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7-15-08 I made it to Dave Hammonds place in Medford Oregon. Came up 101 and then cut over on 199. Beautiful ride; smoky in parts hi 93 low 56. Met a fellow going to Alaska on a motorcycle at the very first rest stop. Mike and I hope to meet up when we get to Alaska. There are only a few roads to travel on so there is a good chance that it will happen. His goal is to make it to the Arctic Circle. There were a lot of bikes on the road. 10 times more than I saw last year. Dave has a great collection of old English cars. Triumphs, Jags, Morgan, MGA. Some in process of restoration others are beautifully finished and some are just nice drivers. He has a very nice home with a big garage. We knew each other in the early sixties. We were both running Auto-crosses and hill climbs etc. We went for a long ride through the Oregon wine country today. Different than Napa valley but also beautiful. We were riding around in his TR-8. Makes a lot of nice sounds. Tomorrow it will be off to the Seattle area. Bike is running like a champ….. Phil……. 7-22-08 Hi Gang, Well I have finished up a great stay in Seattle area. Spent time at my
brothers beautiful home overlooking and the sound and got to visit with
my nice and nephew and the significant others. What great young adults.
I visited with Les Adams (my best buddy from high school and early college
years) and his wife. We had a very special afternoon together.. Thanks
for lunch. Low today was 59 and high 70 with the temp in the mid sixties almost the whole time. Lots of cloud action but no rain yet. Bike is running great and getting the best gas mileage it has ever gotten. Go Yammi. I ran into a couple of nice gentlemen at the Issaquah, Costco in the Seattle area. Alan had ridden to Alaska and gave me lot of good information and most importantly was sure that I would have a great time. Despite my worries the ride through Seattle was very smooth. I could ride in the commuter lane where there was a lot less traffic. Commute lane is from 5am to 7pm. Question for the day. Why do I get so nervous when crossing the boarder? I just get this feeling of panic. It was an interesting set of questions this time but I must have given them the right answer as they let me in. The roads I have been traveling on are posted for 100 but most every body including the trucks travel at 120. Shades of CA. The Washington and Canadian roads are all in very good condition and the drivers have been very good. I have been traveling in a valley with very steep hills on both sides of the road. The Fraser river goes along here. It is a big river and very fast moving. There is a lot of water flowing right now. I am in Hope, BC tonight. Have not decided how far I will try and get tomorrow. I would like to travel at least 400 miles. It is bed time so good buy for now. Phil……
Hi Gang, I made it from Hope to Prince George. I am in my tent try to stay out of the reach of the mosquitoes. Had a a great ride from Hope to Prince George. First seventy five miles were like the road to Kings Canyon. Then it was like sierra foot hills, then eastern Oregon and then like western Oregon. The roads and the drivers are almost perfect. This is great and a safe place to be riding a MC. I decided to camp tonight because the weather is perfect for it. I wanted to set everything up before I had to do it in some crisis. Also set my stuff up for riding in the rain. Everything worked well. Low today was 60 and the high was 84 with the temperature mostly in the seventies. It was overcast this morning and changed to puffy white clouds and blue sky. Running the laptop off the bike with a 120 volt converter. Camp ground has wifi. Service in a restaurant in Canada is more like in Europe than the US. If you want more coffee you have to ask for it, some times several times. But the food has been good. Question for the day… What does a flashing green signal light mean. They flash some of the green lights like we might flash a yellow light. Enough for now as this is hard on my elbows. Tomorrow I should be in Dawson Creek where the beginning of the Alkan Highway starts. Have a good day….. Phil…… 7-24-08 Hi gang. Another day riding through beautiful country. Sleeping in my tent worked just fine. It was just that traffic didn't stop and the road was about 100 feet from the tent. Good practice in case I become homeless and have to live under a freeway over pass. Low of 56 and high of 78. Sunny skies. Today was like riding through the beautiful forests of the Idaho. When I left the camp site this morning I decided just to keep going in the direction I would be traveling and would stop at the first place a I came to for breakfast. 80 miles later I came to the first place that was serving food. Pasted a lot of restaurants that were out of business or at least closed for the day. When I pulled into the restaurant there were just a couple of cars in the parking lot. Just as I was ordering I heard a bike pull up and I fellow came in and ask me if I was the one riding the Yamaha. Yep. Then he ask if I would mind if he joined me. He was quit interesting. Had his own lumber business which he had to
give up a couple of years ago with the down turn in the American building
industry. I asked about all of the Pine trees that were being killed by
the beetles. He said it was even worse when you get away from the main
road. They just can't harvest them fast enough and they will be useless
soon. We were then joined by a couple riding a big Honda who were from
Vancouver BC area. Then two other couples came in, one from the Philadelphia
and one Dallas Texas. Breakfast lasted two hours. I had a pork chop with
two eggs home fries and good rye bread for plus coffee for less than 10
bucks. Seemed like a good deal to me. I am starting to love the Canadian
accent. I forgot to mention that I went to Hells Gate which is a narrow spot on the Fraser river. Just an amazing current which they claim there is twice as much water flowing through it than over Niagara Falls. One of those tourist trap things but I spent my 13 dollar and about 45 minutes taking it in. There were also alkaline lakes with dead trees in them along the road like in Yellowstone park. Question for the day. In the wild, how is it that nature always gets the colors right? The green of the trees, the blue of the lakes even the brown of the dead trees all look beautiful. It will be interesting to see how far I can get tomorrow. I hope everyone is doing well. Phil…. 7-25-08 Hi Gang, 471 plus miles I had a great ride from Dawson to Liard Hot Srings where I a camped for the night. Low was 56 high 82. Mostly in low seventies in the morning and then it jumped to low eighties for the afternoon. The road is almost perfect. Light traffic. Wild life, Black bear-p, caribou-p, dear, bison-p, mouse-p, stone sheep-p (p = Have a photo) wild horses Not a bad collection for a days ride, with puffy white clouds in a deep blue sky. Leaving Dawson there was some agriculture for the first 20 miles or so then it was just green trees as far as the eye can. The mountains and or hills are low enough and round enough that many of them are totally covered with trees. The trees are a mixture white spruce, pine and Aspen with some other brush like stuff thrown in There were many rivers lakes along the way. The rivers are a milky gray-green color. The lakes are dark blue like lake Tahoe. There are many marsh like ponds which leads to lots of mosquitoes. They have cut back the forest on each side of the road about 100 feet to make a fire break and the way it is configured it also acts as a drainage ditch so water does not run across the road. At least if you get run off the road there is not solid to hit in most cases. The other great advantage, animals can not hide along the side of the road. So you have a great chance to see them long before you come upon them. I used the hot springs. It felt really good after a long day riding and there were no showers. I was staying in overflow camping with a bunch of other bikers. I was taking sunset pictures at 10:30 pm. Question for the day. There were many large fields with yellow flowers. I have seen the same thing in the Napa area, Idaho and probably many other places. I always thought it was mustard for some reason but now I believe it is some crop with the yellow flower. Does anyone know what it is? Towards the end of the day I decided some of this reminded me of Georgia last year. There are good roads with a wide separation from the forest. But you start to feel like your driving a ditch. All you see are the few trees along the road. Boring… Enough on that day, Phil…..
