inuvik trip

even more pictures!

2009-07-07T16:13:00.003-04:00

i've uploaded some large size pictures... they're still smaller than the 3264 x 1832 pictures that i took them at :)

i couldn't post all the pictures since all of them take up like 5.5 gigs of space. heh.

anyhow, i've put up a few of some pictures that caught my eye and that i like for one reason or another.

more pictures!

2009-07-07T02:00:00.004-04:00

I know some people like to look at pictures. I'm one of them.
Althought I never got to see Inuvik, the Dempster highway, nor take any pictures that way... I did manage to fire off a few pictures...

roughly 2475. can't post all of those online now can i.

I've been going through my pics because, well, some of the sights are still in my mind and they were awesome, so i wanted to see them again.

to the right you'll find the panoramic pictures link. they might look funny, but that's because they are really wide. some turned out pretty well.

The final countdown or: how i learned to stop worrying and love the road

2009-07-02T23:55:00.003-04:00

july 2

tired. oh so tired.

This is it.. the final day i had to get home. I wasn't going to make it in time for work for the 2nd, but at least i'd be there for the 3rd.

1046 km. 650 miles. this day was going to be brutal. i'm going to need every bit of wits to get through it. all the weather reports say thundershowers along the route i'll be taking. crap. since i i didn't wake up early, i was on the road by 10:30. crap.

I say that i'll need every bit of wits because i know i'll be riding at night, one of my PIAA riding lights isn't working and it's always the final stretch that's the most dangerous of all trips. people tend to fall in a false sense of security and they get tired and bam! crash.

i'm determined to not let that happen to me today.

this was going to be a long day.

the route in the GPS said i'd be home at 9:30pm. with breaks and all i should be home by about midnight.

I rode until i needed gas and went to a denny's. i know, not the best food in the world, but it beats eating a handful of skittles and bottle of water.

I sat where i could see if someone was near the bike. hah.
The heartland scramble. pretty good actually... i felt better already.So i hit the road... and rode and rode and rode. luckily, the speed limit of 70mph isn't followed by everyone... most go way faster. a cop passed me when i was doing 80mph. heh. i guess the speed limit isn't observed in every state.

I stopped at a visitor info center near Ann Arbor, and relieved myself and had a coffee from a vending machine. this machine worked finally and the coffee wasn't half bad for being from a vending machine.

I had seen a BMG1200 GS adventure on the other side of the building so i walked out that way and started chatting with it's owner.

Meet Steven (hope i spelled it right)
He's a fellow canuck from manitoulin island. He was doing a great lakes tour while riding to his different meetings. it beats flying if you have the time. i want that job. hah.

He lived in ottawa for some time and has family there too. small world eh?

We chatted a while about this and that and since we were both heading in the same direction to the same border crossing, we rode off together.

holy crap the GPS had me switching lanes ever few miles for the different interstate exits i had to take to get to the port huron crossing. traffic wasn't exactly light either, but we managed to go at least the speed limit and not have any spills. hah.

The border crossing was one of the easiest i'd ever gone through. Standard questions, only asked for my plate and didn't even take my passport. wow.

She asked about my trip in total and i gave her my route. she was a bit shocked and asked if i'd do it again on a motorcycle. hah. of course i would!

first things first. i hadn't had a Tim Hortons coffee since leaving vancouver on what.. .the 24th? holy crap. over a week with only crappy gas station coffee. BTW, americans don't have coffee shops like canadians do. we love our coffee. yes, they have their little expresso and starbucks places, but only in major cities. If a canadian city has more than a few thousand people, there will be a Tims. if Tims invaded the states, there would be one every 50 miles along every insterstate. heh.

ahhh... tims.

Steven and I chatted a bit longer (and an old biker came to talk to us as well) and we parted ways.

Off east i went, and the weather started turning sour. light rain, but with all the traffic along tthe 401, it was a mess. I pulled over for a coffee and put on all my rain gear. i took longer than normal, but my shoulders were really bothering me. I had popped 2 advil when i got up in the morning, and i popped 2 more when i took a break. seemed to help a bit.

Since one of my forks leaked, it created 2 problems.

