a calendar. Everything was scenic and picturesque and perfect. The road was now wide and smooth. Where the Cassiar had seemed like a little secret winding backroad, the Alaskan Highway was huge, straight and perfectly engineered.

We went through cities like Jade City, Nugget City and Teslin. Teslin was home to our scariest encounter thus far – riding on a long metal grated bridge behind an RV that was driving 5mph and occassionally braking for no apparent reason. I think our hearts must have stopped beating during that entire stretch, and I could hear Sarah screaming – “DON’T STOP DON’T STOP” all the way. When we finally got across, I think we were both mad enough to shoot his tires out from under him.

And finally at the end of a too long day, we entered the city of Whitehorse. After day upon day and hundreds of miles of ridng through wilderness and little one-horse towns, the sight of a real city with parks, houses, well manicured lawns, traffic lights and shiny Harley riders made us laugh with delight as we pulled in to the parking lot of a park and pulled our helmets off.

WHITEHORSE, YT

We ended up staying at a delightful place that night – the Beezkneez Backpackers hostel. They were full but they let us camp in their backyard. They had clean showers, internet access, kitchen, a cozy living room, and interesting travellers spending the night. The perfect place to rejuvenate our spirits! I try to retain this memory of Whitehorse in my memory, rather than the dismal one from ten days after.

KLUANE LAKE AND DESTRUCTION BAY

Day 7 saw us waking up from a good night’s rest at the Beezkneez Bacpackers. We ate breakfast, started loading up the bikes and doing some routine maintenance. Sarah decided to adjust her chain and something went wrong so that the wheel made a creaking sound every time we rotated it. It took us a while to backtrack and sort it out, but it got her really frustrated. We then set out to go find some parts at an Auto Parts store only to realize that it was a Sunday and most stores were closed. After riding in the wilderness for most of the week, the one time we hit a major city turns out to be the one day when everything was closed! This could only happen to us.

We hit the road a bit late – around noon – and were hoping to at least cross the border before the end of the day. There were many construction zones on the way with loose packed gravel which slowed us down, but overall we kept up a good pace. We passed through the Kluane Lake area, which was gorgeous.

ENTERING ALASKA

As we reached the end of the Yukon and neared Alaska, the weather changed dramatically. We rode a pretty consistent 90mph trying to outride a big, angry thunderstorm. The ominous clouds bearing down on us combined with flashes of lightning (scary in this barren remoteness) and the first few showers of rain made our entry into Alaska every bit as dramatic as I had hoped it would be. The last hundred miles riding into Alaska were almost like riding through some Tolkein-esque fantasy – completely remote with no vehicles out on the road besides us, misty mountains in the distance, bleak stripped down forests; and I especially have a chilling memory of passing a huge muddy angry marshland that reminded me of Isengard. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see an army of orcs emerging from it onto the road.

We crossed the border at around 7 in the evening – my first real border crossing from Canada into the US. The customs officer was really nice and chatty. He recommended that we take advantage of the recent dry weather and the fact that construction didn’t happen on Sundays to make it through all the way to Tok rather than stopping at Border City as planned. I was really tired by now, but what he said made sense, so we pushed on. I think we made it all the way to Tok on sheer willpower alone. We went through that dreaded stretch that every biker on the road had warned us about until now – about fifty miles of construction in rain gathering darkness. . The picture most people had painted of “The US side of the road is completely torn up.”, “Be very, very careful and go slow.”, “It’s fifty miles of the most miserable roads you will ever ride.” etc. had led us to imagine the aftermath of an apocalypse with dead bodies strewn all over and wailing infants crying out our names. The reality though, was quite a bit different because we pretty much sailed through it. It was slow going in some sections but nothing unmanageable. After we stopped for the night and exchanged notes, we resolved to never trust other people’s descriptions of road conditions again.

In hindsight though, we had been extraordinarily lucky with the weather – the rain ensured that there was no dust, but it has also not rained long enough for it to get slippery (as we found out when we went through that section a week later and my heart was in my mouth every time we went through a slick muddy section).

TOK

Sarah had promised me at the border that if I would consent to riding another 60 miles to Tok that day, we could stay at the best, swankiest place I wanted to instead of camping. I had given in at that thought and as we finally entered Tok, I pulled in to the parking lot of a somewhat fancy looking – for that area – hotel.

We turned off the bikes and walked into the reception… and stopped. Inside was a gigantic Christmas tree with presents piled around it, a TV playing Christmas carols and people walking around in Christmas sweaters putting up ornaments and decorations. It was July. We looked at each other and left.

Outside we tried calling the number of a hostel in that area only to be told that they were closed for a week because a moose had gotten in and destroyed all the beds.

Lady luck was really not on our side that night. We finally managed to find an RV park called the Sourdough Campground. It was raining steadily now and we pitched a tent in the rain, ate a rude meal and clambered into bed. This had been our longest day riding and the strain of the journey was now beginning to tell.

I was too tired even to grasp the thought that we had made our destination – we were in Alaska and tomorrow we would be in the capital city of Anchorage. All I wanted was to sleep and rest and I soon drifted off to sleep, the steady sound of rain lulling me into oblivion.
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