7-26-08 400 plus miles Hi 63 low 56 with rain of and on. Animals today, Raven-p, black bear-p, Mouse with calf, red fox I am in Whitehorse tonight. Had another great ride. Awoke a little stiff. In the morning it is real fun at my age trying to get my shoes and pants on in a small tent in time to make a run for the restroom. (Washroom here) I was on the road by nine. Made lots of small stops along the way for taking pictures and some walking tours. Stopped at small café and managed to get the owners to talk about how business is going. They have about a quarter of the traffic they had two years ago. Many of the motels, resorts etc. have been closed and abandon from everything I can see. Everyone says it is the US economy is killing them. Just as I decided the problem with the Alcan Highway is there are no places to pull over they started put in stops to pull over and sight see. But still there are so many places that could use a vista point place to pull over. I have traveled more than 800 miles since leaving Dawson Creek and the sceanery has changed very little. From just a view down the road you have a hard time telling where you where along the road. First riding in the rain today for this trip. Not enough to put on the rain gear. Bike shields me very well from the rain if I can keep above 45mph. From what I have seen of Whitehorse they have put a lot of effort into making it sort of Yuppie. You get a quiz today. Facts; To avoid hitting animals you should never drive in the morning or the evening according the driving directions. If you want to see animals you should--- a. Drive at the noon hour. Hey I could make up questions for the DMV tests. I may try and make Fairbanks tomorrow.
Hi Gang low 46 hi 61 mostly low 50's sun shine, rain, hail, sleet. It made life very interesting. I made it to Tok Alaska today. I was late leaving Whitehorse. Well I can say it is the same old boring beautiful scenery anymore. It was a beautiful trip through the mountains. Lake xxxx was a spectacular blue contrast to the mountains covered in green and snow. I had lunch at a road side café along the lake. I walked in and there was the Mike who I had met the first rest stop in CA. He was also going to Alaska. What a small world. He was traveling south with a couple he had met along the way. I had his friend take a photo of the two of us. He has had nothing but rain for all of his travels. Said the Alaskans claim to not have had a summer. I am hope to take advantage of a nice fall here. Mike was just tired of riding in mud. He didn't make it to the Arctic Circle which was his goal. He road a couple of other of the classic routes and it was all mud. I rode along the edge of the lake for almost an hour. Then headed over the mountain pass and to the US Canadian border. The last hundred or so miles on the Canadian side were not what I had learned to appreciate. There were a number of gravel areas and a lot of places were the pavement heaves and dips. The bike handled it very well. But then to make things more interesting it started to rain. I could see the dark clouds for at least an hour ahead of time. I could also there was an area of sunshine on after the dark clouds. Decided not to use my rain gear as I didn't think it would rain for very long. Didn't rain that long but then it started sleeting and the hail came. I almost decided to stop but I knew that if I stopped, that I would get drenched. So I forged ahead. I didn't get too wet but did stop to dry the windshield and the face mask on my helmet. When the temperature dropped below 50 the fast mask started fogging up. I passed a couple riding a big Honda pulling a trailer. They caught up with me at a gas stop. Said pulling the trailer was very exciting on the rough road. He had the same problems seeing. We both rode with our visor up or partly up for much of that time. I am sure glad I made this ride on Sunday as there were no work crews so it didn't to just sit there and wait to get the OK to go plus I was not following any one and the stuff that they would be kicking up. It is past midnight and it is not truly dark outside. The sun was still well up in the sky at 10:30. It is hard to think about going to bed. This is the land of small trees now. They are these funny looking, almost like out of a fairy tail little trees. Maybe the tallest are 15 feet and the branches are deformed. I took lots of photos of the clouds and mountains. I know the photos will not do justice to the scenery, but I hope it will bring back the memories. There are all of those shades of gray, blue and white. Sometimes there were rays of the sun coming through the clouds that looked almost biblical. Fairbanks should be an easy ride tomorrow if there is not to much rain.
I will first stop and celebrate the completion of the trip up the Alcan
highway. I then plan on watching the weather and making plans to take
best advantage of the weather. There are just a few roads to travel but
a lot of things to see. Enough for now. Hope everyone is doing well. It is nice to know that I have friends out there. Phil…… PS. It is morning now and it is raining hard outside and I am sitting here in my nice warm motel room. I am going why am I going to go out there and get on the bike. Am I crazy or is it just what you do up here? I thought about camping last night because I had heard about a very nice camp ground in town. I am sure glad I didn't. I ran into an older couple ridding up here and he said when he was in forties his father asked him "when he was he going to give up ridding a motorcycle and what does he do when it rains". He said "never, I just slow down to speed limit" 7-28-08 low 45 high 52 rain, hard rain. I am in Delta Junction tonight. I decided to stop instead of push on. My feet were soaking we as well as my gloves. My load kept shifting on the bike and I had to stop to many times to keep my gloves reasonably dry. My boots are supposed to be waterproof. Maybe they are, as it could have been the water splashing up and running down into the boot. I should have made a better effort to seal my rain suit to the boots. I can now say I have ridden the Alcan Highway. The girls at the tourist facility for a dollar gave me a certificate, so it must be true. The rain is just not letting up here. Parking lot off my motel is starting to flood, and in fact it is getting close to the front door. The road was almost perfect straight the whole time. Most of the time I could not see a bend in the road ahead of me. I have never ridden on such a straight road. At least in the Mid West you make a right angle turn to follow the property lines here and there. Could not see anything except what was right next to the road. I wanted to get a photo of myself in front of the marker for the end of the highway which is now located on a walkway. Asked a customer in the store if he would mind taking a photo of the bike and myself. He said sure but that I should ride the bike up on the sidewalk. It was great idea, jumped on the bike sans helmet and drove the bike up onto the sidewalk. He took several photos and we both got drenched in the process. People are definitely very friendly when there are a lot fewer of them. I have been working on the next plan. I am going to head toward Valdez and Anchorage from here and will make up mind base on the weather when I get to the junction on the road. It stopped raining during the night but is raining again this morning. Not as heavy as yesterday at this time. I need to get out of here now. Phil….. 07-29-08 Low 50 Hi 60 Just a little light rain and a couple of minor showers. Hi Gang I made it to Valdez today. Thanks to those that did the good weather dance for me. I left Delta Junction in a light drizzel but it stopped raining in the first 15 minutes. Got a late start but that probably was to my benefit. I had a very nice gentleman and wife chat me up while I was buying gas. The even phoned to check out the weather for me in Anchorage and Valdez. He is a Harley rider. The ride to Glennallen was a beautiful and finally got to ride on some roads with bends in them. Felt good to lean the bike a little. Got lots of great photos along this section. I had stopped at an overlook over a river where I got photos of salmon going up stream to spawn. The where that deep redish brown the turn when they are in fresh water. Went to leave and the bike would not start. The starter button was stuck. So I put my mosquito over my head and dug into the switch assembly. A couple of hours later everything was fixed including the minor problem I had been having with the cruise control Other than that the biked has not missed a beat. The problem was caused by all of the rain getting into things the day before and not enough lubrication on the old parts. The touring highlight of the whole trip so far is the trip from Glennallen to Valdez. It had snowed in the mountains so they had more and whiter snow than they normally would have at this time of the season. I met up with a German gentleman ridding his BMW around the world. He was just as awe struck as I was. We ride a half mile and then stop and take photos until we could not stand the Mosquitoes and then move on. At the top of the pass there would be at least 30 flying all around your head. There were water falls, the most lushes green vegetation. Not trees but short dense carpet of something. All of the stream and falls are going full force because all the rain they have had over the last two weeks. Saw the Valdez glacier. The sun playing on the snow covered peaks. Oh my gosh it was good. Ate in a Mexican restaurant tonight and they had room for rent. Sounded better than camping to me. A very nice but compact room. Very European in flavor. I have my ticket to take a five hour ferry ride to Whittier tomorrow morning at 7:00 am so I don't know why I am writing this.. Thanks for the nice responses….. Phil….. 