Alaska Trip Update - Sat July 2
Here is a map of the day's ride:
We got up about 6:30 am at the RV park in Glennallen. Rolled out about 7:30 or so and went for gas. I think we were actually on the road about 8 am. It was a chilly night and I tossed and turned most of the night. The bike thermometer said 46 degrees.
We rode for about an hour through pretty flat forested terrain. My hands were so cold and my fingers were barkin' so when we passed by this small little place I noticed an 'open' sign so I slowed and motioned to Sandy to turn around. It was just a little store with some pastries and coffee so couldn't get breakfast but enjoyed a couple of cups. A local sitting there told us not to worry about the bears. The only bears you need to worry about are the 'town' or the 'trash' bears since they are used to humans and associate them with having food. But remote country bears are very private and will avoid humans, which is why it is important to make noise when you are walking and avoid have food or waste out.
A guy stopped by and saw our bikes and asked if we were headed north. He said in about 20 miles we would hit some rain, and "man is it raining!" And the rain would continue for another 30 miles!
So we motored up the rode and never saw any rain, a few clouds but mostly broken with some sun. That is what is interesting up here. It can rain anywhere at any time but for a relatively short period. Stay tuned for more on this...
We rode another 50 miles and stopped at a cafe for breakfast. Met a couple of other riders there and chatted while we ate. From there it was another hour or more to Tok, AK. We stopped there for gas.
Here is a map of the day's ride:
We got up about 6:30 am at the RV park in Glennallen. Rolled out about 7:30 or so and went for gas. I think we were actually on the road about 8 am. It was a chilly night and I tossed and turned most of the night. The bike thermometer said 46 degrees.
We rode for about an hour through pretty flat forested terrain. My hands were so cold and my fingers were barkin' so when we passed by this small little place I noticed an 'open' sign so I slowed and motioned to Sandy to turn around. It was just a little store with some pastries and coffee so couldn't get breakfast but enjoyed a couple of cups. A local sitting there told us not to worry about the bears. The only bears you need to worry about are the 'town' or the 'trash' bears since they are used to humans and associate them with having food. But remote country bears are very private and will avoid humans, which is why it is important to make noise when you are walking and avoid have food or waste out.
A guy stopped by and saw our bikes and asked if we were headed north. He said in about 20 miles we would hit some rain, and "man is it raining!" And the rain would continue for another 30 miles!
So we motored up the rode and never saw any rain, a few clouds but mostly broken with some sun. That is what is interesting up here. It can rain anywhere at any time but for a relatively short period. Stay tuned for more on this...
We rode another 50 miles and stopped at a cafe for breakfast. Met a couple of other riders there and chatted while we ate. From there it was another hour or more to Tok, AK. We stopped there for gas.
While we were there the 3 guys we met in Fairbanks arrived. We had been passing each other all the way down thru Anchorage to Homer (stopped and talked to them there) and then back up north.
While we were at the gas station a guy walked by with a t-shirt that got my attention. In large letters at the top it said "Alaska", then had an outline of the shape of Alaska, but within that outline was a solid white shape of Texas, and below that in smaller letters it said "Pissin' Texas Off Since 1959." I laughed out loud. When he came out of the shop I asked him if I could take a picture of it, so Sandy got a picture of us both. He couldn't remember where he got the shirt but suggested the gift shop across the street. So I motored over there and they didn't have it. I went to 2 other places and they had not heard of it. So I will have to mail order one from somewhere when I get home.
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| Rich, the truck driver with the t-shirt |
From Tok we were back on the Alaska Highway. It was 90 miles down to the border and the customs crossing. Once we crossed we left Alaska Time and were back in the Mountain Time zone (gained an hour).
I took a few typical Alaskan scene pics there in Tok:
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| That one sign says "Alaska Mosquito Traps" beside those steel traps hanging on the wall |
It was an interesting ride for the next 120 miles. We dodged rain cells and went through a few. It was a patchy, broken cloudy sky but some of the large puffy clouds would dump rain in long dark veils of rain. It was a game of watching the rain cells from a distance and then watching the route in the GPS to try to see if the route would take us in the direction of the cells. Sometimes we would get to a cell and the road would be very wet but no rain. Other times the road was dry and we would get some fat rain drops pelting the windshield. Sometimes we would ride into a rain cell and see the other end of it a half mile away where the road went dry again. Very strange. But it wasn't a big deal. I didn't get wet at all and it wasn't enough to soak my boots. Sandy put on his rain suit so it didn't bother him at all either.
Speaking of wet boots...
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| Jerry eating an ice cream and airing his feet out. Tried to change socks at least 3 times a day. |
We stopped at a place just before the border crossing to get cheaper US gas and take a butt break. I noticed a Piper Cub with tundra tires on it parked in the dirt parking lot. But then I thought "Wait, where is the runway??" Then I noticed the red balls on the power lines crossing the road. Then it dawned on me - he landed on the road and taxied into the gas station. We overhead a little bit of conversation when a guy said something like yeah he flew an hour to get his generator worked on to save 3 hours of driving time. Life in Alaska...
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| I got a shot of Sandy riding thru some construction patches standing up. |
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| How come every time we get into dusty construction patches Sandy is leading??? |
But then we got into the interesting bit - the infamous frost heaves that I have read about. I never did quite understand what they were talking about, just that it made for a wild ride.
Frost heaves are where the ground under the road swells or dips during the winter or the spring thaw. I'm not sure how it works but the effect is that the pavement will sink or rise - sometimes by a lot. Maybe a foot or a little more. But what is interesting is the pavement doesn't break. The swells are maybe 6 to 10 feet long and sink or rise by a foot. But since there is no break you can't see them coming. All of a sudden you see it in front of you at 60 to 65 mph and "whoop!" there you go. Most of them are kinda fun but twice I got lifted right out of my seat, and many times I could feel the suspension bottom out. The poor RVs and tractor trailers had a heck of a time. They were going 40 mph or less.
Then we got to a stretch of about 50 miles of construction where there were many stretches of dirt and loose gravel. The gravel was very loose but if we stayed in the ruts it was just hard packed dirt. The problem with that was it was a dry dirt and very dusty. If we got behind an RV we got dusty until the next paved stretch when we could pass them.
Funny thing, most of the time Sandy and I have been riding together I have been in the lead. But over the last day I told Sandy if he was ready just go and I would finish putting my gloves on (or whatever) and catch up. So whoever was ready would just go.
But today at the end of the day I asked him how it worked out that any time we went through those really dusty stretches he was in the lead??? I am convinced now that he is not as dumb as I look...
I was stretching my gas tank to about 230 miles when we arrived at a little RV park on the Kluane Lake ("klu-AHN-nee"). We got gas at a deserted little building but an old man came out from somewhere. It was getting late so we inquired about tent spaces. It was $15 for a tent space and we could split that. The place was called Burwash Landing.
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| Very strange cloud formation - I thought we were going to get stormed on but it passed us by. |
So we set up our camp and went to the restaurant. We both got a hamburger and a salad (and a beer).
We met a guy there with a 2011 Vstrom 650. He had traveled from Australia to Vancouver BC and bought the motorcycle there. He was going to travel all over Canada for a couple of months and then store the motorcycle somewhere until next year when he will come back and travel all over the states for several months. Amazing!
It was another cold night with temps going to 47 in the morning.