1) it went all over the brake so stopping is a problem

2) this changes the cornering characteristic and overall stability of the bike when both forks aren't balanced.

another problem; ever since they changed my back tire, the back brake has been real soft. maybe just an adjustment, but i know they are pretty much done.

so. no brakes. guess i have to keep my distance then.

and to my suprise, i guess all the rain washed most of the oil off my front brake, so i seemed to stop better. heh.

I could see the airport from the 401 and traffic came to a dead stop. it says that the 3 right lanes on the 401 is closed up ahead. i didn't know how far the street was closed, and didn't know how many lanes the 401 had up there. i was hoping for many.

2 and a half hours later, i got past the bottleneck. holy crap. GPS says i'll be there at 1:30 am. crap. i guess i can try to aim for 2am then.

I got into toronto at about 6:30. got out at 9. Bad traffic in the other direction as well as there was a crash and all lanes were closed. that's gotta suck.

into the night i rode, and kept my speed down to about 110-118. only faster when passing a big truck... don't want to stay beside one of those for too long. bad things happen.

at one point i had no traffic in front of me and the oncoming traffic wouldn't be blinded by my hi-beams, so i turned them on. WINK and no headlight whatsoever. damn, guess the bulb i just bought in vancouver wasn't so great. at least i had my regular lght when i turned off the hi-beam.

lo-beam and 1 PIAA riding light. great.

At a service station near kingston, i got a coffee and croisant, and went about to change out my headlight bulb to my Spare.

I took apart my headlight and looked at the bulb. hmm. seems ok, so i put in the spare. the spare didn't work on hi-beam either. CRAP. fuse must have blown.

I started working on the bike. I opened up the side toolkit, and noticed the whole thing was hanging by a loose bolt. i almost lost the whole toolkit assembly! i put in a spare bolt and tightened the other one. good enough for now.

I took off the side cover to get to the fuses. damn mosquitoes were bugging me. arg. I took out the burned fused and put a new one in. huzzah!

gassed up and knew i wouldn't be stopping until i got to ottawa. i had enough fuel to get there and it was already late. i didn't look at the time, but i wasn't so tired yet since i just had another large coffee.

uneventful until i got off the 401 and took the 416 north. no traffic ahead so i put on my hi-beam. yay!! err... wait. it popped after 2 mins. CRAP. it was foggy out so i put on my fog lights... at least that helped for a bit. then it started raining, and the fog lights were starting to blind me, so i did the only thing i could do. run lo-beams with the 1 PIAA light and slow way down. I was going about 90 km/h. that's slow for me if you know how i ride/drive. heh.

the rain didn't let up. i could barely see out of my visor as water was smeared inside the visor, combined with a bit of fog. this was hellish.

finally got into town and stopped at a Tims for another coffee and to unwind. i didn't want to take the major highway home, as i knew it would be crazy, so i took other roads to get home.

I got home and 3:30 am. that sucked. all i had to eat today was breakfast and a croisant. Coffee helps. a lot.

so here i am, safe and sound back home, thinking of the next big trip.

i didn't take note of stats like how much gas i used, how much everything cost, yadda yadda.

Here's some the GPS did for me

21,337 kms/13,258 miles total round trip distance

5 provinces gone through

1 territory toured

14 different states touched.

for those curious as to what my route was, here's a google maps view. it's not exact, but it's close enough

[edit]I had to get rid of the map here...just too big and kept crashing IE

View Map

Totally different than what i had planned in april. see it here

I learned much on this trip, and not all of it about motorcycling. so many roads out there... so much to see, so little time.

if there's one piece of advice i have for everyone, it's this; you have one life. live it.

a very boring day overall for canada day

2009-07-01T22:46:00.003-04:00

July 1st

first of all, happy Canada day!

I was glad i put my little canadian flags on the back of my bike in vancouver. The whole time i've been in the states i people always see the flags. heh.

anyhow, the affordable inn was a pretty good deal... hot shower, soap and shampoo, a clean bed, cable and wifi.

The weather didn't look that bad, but it didn't look great. I didn't put on the rain gear though and i only put on the jacket liner and the warmer gloves. for some reason my legs don't get too cold. maybe it's because they're a few inches away from a really hot engine. hah.