7-30-08 The let me on the ferry… The views are just as good as being on a cruise ship but can't say the same for the food. Also the ferry does not have stabilizers so I hope I don't get seasick. The ferry trip is across Prince William Sound. I pulled the laptop out to do some writing while traveling. Just for a lark I checked to sea if there is a WIFI connection. There is a very fast open connection..This will help with the trip planning. We are passing through a bunch of icebergs at the moment. There are a few sea lions riding the bergs but not close enough for a good photo. Some of the icebergs are almost a baby blue color. Some look like an ice sculpture done by some one on drugs. Sure whish I could write while ridding the bike because I forget so much good stuff by the time I get to this at night. Over half the people on the ferry are foreign travelers. There is a series of snow capped mountains with a large glacier. They are lit up by the sun and we are in an overcast area and the contrast makes the mountains even more spectacular. The horizon is a soft muted almost early sunset colors off in the distance ahead of us. The water is flat and there is no wind. We have been going through a group of very green small islands for the last hour. There is one that is just large enough for two trees. There are snow capped peaks in every direction. I can sure see now why they were so concerned about the oil spill. This is such a pristine area. Question for the day. Why do so many people who live in beautiful rural places surround themselves with junk cars etc? One thing is all of paranoia there is about home land security there is associated with terminals at the beginning and end of the Alaska pipeline. But there is 800 miles of pipeline much of which it would be possible to sabotage. But then most of the security stuff is to make us feel comfortable that our government is doing something about the threat from international terrorist. The ferry cruise today has been a real treat. We have gone by several major glaciers and there are snow covered peaks in every direction with a sprinkling of green islands all along our route. I met two very nice gentleman at place where I stayed. Niles gave me a lot of ideas on what to do next. I decided to take his advice and go to Homer. I also suggested that I should bakery - café in town. Found it and had a Halibut dinner. I had to have Halibut as Homer is the Halibut fishing capitol of the world. The weather is so nice that I am thinking camping tonight. The sun and the clouds were playing with the light on the water and the mountains all along the drive to Homer. Photos will never do it justice. Met a couple at one of the view points and we were trying everything we could do to get a good photo. Enough for now because I am running on my battery power. Phil…… I spent the night camping in Homer out the spit. Thanks to those of you that who are doing the good weather dance, I awoke to an absolutely cloudless sky. I was setting up my camp at midnight and I could read the instructions for my new air mattress without the use of any artificial light. Homer is an interesting. It is a mixture of Alaska junkyards, hippy like artistic efforts and tourist trap places that have been done to look almost like a Disney version of Alaska. It is all about her fishing here. Half of the homes along the road have a fishing boat of some sort in the front and those that don't have one of the big orange fender balls that indicate they are into fishing. At least that's what I think they are expressing.. It got windy while I was packing up to leave but other wise it was a perfect stay. I now have the best combination of sleeping stuff. A small light air mattress with a build in pump that I got at Fred Meyer's for $15 dollars and the $6 foam camping pad from Wallmart. I put the foam pad on top of the air mattress. Now the rocks do not dig into me and the foam pad keeps me war. I had very little sleep the night before worrying about making the ferry so I slept for 10 hours. I feel human again. Today was the first time on this trip where I had to back track on roads that I have already traveled on. That will happen more as so many places here there is only one road that goes in and out of town. I now realize how lucky I was to come into Homer at the time of day and how perfect the weather was. Nothing looks as good as I headed back. The lighting was wrong, there were not the beautiful clouds. I had ridden through the area at a magical moment. There were still many beautiful scenes. Just not the ones I had seen the day before. I rode around Cooks Inlet. I had stopped to take some photos and when I got close to the water I realized it was running very rapidly past the shore. I thought it was a river. Then I guy came walking down the road and explained no this was the inlet and there is tremendous tidal action here. Certainly seemed faster to me than at the San Francisco Gate current. Got some photos of the Alaska rail passenger train that was going along the edge of the inlet. There were very few passengers on the train. Half of he car were empty. I was not able to find a room in Anchorage but while looking got the advice from a motel clerk that I should keep going and take advantage of the good weather. I didn't realize that I was close to the edge of town. I any case I am now in Wasilla, Ak. I will head for Danali Park tomorrow after taking a little side trip that was suggested by the hotel clerk. Weather this morning is overcast. I hope it is coastal overcast. Question for the day. Why don't showers have a ledge in them that will hold a bar of soap? This is my most up scale motel to date and it has some of the dumbest features. Hope I get some clear skies for Danali Park. Tom, that was a very good guess about my direction of travel. After that is going to depend on the weather. Have a good day and thanks for the responses. Phil…. PS. If I had a place in the country with lots of land I would have my collection of old cars but they would not be scattered around the yard at random and not between me and the best views. 8-01-08 Friday, high 68 low 56 no rain yet. I am Denali park and decided to get a motel room just outside the park. I have a room were on a clear day you can see Mount McKinley. If I got a campsite, which was my first thoughts I would need to travel 10 miles just to check if I can see it. I now have 16 hours for the cloud cover to let up for awhile. I understand that it is visible about 20% of the time during the summer. I made the side trip that was suggested by the hotel clerk this morning. It was a great ride along a just paved road for much of the way. Then up into the mountains riding along a river that was strewn with 2 and 3 foot size round boulders. The water was moving fast enough that there was lot of white water. There signs posted along the road saying do not stop for the view. There were plenty of places to pull off. I saw a couple of beaver dams in the river. Went up to a gold mine that has been made into a tourist attraction. I didn't stop because I wanted get to Denali while the sun was still out. I have seen very little wild life the last few days. I saw a very young moose and a small rabbit on the way to Homer. Leaving Homer a Eagle swept right down in front of me and turned and landed just out of side on the other side of the road. I had a coyote ran cross the road on my way into Homer. I have seen one other strange animal, which I can not identify at this time. It may have been a wolvorine. When I got to the Denali area I made a planning mistake. It appeared to me that the good weather was following me so I decided and wait for it to catch up. The reality was if I had kept going I would have had a sunny day in Denali National Park. I stopped at the Danali State Park. That put me over 100 miles from the place I was expecting to be. My logic was also complicated by a conversation I had with some volunteer park guides. We were not talking about the same park. But the interesting thing is the place I picked to stay, was owned by the women that got the state to build the road from Anchorage to Fairbanks. The place is still run by her family. 