I learned last night that a buddy's dad from work passed away recently. Another friend's mom died a few days ago as well. Brigitte S. ( my ex's mom) was quite dear to me and passed away on July 1st 2003... i hate cancer.

I'm thinking that if i do another ride like this next year, i'll do it for a cause to spread the word, or something like that... a ride for cancer or something. i wouldn't have the first clue how to do it, but hell, i talk to enough people when i ride, it wouldn't be hard to figure out something.

cancer sucks.

this trip isn't over and i've already started planning for the next one. heh

anyhow, back to me

I rode out of town and didn't stop for coffee or anything like i usually do.

After about 120 miles i figured it was time for food and gas.

I stopped in at a gas/restaurant place called the hearty platter (i think that's what it's called)

a stealth photo of the inside of the diner. heh

What was funny is that it was a smoking restaurant. hadn't seen that in a while. even as a smoker i'm not sure i liked it, but the place didn't stink and had good ventilation.

I ordered the long haul breakfast of 3 eggs, 3 bacon, 3 sausage and a choice of hash browns or american fries. WTF are american fries? i didn't ask. at the time i though it was just french fries and they had something against the french... kinda like they wanted to call them freedom fries at one point. i still don't know what they were. i got the hash browns.

it was pretty good... then again, how can you screw up bacon and eggs. hah.

the view from inside.The rest of the day was spent riding. no pictures because most of the time i was whipping through wisconsin at 85mph. not so safe to take pictures at that time.

I tried to stop as seldom as possible and just try to get home. it was 1047miles from the motel to home, but i was not in shape to try an Iron Butt ride.

wisconsin is pretty boring btw... then again my view is from the interstate, so it would be rather boring nonetheless.

Crossed into Illinois and headed for Chicago... that's where the GPS said i had to go.

I stopped at the rest area on the border of illinois and went to the visitor info. i wanted to score a free map and i did... I was also getting tired a bit and my shoulders were sore, so a rest was in order. they had a coffee machine there and for $0.80 you can get a cup of coffee. insert dollar bill, the cup drops, the cream and sugar go in... then nothing. no coffee came out and the little door opened. piss me off. i really wanted a coffee.

I drove for another 120 miles or so and grabbed a coffee and gas then. This was after the 1st of multiple toll booths. man they're annoying when you're on a bike.

The first one was a buck, then 1.60 and i lost count how many or how much they were.

the traffic was heavy and didn't realize what time it was. 4pm. CRAP. rush hour and i'm heading in, through and out of chicago. crap. anyone that knows me knows that i have the WORST timing. seriously i do.

it took me at least two and a half hours to get through chicago. man that was nasty. I stopped in at the Mcdonalds on the other side of chicago near the indiana border because ever since i got to chicago, i had to pee. bumper to bumper, stop and go traffic with a loaded motorcycle when you have to pee really sucks donkey butt.

It didn't help that the people here drove pretty poorly. no close calls, but i kept my distance. big city driving = agressive. small town drivers are usually just nicer.

I had to make my pilgrimage to the Castle. heh.

4 sliders, a fry and a drink. fries were cold, the drink was cold and the burgers were... well, if you've ever had sliders, you know what they are like. heh.

I hit the road and tried to keep near the speed limit of 60mph. there's no way. the trucks were supposed to go 55, and they were doing 70. the cars doing 80-85mph. seems people ignore the speed limits here. heh. Well, i kept up and set the pace at times. i don't like being behind people.

I wondered if i could make it to the middle of michigan before it got too late and too dark. it was getting real dark real fast. hmm. better look for a motel soon then. I stopped in to Kalamazoo and got a room. hmm... i thought it was 9pm, but when looked at the clock on the wall, it was 10pm. crap. i moved over another timezone again. at least now my laptop, my motorcycle and GPS all have the same time again. heh. at least my cell phone changed time automatically when it hit a new timezone.

unloaded my bags in the motel 6, and did nothing else. i'm tried. i need to be back in ottawa tomorrow, but i won't make it in time for work. I had called work earlier to make sure that i was covered for tomorrow's shift. had i not had all the breakdowns, i would have been home days ago.

ah well, one more day, 650 miles left to ride and back home i will be.

no more updates until home i'd assume... unless something bad happens. hah.