8-02-08 Saturday low 47 high 60 mostly rain with some period of heavy rain. I made the ride to Danali National Park today. Weather was overcast at it best and raining most of the time. Did not get to see the mountains. Did not take any of the bus tours because you have to be there very early in the day or get reservations ahead of time. The movie in the visitor's center wetted my appetite for what the place has to offer. I may go back before I leave the area if I think there is some chance of having good weather. The weather this time of year should be in the eighties and there should not be a lot of rain. Did see one moose in the park and got a few photos. When I left the park and headed for Fairbanks it was raining lightly. But it just kept getting harder as I traveled. I had 120 miles to cover. At about two thirds of the way I came to a town and I said I have had enough of this I am going to stop. Started to pull into the town and then realized the street into town was flooded. I could look down from the bridge over the river next to town and see that most of the streets were flooded. I continued on to Fairbanks. Found a motel and got a quick meal. Noticed the paper setting in the restaurant had a story about the flooding in the town where I had tried to stop. The story also said that the rain is expected to continue. Darn…. I got to get to bed now….. But the question for the day… Why is it, the most uncomfortable adventures are the ones that we remember most? Phil……. 8-05-08 Thuesday, Hi Gang, low 43 high 54 mostly 45 and 46 wet 70% of the time. There are photos. http://altairhouse.com/ALASKA/index.htm It is afternoon and I am still trying to recover from all of the excitement yesterday. I got up early yesterday to get an early start for the Arctic Circle. There is a Denny's next door to my motel. Met a very interesting man while eating breakfast so I did no planing and dragged breakfast out for over an hour. He is a geo-physicist working on interesting problems dealing with the perma frost lakes. He is also a bike rider so we had just had a lot to talk about. We finally said good bye and I got on my way about 9:00am. Filled my tank and my gas can and off I went. It was overcast but dry. About 45 minutes down the road met up with BMW rider John. He was headed for Deadhorse at Prudhoe Bay so we were going the same way. We agreed that we would ride together and off we went after fussing with his gas can for a few minutes. We stopped at the intersection of the Elliott Highway and Dalton Highway for a few pictures. Mike, a Harley rider, showed up and stopped for the same reasons. Mike joined our group and off we went. The road turned immediately to packed gravel. When Mike showed up, his Harley was all cleaned up and looking like a Harley should. That didn't last long. It is 200 miles from Fairbanks to the Arctic Circle. We were probably at about the 80 mile mark at this time. We drove on packed gravel, some pavement and then a stretch of some of the best two lane road I have ever driven on. We were traveling around 45 on the gravel and dirt sections and 55 on the pavement. Life was good. Then it started to rain lightly but not enough to make to many problems. It was just showers here and there but as we got closer to the Yukon River it started to rain harder. There is a restaurant and motel made of mobile home like buildings. There was a lone gas pump in the mud. John, Mike and I filled our bikes and then went in the restaurant and had lunch. Gas was 5.19 per gallon out on this lonely road. Not bad considering I had seen it for 5.65 per gallon at Danali. When I left the gas pump I almost dumped the bike. The font wheel had mud build up on it and it just slid out from under bike. I was able to keep it up right and worked it around and found a spot to park it for lunch. When we pulled out of the Yukon gas station and got back on the road we were greeted by the slimy mess I had been warned about. Paul whom I had met in a parking lot here in Fairbanks had warned me about how bad this stuff is and his description of the road conditions were right on the money. Paul had worked on the pipeline. I would have stopped right here except that I was riding with Mike in front and John behind. Thanks to those to guys I had the courage to keep going. We did the slip and slide thing for about 4 miles, seemed like 100 miles. I never thought I would be glad to see gravel road. Love that gravel, at least the bike was not sliding around. We forged on and pulled into the Arctic Circle pull off exactly at the 200 mile mark from where I had bought gas in Fairbanks. We did the photo thing along with a bunch of people who had taken tour vans out to the Arctic Circle. From the tour guides we learned which photos to take and how we should pose. At least it was only raining lightly while we were trying to do all of this stuff. John parted way from us and headed off to Coldfoot for the night. Coldfoot is about 60 more miles down the road. It was real tempting to follow him onto Coldfood as I was looking a 200 mile ride back and I new that snotty road was not getting any better. I really dreaded what was coming. It seemed to take forever to get to the snotty road again. Mike and slowed down to 20-25 and started slipping through it. Amazingly we made to the Yukon again with out me dumping the bike. We bought gas again and then decided to just keep going because it was getting late at this time. After we crossed the bridge the section of road that had not been bad the first time was now fully snotty. I kept the in 3 or 4th gear and RPM bellow 2000 so there would not be to much power to the rear wheel. This section was even worse the last section. Then about 200 yards from pavement the bike just took off and went left. Managed to stop and stay up right before going off the road. The mud had built up to the point on the back wheel that it was hitting the fender. I managed to get the bike pointed in the right direction and made it to the asphalt. My shoulders and neck were sore as hell by this time just from the stress and holding my head up high to look over the windshield. Mike and I just pressed on. While stopped to take photos and rest for a few moments a truck pulled in. The driver also road and had been watching fishtailing tracks and had said to himself those two guys must be having a lot of fun. Yep…. We got to Fairbanks and went straight to a car wash and washed ourselves and the bikes off as best we could. We got back to our motels about 10:00pm and agreed to meet at Denny's for dinner. I think we were both to tired to have a great conversation but it was still good to talk over the events of the day and to find out a little more about the other person. The bike and I survived the day…. There were many times that I could hear in my head the sounds that the bike was going to make sliding down the road and all I could think of what was it going to feel like laying in the mud. Here is the sad part to this story. I got up this morning and discovered the bike laying on it side in the parking lot. Someone pushed it over during the night. It was lying on the side stand side, the stand was still down and there was no hole in asphalt. A nice young guy helped me lift it up and get it on two wheels. The bike now has some more broken bodywork and the left front turn indicator does not work. I will try and fix the turn indicator today and tape some of the bodywork back together. The bike started right up and everything else seams to be working fine. I was concerned about the oil in the font forks getting in the wrong places with it laying on its side for so long but they seem to be doing just fine when I did some quick stop test in the parking lot. This must have been an adventure. It was uncomfortable, scary and very tiring. Oh yes! What did we see along the way? John had a moose run across the road in front of him just after we started riding together. It disappeared into the trees before we could catch a photo. Mike and I saw one large hawk and that was it for wildlife. There were a fair number of nice overlooks along the way but it was hard to stop and get photos and then most of the time my eyes were glued to the highway looking for things that might be dangerous. Only hit one pothole but got it slowed down so there was no damage. I will try adding photos to the photo page later on. I will also see if I can make the thumb nail photos a smaller file size so it loads more quickly. Note: if you click on the photos you will get a larger image. I am sorry they are not in the order of the trip. Enough for now and I will feel complimented if you read this far. Phil…….
Hi Gang, low 53 hi 60 mostly low 50's rain the half of the ride. Well I discovered more things wrong with the bike from it's tip over so spent most of the day fixing the bike. It is now doing just fine. Traveled from Fairbanks to Tok and tried to find a room in Tok. All of the motels were full so I put up the tent in a light rain. It rained all night but quit just about the time I had to get up. I guess I didn't put my tent up in the right place but they only charged me 10 dollars for the night. I am hoping the tent will dry off a little so I can put it away dry.. Walked over to Fast Eddy's and had coffee and breakfast. When I traveled the road from Tok to Delta Junction heading north I was riding in very heavy rain. At least this time it was only light rain and I could see some of scenery. I saw five moose, four of them had young ones with them. They are quite shy and generally would run off as soon as I stopped but I did get a few pictures. I am planning to head for Chicken and Dawson City today. With all of the rain, I am not sure what the road conditions are going to be. I figured that I will head that way and if it get to bad I will just turn around and go back. I am looking forward to warm and dry weather. If I make Dawson City today I will be back in Canada and will have gone through the furthest North US border crossing. If I don't make it to Dawson City I will be doing a 400 back track to Whitehorse. I wind up nominally in Whitehorse. At that point I will need to plan the rest my way back to the Lower 48. Need to start packing up camp….. Phil…….. 8-07-08 Thursday low 41 high 50 mostly 43 rain 50 percent of the time. Not heavy rain I made to Dawson City, Yukon. I am not in Alaska anymore. Stopped in
Chicken Ak for lunch and sent my email from the night before. The road
to Chicken was mostly paved and what little gravel road there was good
gravel road. Chicken has done a good job making it's name work for it.
I got laid in chicken is there claim to fame. I then continued on to the
top of the Top of the World highway. After maybe an hour going down the
road I thought this is going to be an easy ride today. It would only rain
lightly on and off and the grave and dirt roads were relatively dry. But
when I was about ten miles from the US Canadian When I arrived at the boarder I had to fish in the bike for my passport. The Canadian card asked me if I had drivers license with my picture and the usual question about where I was born etc. and let me in without seeing my passport. That made me feel good to see that someone could use their good judgement and make a decision. There is hope for this world. On the Canadian side it the road was paved. Well stopping for a photo op just after crossing the boarder to other bikers pulled up. It was a couple who had just ridden from the tip of South America to Perdoe Bay Alaska. She was riding a Suzuki and he had a 650 Honda that was never imported into this country. They were both from Switzerland. We kept passing each other on the trip to Dawson from that point on, as one or the other of us would stop to take photos or what ever. We crossed the Yukon River on the same ferry but I lost them as soon as we got into Dawson. I would have liked to talk with them more about their travels. The road in Canada was a mixture of asphalt and gravel. It was the same on the US side. It is just that the road is not well maintained. I was pushing the bike to do 25 mph on the dirt and gravel sections on the US side. On the Canadian side I was moving along comfortably at 45 mph. I think it is a cultural difference in the way they about solving the same problem. The Canadian's are putting in more effort to get it right the first time. When I got checked in I asked the Hotel clerk if there was some place I could take the bike clean it. She said to just go in the back of the building and there is a station to clean your bike. There was grated platform to put the bike on and a pressure washer for cleaning the mud off the bike. That was pretty neat. Some of the hotels in town have signs saying bike friendly. That may be part of the criteria to be able to put up the sign. At least I was able to get the excess mud off the old Yamaha. I have all my camping gear spread around the room drying after the rains last night. Dawson City is a fun town. The whole town looks like something from the gold rush days. Some of it is a little Disney like and some of it very rustic and realistic looking. The streets are all dirt, with wood or concrete sidewalks here or there. At night it has a New Orleans flavor. There are a lot of people on the streets and you can here music coming from places up and down the street. I went to a cabaret show in the local casino. It was a fun small town effort. I think I want to stay around here for awhile tomorrow and not just get on the bike and just leave. The people sitting next to me were on a Holland America cruise package. They said that Holland America own many of the hotels and sight seeing adventures in Alaska and that they are the ones developing this area as a sight seeing adventure. In the Delani park area almost everything had Princes Cruise on it. Enough for now…. Phil….. 08-08-08 NOTE: Magic date. Friday Hi 70 low 53 Light rain for first 2hrs, then sun with occasional shower. When I awoke this morning it was not raining and I thought, great. Made my coffee and looked out the window and it is raining. This is getting old. At least I am going to get out of this weather pattern at some point, I just keep thinking of the poor people who live here and are now looking at another hard winter. The streets were real slipper while trying to leave town. Got so focused on getting out the rain forgot to go and check all the sign posts out the Dawson City is famous for. Roads were good except for a long detour. It was the classic mud road and of course it was the hardest rain of day. Dirt roads must attract the rain. At one point I didn't think I was going to make it up this steep hill as the back wheel kept spinning and then sliding sideways. The sun finally came out and everything started looking better. Stopped to buy gas and the station attendant said what a nice day. I mentioned something about heading South to get some warmer weather and he said this was the first time they hand seen the sun since June. It is interesting the trees are starting to change color. Everything was very green on the way North and now some of the leaves have a yellow tint to them. Some of the Aspens have a branch or two with golden leaves. I chatted up the hotel clerk as I was leaving and asked about winters there. See said it gets down to 50deg below. I just can't imagine that. No wonder there is perma-frost. The clouds and the scenery were much more interesting after the sun came out plus I didn't have to put so much effort into riding the bike and could afford to look around. The cloud formations and the play of light on the mountains and valleys was just magical. Makes me realize the clouds in California are not very interesting most of the time. The road had a few pot-holes every mile or two which means I could not take my eyes off the road in less I was confident about it condition for the next 100 yards or more. . That reminds me about potholes etc in Alaska. I think the Alaskan road crews have a sick sense of humor. On the ride out to the circle they were patching the other side of the road. On the way back we came to area where they were doing the patching,and guess what, they only patched four out of five holes. Sometimes there would be a new patch and a pothole right next to it. On the way to Chicken they pave patches of the road with pavement that is the same color as the gravel and dirt patches. That way when you approach these stretches you have to guess which it is. It sure does make it an adventure. I made Whitehorse tonight. Stopped and had Chines food tonight so I could get some broccoli. In most places in Alaska fresh fruit or vegetables means they have just opened the can. The people I met in Alaska were all so friendly and so kind and made the trip in the rain bearable. I must be getting really tired now as I see I am just rambling. 