Hello Wisconsin!

2009-06-30T23:39:00.001-04:00

June 30th

I got up early enough to have some continental breakfast. coffee and fruit loops. heh. it helps getting something in the gut early in the morning.

I got to the chamberlin visitor info center. they had a bunch of lewis and clark displays. I snagged a map of south dakota as well. i've been trying to collect maps, because the next trip i take in the US, i'll be mapping places where i want to go and routes to get there. not exactly planning the route, but laying out different routes.

I took this picture because what i thought were deer on the side of the road in the last few days were actually antelope! i knew they looked a bit different but the horns give it away. cool. i saw deer and antelope.

see that rabbit in the picture? i saw lots. usually roadkill though. damn big rabbits.

The fossil (replica i assume) is from a mosasaur, a 45 foot long fish. it was found on top of a ridge near here on the lewis and clark expedition.
a view of the train bridge over the missouri river. I couldn't get a picture of the car bridge with all the trees in the way.
Yup. i look pretty rough eh? i felt it. the winds were back, but not with a vengeance yet.I felt like garbage, so i ordered a garbage omelette with a side of bacon. the cheddar hash browns were good.

The menu said it had everything in it except the kitchen sink. it had lots. it was very very good. very filling.

This was in the restaurant/gas station. heh. neato.
I wasn't kidding. it's called the garbage omelete. I had forgotten where i had eaten... Well it was at Ditty's in kimball. heh.I was riding when i saw the tips of horns over the crest on the side of the road. I pulled over in the emergency lane and took a picture. heh. only stop in emergencies they say. it's in emergency i say.

Odd. fascinating. no clue why it's there. it was big. real big. that's also a pretty big hammer.

The whole scene
I'd love this on my front lawn. well, if i had a lawn.
the winds were getting worse and my neck and shoulders were starting to kill me. I needed gas so i stopped in Sioux falls for gas. From past experience if there's a town called something falls, then there's usually a waterfall nearby. Also, it's usually in a park called Falls Park.

GPS had a falls park in there so i went to where the gps told me to go.

Bingo, visitor info center at the park. That's the tower to look at the falls.
Looks like a restaurant on the other side of the river.

The falls. i'm such a sucker for waterfalls. dunno why. i'm such a girly man.

The park had many statues like this. actually, the whole town had statues all over it. it looks like an interesting city to visit. too bad i'm out of time... i'd like to spend a few days here i think.
Here's a little view of the park.
I left sioux falls and fought with the wind. there was a lot of traffic and a lot of road work, so it was an... adventure. see the picture below? it's pretty much all i saw of minnesota. I stayed on the interstate and didn't do much except fight the wind.

the picture is crooked because the wind kept pushing me around like a rag doll. i didn't want to risk any other pictures.
I needed another break... only 50 miles after the last break. that wind was a killer. I stopped off at a rest area and chatted with a couple from michigan. they were on a police harley riding 2-up. I didn't take a picture, but this is when i first met Rhonda and Pat. They thought my ride was cool. i showed them what were some neat places they should go. they were coming back from california on their first long trip. the wind was throwing the big harley around and Rhonda's neck was taking a beating too as the touring windshield didn't protect her at all.

I took off and it started getting colder by the minute and i didn't have my liners inside my mesh gear to keep me warm and dry. the clouds were looking darker to the east and it looked like rain. crap. I pulled over to a gas station and put on my jacket liner. if it was going to rain, i'd pull over and put on my other rain gear.

I heard a bike behind me and it was Rhonda and Pat again. neato. they went on a country road to try to avoid the winds, but it didn't help. they almost ran out of gas, and would have if it weren't for some farmer giving them some lawnmower gas. heh. got them out of trouble.

people in the country are nicer than people in cities. this trip has more than proved it. i'm not saying city people are nasty... but sometimes they just are.

Pat suggested we ride together, and i took him up on it. When i first met them they had t-shirts and bandana's but now they had the helmets, gloves and jackets out. heh. they got cold.

I rode with them for an hour or so at the speed limit. funny how you feel safer when riding with someone else. another thing to note is that the wind totally died down for the majority of our ride... odd.

I needed to pee and my hands were freezing. i didn't change out my gloves like i should have earlier. I passed them at one point and gave them a wave. I might be seeing them later on as we are both heading the same way. I opened the throttle up to 85-90 and blasted down the interstate. i couldn't care if i got a speeding ticket... i needed coffee and to pee.

I stopped off in saint charles and gassed up and got a coffee. I heard some clopping and saw a horse and buggy go down the road. cute. There were a bunch of kids at the gas station and one of them yelled something to the effect "peace out Amish"

hah! The amish are in town. neato. never seen that before. Then another buggy went by.

I heard some more clopping so i got my camera out. it was far away and moving but i got a picture finally. i had seen some Amish in Alberta growing up, but only on the side of the highway out of town, never down the main street. heh.

It started to rain lightly while i was at the gas station, so i suited back up and kept going. i wanted to at least hit the border of wisconsin before nightfall and maybe go further in and get some miles in. it was a light drizzle, but i made good time.

Emma come first. Den I come. Den two asses come together. I come once-a-more! Two asses, they come together again. I come again and pee twice. Then I come one lasta time

the above is better said by an old italian man with bad english.

Mississippi

yay! i crossed the mississippi river! it's pretty damn wide.

It was getting dark faster than i had hoped and i decided to stop at La Crosse, Wisconsin for the night. It's on the river bank.

I looked at some of the motels nearby, but nothing with the doors facing out, so i started looking at the outskirts a bit more. GPS said the Affordable Inn was near, so i rode over. It looked kinda sketchy and not in the best of hoods, but i took a chance. an ok room, two double beds and free wifi. sign me up.

unloaded the bike and went out for some food. only thing open it seemed (besides all the fast food joints) was Perkins. ate and headed back for blog and bed.

gps says 1047 miles left to get home. I almost feel like trying for an Iron Butt Associate ride (1000 miles in under 24 hours) but i think at this stage it would be too dangerous to try. i'm exhausted, the bike is not the in the best of shape and all it would take is one mistake and i'm toast.

Btw, happy canada day! woot. i wanted to be in canada on the 1st, but i guess that won't be happening.

might be no update until home

2009-06-30T10:08:00.003-04:00

june 30th

it's 9am and the bike is loaded and ready to go. weather is looking good for now, but i'll see when i get on the open road.

i'll be skipping across south dakota, moving through minnesota, whizzing past wisconsin and hopefully be past chicago by the end of the night. who knows... all i know is i might not be able to update the blog until home.

wish me good weather (even though it looks crappy around the great lakes)

later!

big fat heads, big fat tire, big fat rainbow... big fat headache.

2009-06-29T23:27:00.001-04:00

June 29th

I left the town of Lusk, wyoming at 10. late, i know. couldn't sleep well.

right as i left town, i saw a few deer near the road. good thing i didn't ride into the night... i probably wouldn't have ridden out of it.

I'm still worried about the rear tire, but in the morning before leaving i made a list of suzuki dealerships that were on my route.

I headed north to the next town so i could get some food. I stopped in Newcastle at Donna's main street diner for some food. it was just after 11am, so they weren't serving breakfast anymore. The server offered the lunch special and since i didn't know what i wanted, i took it.

beef fajita with side salad. It was actually really good. not the fajitas i'm used to eating, but just as good when eating with a fork and knife. raspberry vinagrette to top off the salad. i needs my greens.

Heading east towards Custer, South Dakota.
Funny. I crossed t border into South dakota and the scenery changed instantly to this. trees. neato. maybe that's how they figured out the borders. hah.

it was a nice easy ride until i hit Black Hills national park. Black hills, not to be confsed with black forest ham. one is a delicious luncheon meat.
I didn't take any pictures inside of black hills because the roads are a lot more technical and twisty so i couldn't take pictures while riding. The shoulders were too narrow for me to pull over and take pictures. most places didn't have a shoulder.

I just liked the look of these rocks.