08-09-08 Hi 70 low 52 A little rain. I am in Haines Alaska at the moment and waiting to catch the ferry to Skagway Alaska the Back to Whitehorse. Probably not tonight as I will not get into Skagway until 11:00pm I am onboard the ship now and there is not enough light to enjoy the scenery. I had a nice ride from Whitehorse to Haines. The scenery was great along the way. Many mountain views some with glaciers and some just looking majestic. I went this way because John from the adventure to the circle had seen a lot of wild life on the way to Haines. I saw nothing except a few birds but the trip was worthwhile. I hope to find a camp sight in Skagway and then go back to Whitehorse during the day. I will try and get the oil changed in the bike on Monday. I then expect to head down 37 to take a different way South. Time and money seem to be going fast on this trip. There are never enough hours in the day. When you are this far North you don't run out of sun light so I keep thinking there is plenty of time. I tried to have another Halibut dinner tonight to take advantage of the fresh Halibut up here. They way over cook it. I guess people in Alaska don't watch the cooking shows. French fries were very good though. It is just so hard to get away from fried or high calorie food up here. The ferry that I am on is like a small cruise ship. There is a floor with staterooms. There are a bunch of kids sleeping on the floor in the lounge. I don't know where they got on the boat but I think everyone is getting off at Skagway.. I wish there was more light, so it would be possible to enjoy the scenery and maybe see some whales. This is the only boat that makes this trip. I got the bike to a car wash and cleaned some of the mud off it but it still looks a mess. When I finally get some where with stable weather and a nice campsite or motel I want to take a day and clean and check the bike out. It is just amazing the number of guys I have met that have taken essentialy the same trip I have. My trip last year from California to Florida I met very few other riders on the road and no one that was making a similar trip. You can tell the ones that are headed home. They have mud all over them. The ones all nice and clean are headed north to Alaska. I was hoping to email this on the boat but we only had and internet connection for a short while. It will be interesting to see Skagway again. I was there around 2000 on a cruise ship.. Well had a pleasant boat ride to Skagway. When I got off the boat I just drove through the center of town looking for a place to camp. There was a camp ground at the end of the main drag. I stopped and started asking people that were standing around if there were any places for tent campers. A young man who was part of group playing poker pointed down this dark path and said there were tent camping sights about 100 ft down the path. When I got back to the bike Tom and Ben pulled up and we headed off to see what we could find. We agreed to share a campsite and set up our tents etc. About 45 minutes later we were trying to get some sleep with the poker players whooping it up. Hope everyone is doing well. Phil….. 08-10-08 Sunday low 53 high 67 NO RAIN Then around seven in the morning the trains started rumbling down the tracks next to the camp ground. These are trains to take the cruise ship tourists for a ride into the mountains on a narrow gage railroad. Tom was the first up and well on the way to making their breakfast when I crawled out of my tent. We cleared out of our campsite and went in different directions. I drove down main street looking for a place to eat. People on cruise ships do not go into to town to eat so there is no place to eat on main street except one bar as far as I could tell. I found a small café on a side street and ordered eggs benedict to celebrate the cruise ships. It may have been the best eggs benedict I have ever had, it was right up there with eggs benedict in New Orleans at Brennans. When I order a gentleman behind me made a comment and we started talking. He and his wife are sailing around the world for the umpteenth time. They have been in over 120 different countries. We had a long conversation so I was slow getting away from breakfast again. I then explored Skagway for awhile. It has grown quite a bit since I had been there on a cruise ship. There were three large and one small cruise ships in port. The streets were packed with people out shopping and taking photos. I then started up over the pass leaving Skagway about the same time the steam locomotive was leaving town. I stopped multiple places and took photos and at one stop shot some video to record the sounds of the train. The weather was perfect, the clouds were perfect for photos and landscape was majestic. Three hours later I was only about thirty miles down the road. So many things to look at. I ran into the Dutch couple at a view spot. They were on their way to a ten day canoe trip down a river. They are going to hitch hike back to get their bikes. They started their trip at the tip of South America. They are going to ride to East coast then ship their bikes to Africa and ride through Africa. The canoe rental company would pick up the canoe. I am now back in Whitehorse Canada and the same motel I as the night before. I hope to find some place where I can email this. At some point I will up date the photo pages with some new stuff. I am hoping to get the bikes oil changed and maybe a new front tire if they have something that is appropriate. The one on the front is good for at least another 1000 miles but want to see if I can find something before that. Phil…… 08-11-08 Monday, low 49 high 60 Light rain at the end of the day. I got the oil changed at the Yamaha dealer first thing this morning. I was out of Whitehorse by 10:00am Made it to Dease Lake a distance of about 350 miles. The weather was very nice in Whitehorse but has been going down hill all day. Oh silly me, I just ride into the rain again. The motel owner says it is supposed to rain here for the next five days. I hope to be able to ride out of the rain tomorrow. Talked with a young guy from Toronto that is going in the opposite so I was able to give him some good advice and like wise he gave me some advice. It was interesting going the other direction on a section of road I had taken North. Mostly I recognized the rest stops. The other thing I noticed is the changing colors. Even though I am headed South there are more fall colors starting to show each day. Just before I got to Dease Lake there were some interesting red flowers along the road. They had closed up for the night but I am looking forward to seeing them in the morning. I am hoping to make Prince George tomorrow but may fall short if the scenery is good or the roads and weather are bad. There were a few gravel patches on the road today but otherwise the roads were all good. I guess I get about 10 miles of gravel tomorrow. Gravel is good. It is the slimy mud that is no fun. Have a good day…. Phil…… 8-12-08 Tuesday low 53 high 64 light rain of and on, A little sun shine. I traveled from Dease Lake to Kitwanga with a side trip to Stewart and back to good old Alaska. Hyder. , Since leaving whitehorse, I have traveled over 800 miles without a real town. That does not count the side trip to Stewart and Hyder. The size of this area just keeps amazing more and more. When I got back on highway 37 to continue in the direction that I was going this morning I could drive for 20 minutes without seeing a car. I was looking for a place to pull over and my spare gas in the bike. Went almost ten miles before finding a pull off spot. There were no roads taking off from the road that I was riding on. On the road out of Hyder and Stewart I passed about 10 vehicles. 2 cars and 8 motorcycles. It was getting cold in Stewart and looked like rain for sure so I decided against spending the night there plus I also wanted to make more progress towards Prince George. When I got to Kitwnag I couldn't find anything except a campground. As it was around 10 I decided that was my best bet. It was not raining when I setup my tent and got in bed but some time during the night it started rain and rained until just before I got up. Enough for now hope everyone is doing well….. Phil….. 08-13-08 low 53 high 79 rain for the first half-hour and then dry the rest of the day with sun in the afternoon Hi Gang, It is now a month since I left the house. I have traveled. 7,454 miles. That is an average of about 250 miles per day. It is just that everything is just so far apart up here. Went to breakfast at the only place to eat in town. They didn't even have menus. You just order what you wanted and they made it and then figured out what to charge you for it. As I didn't have any other options it worked for me. I was hoping my camping gear would dry out but then just as I started to pack up the rain came. So I had to pack up with the gear all wet. I just stuff the sleeping bag into the back compartment of the bike. Decided I would camp tonight early on so stuff would have a chance to dry out if there is no rain. The ride from Katwanga to Prince George was like riding down the North Coast of Oregon. Just about the time you get going there is another small town and you slow down to 35 mph and put along for a couple of miles and then you get back up to speed. Maybe being on the lonely roads has something to say for it. Interestinly now I started to see wild life again. Saw my second Caribou and two wolves. I managed to get some photos of the wolves but they had run pretty far by the time I got the camera ready. All of the wild life is just fine with the cars driving by. But if someone stops, they are on their way. At least the weather is getting warmer and I hope to get a new front tire on the bike. The little towns kept looking more prosperous as I got closer to Prince George. I went tot he Costco in Prince George tonight to get my hot dog fix. What I really wanted was the soda. It did not look any different than at home and the prices appeared to be about the same. I plan on picking up a vegie tray from Costco tomorrow as I have been missing my vegies. It is just hard to get enough vegies while traveling. I am staying a nice private camp ground tonight. Good showers and very clean restrooms. I would like to spend two nights here and spend sometime going over the bike, checking stuff and cleaning it up. Off to get some sleep and see if I can a new front tire in the morning. So long for now…… Phil…………. 8-13-08 Thursday low 60 high 88 sunny all day… Now it is too hot. Hi Gang, The new tire is on the front wheel and I am out a bunch of money. I am not used to paying someone to do all of the work for me. I didn't get the one I wanted but the new one feels good right away which is more than can be said for the last front tire. I spent the day cleaning up the bike and myself. It is nice to see the bike looking better. Did a mini safety check just to make sure nothing is ready to fall off. I will be ready to hit it first thing in the morning and we will see how far I can get. Not much to say about Prince George. It just has the required strip malls, and traffic. Did run into an autocross or gymkana tonight. It was fun to watch some cars racing around. Makes me want to do it again. Off to curl up in my tent…. Phil…… Hi Gang Traveled from Prince George to Jasper. I was 140 miles down the road before I can to the first town after leaving PG. I was going to have breakfast at the first town. That was a bad plan and I missed breakfast but stopped in the this little local café. There were only a couple of cars in front so I was surprised that it was very busy when I got inside. What I didn't notice were all of the walkers and electric scooters parked on the side of the café. It was definitely the locals. Had a good meal and then headed on my way. The scenery started to change as I was riding into the mountains. Stopped at waterfalls and various view spots along the way. When I got to Jasper I was in for a big surprise. It is a tourist Mecca with a lot of high end motels etc and non with vacancies. But then I noticed that a lot of the homes had rooms for rent. They also had no vacancies or would not rent for just one night. So back to camping but the first camp ground I came to was full but they sent me to another camp ground where the guy at the gate said there are some other guys camping in section D on bikes why don't you and see if you can join them and split the cost. I shared the camping space with three farmers from Eastern Washington. Bruce, Roger and Issac. They had also ridden to Alaska so we had a lot of good stories to share. I rode through Jasper and Banff National Parks today. Full of just incredible scenery. The weather was such that I have a 100's of post card photos. But it was a day of mixed emotions. There were times that I thought I was back in the Bay Area. People just racing down the road passing me over the double yellow line. Tail gating plus they have turned the parks into a profit pit for the concession companies. Gas was 30 cent a litter higher in the park than just outside. That is well over a dollar more. But the big problem is there is no lodging available. I am spending the night in a Hostel in Canmore which is just down the road from Banff. Banff is what I expected it to be. It is just a beautiful high end town. I just didn't expect that in Jasper. Canmore is not much different. I is fun watching all of the families coming into the Hostel tonight. I am in a room with 6 other people. I have not met any of my room mates yet but I made my bed 1st thing. This really is an adventure. I wish I am time to post some more photos but I need to get some sleep tonight and take care of a few things in the morning. I must say I really like the new front tire. Felt comfortable on it right away. With last new front tire I was ready to have them take it off the next day. Enough for now….. Phil…….. High Gang, 08-17-08 Sunday, low 70 high 94 Sunny It was another life's experiences at the Hostel. Everyone there wants to talk. Some of the people there were long term residents. What I did learn is that Calgary and the area surrounding is booming. There is a shortage of workers. It is the energy industries and tourist industries that are driving the booming economy. It was a complete mix of cultures. A fair number of people like myself who did not expect to be there. But the shower was great and they had a good free wifi connection and free coffee in the morning. Better than most of the motels. This morning I had to make a decision to go back to Banff and then head
South through the mountains or to continue onto Calgary. They were projecting
thundershowers in the mountains South of Banff so I headed for Calgary.
As the day wore on I think I would rather had the thundershowers to cool
me off. Calgary is the largest community that I have been in over a month.
I would like to report that after leaving the parks I did not experience
any more of the crazy drivers. They must have been tourists from the high
stress parts of the world. Georgia. I have a question for the day. At a gas station how do you know you are in Canada? When I stopped for a light lunch and a big drink sat with a gentleman who lives in the area. We had some interesting conversation about Canadian politics. I certainly have gotten a lot better about asking people to join me at my table or ask if they mind if I join them. This was wheat country. There were just these beautiful rolling fields of wheat. Some would be a golden color others would be mixtures of gold and green and some more of brown color. It just seamed to go on for miles. But I could also see in the West thunder heads starting to form. But I was facing temperatures in the low nineties so there was no win today. Slowly off in the distance I could see the outline of mountains on the horizon. I could see the flat top mountain standing out from all of the rest. More impressive than the flat top is the straight up sides. I hope to learn something about how it was formed tomorrow. It did start to get a little cooler and later in the day. I crossed the US Canadian border at about 6:00pm. I stopped a little funky café in Babb Montana to get some dinner because I was afraid of everything closing early on Sunday. Then got a room in the motel across the street. I think it was a good plan because about an hour later there were people arriving desperate for a place to stay. It is nice to see the stars again at night. Most of my time in Alaska the sky never got dark enough to see the stars. I am headed for the glacier national park. I heard a big ruckus outside my motel room to find a bunch of young adults riding by on horses. Also the owners of the motel took off on their ATV for a family outing this evening. Good night, I just don't have an internet connection so I can mail this…. Phil…. 08-18-08 Low, 70 High 90 clear skies and no wind. I had breakfast at the same place I ate dinner last night. I spent to much time talking with people in the café again plus the girl in the motel office didn't know what time it was and gave me the wrong time. It is Mountain time here. I got off and headed up to the first Glacier National Park (GNP) entrance and was glad to have Golden Age Card. Drove up into a valley overlooking the beautiful lake. There was a big lodge overlooking the lake. Stopped and chatted with some people who were scanning the hillsides looking for big horn sheep. I asked what the must see attraction is here at the park. A gentleman spoke up and said you have to go to the to other entrance and go up to the visitors center at the summit and then take the hike from there. So I left that area and headed back down the hill. Got a fair number of good photos along the way. I stopped at a KOA camp ground to see if they had a free wifi connection. I then headed off for the East entrance to the park. I was stopping and taking photos every few minutes on the way to summit. There were so many incredible views of the mountains, water falls and the valleys. Did not see any wild life. At one of the overlooks I got talking with another biker. He is in the Air Force and has spent time in Iraq working as an interrogator. It was interesting getting his opinion what was going on over there. We must of talked for at least an hour overlooking this incredible valley. You could see at least a half dozen waterfalls and just the lush green valley floor. I then proceeded to the visitors center and looked at the trail that it was suggested that I hike. I debated for a few minutes and then go out of my riding gear and put on tons of sun screen, grabbed my camera and a water bottle and started walking up the hill. I got up close an personal with mountain goats and big horn sheep. I am going to be very disappointed if some of the photos are not great. At time I was closer than 20 feet from them. By the time I reached the summit my camera battery was getting low and I had almost filled a 2 gig memory card in the one day. The sheep and especially the goats appeared to like having the photos taken. They certainly were not concerned about all of the people around. You could tell they were protective of the little ones if someone got to close to a small goat. Between views of green valleys the very rugged mountain sides and the animals there was a good photo maybe even a great photo almost everywhere you looked. Yet another great highlight to the trip. I would love to come back to this area and just keep going back and forth over the pass taking photos in the different light conditions. I walked about a half mile beyond the summit and then slowly worked my way down the mountain again. I think it was about a four hour hike and it was now 5 or later and I had no lunch. Did a quick charge on the camera battery and put in a fresh memory chip and headed down the mountain trying to stop and take some photos along the way. There not the same number of pull offs going down the mountain plus I was hungry. I found the KOA at the West entrance to park and got a campsite. There was a small café like place set up in the park where I had a BBQ rib dinner. The wifi has only worked for a few minutes at a time so my reason for camping here may be for naught. In the remote parts of Alaska and Canada it is usually easy to get a wifi connection. That is how they do there credit card stuff and communicate with the outside world. Here in Montana phone lines have been brought in long ago so the people here see no need for a connection to the outside world. They have satellite TV. I have not traveled very far today but it has been one of the best for views of the animals and the mountains. I didn't even burn a half tank of gas. Now we all need to guess where the bike will take me next. Phil……. 8-18-08 Tuesday. Low 55 With heavy rain High 82 with bright sun shine. Hi Gang I got all my chores done this morning and got on my way around noon. I put on shorts under my leathers to keep cool and my lightest shirt under my riding jacket. It was still hot. Then I noticed dark skies off in the distance. Then the wind started to blow, with very heavy gusts. Then the rains came. I was going through a series of small towns and as soon as I had to stop for a light, it would start to pour. It would pour for maybe ten minutes and then let up. I was traveling along the shoreline of Flat Head Lake. I kept looking for a place to pull over with some cover. Then I saw some covered parking spaces. Just as started to make a left to pull into them, I realized they were covered boat births. The bike and I almost went for a swim together. I have ridden in heavy gust wind and heavy rain but never together. I was glad to have the new front tire. After awhile things got better and the winds died down to just gusty and the rain was usually short and light unless I had to stop. I was able to take a few photos after the rains and there were some wonderful golden wheat fields with sun on the wet field and dark hills in the background. I was surprised what a popular vacation spot Montana is. There are just one RV and camping park after another. There are a lot of motels all trying to out do each other with some gimmick. There were a number of water slide parks. I passed a large number of the biggest motor homes that I have ever seen today. These must be the million dollar jobs. There must be rally or something happening for the big boys. I stopped for the night in Butte Montana and hope to have quick ride through Yellow Stone tomorrow. I was there last fall. I want to get a photo of Old Faithful with a blue sky in the background. According to the weather reports I should have a good chance. At a gas station how do you know you are in Canada? It was my question for the day. Yes the price looks like something from the 90's but of course it is litters. But the other thing is everybody is standing around holding the filler handle. All of the auto-fill devices are disabled in Canada so you have to stand there and hold the thing. Not a big deal for my 4+ gallons but think of the people with big gas tanks. Thanks for the comments and it is nice to hear that people are reading these things. Off to Yellow Stone in the AM Phil….. Wednesday It turned out that I was farther from Yellow Stone than I thought. I got the location of Butte and Bozeman mixed up so I had further to go than I expect. The road to the North entrance is lined with many RV parks and tourist traps. Nothing like leaving the Glacier National park but still plenty. I decided to take the Eastern loop when entered which I thought would be a better motorcycle ride and it would be in the opposite direction I had traveled that road. What made the ride and most of my stay in Yellow Stone not enjoyable was heavy and very gusty wind. They were having a real wind storm with trees falling down on the road etc. There were times when I would be afraid to stop because I was not sure that I could keep the bike up right while at a stand still. I did see a lot of Bison and visited the Mud pots where my camera had failed last year. I wanted to get photos of the blurping mud. But this year the mud was not blurping. It was just sitting there looking muddy. I was very lucky to get a camp sight at the camp ground that I wanted. That way I had food and everything else close at hand. But the best part was the ranger program that night. The head ranger for the Eastern side of the park gave a talk about his experiences as a firefighter in the 1988 fire at Yellow Stone. The talk was so good and so moving that I had tears in my eyes when I finished out of joy of having been so lucky to have heard the talk. He used power point for the presentation and he had taken some amazing photos during some very frightening time on the fire line. Thursday I went to the Grand Canyon of Yellow Stone and got some good photos of the falls and the canyon from the east side in the morning so the lighting was very good. I think these were all new viewing sights. The viewing sights on the West side were closed along with the road leading to them. I then wandered back around to the East side of the park stopping a few times to take photos and then went to Old Faithful. I wanted to get photos of Old Faithful with blue sky in the background. After a thirty minute wait I was rewarded with a good show. I visited a couple of other pools and geyser areas and then decided that I had had enough of the wind and headed out the South entrance. Crossed the continental divide three times in the process and drove through Grand Teton park. The winds were still making it very difficult to stop and take photos. You would not have dared to put a camera and a normal tripod for fear that it would be blown over if you let go of it. There is just something magical about the blue gray color that forms around the Teton's as the sun goes down. Again there were those rays of sun light streak down from the sun. Now wonder ancient man worshiped the sun. Stopped in the park and had dinner there before it got to late. The winds were dying down by now. I decided to just keep going until it got dark. That's how I wound up in Alpine Wyoming. Friday Low 61 High 91 Sunny with a few clouds in the sky I was a little later getting away this morning than I hoped for. As I was ridding along I kept thinking about all of the stuff I need to do as soon as I walk in the door when I get home. I guess that means this wonderful trip is almost over. I have done well to leave those thoughts behind until now. The roads from Alpine were some of the best motorcycle roads that I have ridden on in the whole trip. Just nice constant radius bends. It was nice to put a little wear on the side of the tires as the rear tire is running out of rubber. This trip makes me appreciate the wonderful MC ridding roads that I have just outside my door but then I have not searched out the best rides on this trip. The sunset ridding along highway 80 going west was a 360 degrees event. Unfortunately there was no place to pull of the road and take photos but I there was no way I could have done it any justice. The various colors of orange, red, pink and blue in review mirrors were magnificent. The sun would come and go behind clouds or the mountains in the distance as I traveled along. I think the fact that I was traveling west probably extended the duration of the sunset plus I could probably see at least 20 miles in any one direction. I can't believe the number of incredible views I have had during this trip. They make television seem so meaningless. Now it seems strange to think that this is coming to end but I find myself already looking forward to another trip weather it be, on the bike, in a car or maybe a motor home. The next time I want to spend more time in each place. For most of the people I have met ridding motorcycles, it has been more about the bike ride and going to the various end points than enjoying points along the way. The trip was 10,067 miles according to the odometer on the bike. The
last leg of the trip was the most nerve racking.
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