Here's the Crazy Horse memorial. yes, it's far away, but when i got closer i saw the toll booths and didn't want to pay to see it up close.
there. see it now? it's the big rock with a face in it and a hole through it. it's a work in progress. read it online for more info as to what it's supposed to look like. would be awesome if they finished it.
On my way to mount rushmore. everyone pulled over at this lookout and didn't know what they were snapping pictures of until i looked behind me. ah. the profile of a president. heh.

yay. mount rushmore. it's free to go. you just have to pay $10 for parking. that's bullshit. $10 for a car, truck, motorcycle. bullshit.

anyhow, the entrance

from the entrance.

you'll have to excuse the many rushmore pics. it's kinda neat for one, and i want my $10 worth
Here they are on top of teddy's head geting ready to put George W.'s face between teddy and lincoln.

with all the parking money they made, you'd think they'd clean up the rubble below.
The dude who designed mount rushmore. this bust was sculpted by his son. neat.
The hall of flags i believe

i don't look too thrilled do i. actually, it was just so damn bloddy hot and i had the sun in my eyes.
the ampitheatre
i got an ice cream. i got an ice cream, your daddy's on welfarei left mount rushmore. if the price was a bit lower i wouldn't mind, but i thought $10 was kinda steep. all the other monuments in the park are either by fee or parking fee. capitalism at it's best.

stopped at the side of the road for this picture. it was free.

the clouds were looking rather... mean and even though it said sunny today in the area, it looked like rain. sure enough as soon i got into Rapid city, it started pouring. i have my mesh without liners and a full face helmet on. the gear dries fast enough and the helmet keeps water out of my face. I stopped in to a gas station for some coffee, and looked at the back tire again. The tire was still good for now, but wouldn't last long. it's ok to ride without treads, but not in the rain. I called the local suzuki/honda/victory place and said they could probably put a tire on, and put me through to parts. on hold for 7 mins so i hung up and rode over instead.

as luck would have it, they had 2 tires that could fit. a dunlop 555(?) and a metzler me880. w00t. i love the Me880. over to the service department and they can take the bike in the next 1/2 hour. great! they asked if i wanted anything else looked at, since they saw the fork seal leaking and the oil leak at the jugs. They think it's just a gasket for the jugs, but they didn't know if they could do the fork today and if they had the seals. I just got them to put the new rear tire on for now. the rains came and went while i waited for the tire to be installed.

I left the Shop (it's called Rice Honda) and instantly got hit with massive crosswinds. these were the real dangerous kind. my neck still hurts from the crosswinds. at least it wasn't raining. The speed limit was 75mph, but i couldn't go much faster than 60. nasty stuff. scary stuff.

I stopped almost every chance i could because it was so hard to ride in that stuff.

at one reststop along the way i took a picture of this thing. a concrete teepee?

later i stopped at a gas station and had a couple of hot dogs... a regular and a buffalo meat hot dog. The regular one was better.

i was about to get back on the bike when i spotted this guy. never seen a prarie dog/marmot/gopher thing in this color. neato.

there wasn't just one, there were about 6 or so.
these two popped out of the hole you see behind them, and started wrestling. cute to watch.

you can see a bunch here.

nom nom nom
this guy kept looking at me, then eating. heh.

at the next rest stop, there was a huge rainbow. well, like they say, you have to always follow the rainbow.

the weather was clear behind me, but looked real nasty towards the rainbow.

hmm. it's a bow. it comes out with rain. crap. i'm gonna get wet, and with the crosswinds to boot.

more rainbow
I left the rest spot and wondered how much longer i could ride. i was hoping to stop at around 9:30 so i could get some miles in. it was about 8pm now. good. another hour and a half to go. the odd thing was that the crosswinds were gone and i could now make up some speed.

I rode for about 5 mins and the road was becoming wet. I pulled over at an overpass and got off the insterstate and put on my jacket liner and my rain pants and rain gloves. good to go. I could still ride fast in the rain, just not as fast.

i could still ride for another hour or so.

WRONG. about 2 mins after putting on my rain gear i passed the timezone. it was now after 9pm. crap. I didn't know if i should hole up in the next town, or make up some miles and make the next one. the rain was starting now, but it was just a light rain.

shortly after the heavy crosswinds were back. This is not good. all decided, i'm shacking up in the next town.

The next town is Murdo. a few motels in town... 2 chain motels, and a few other smaller motels. I opted for the days inn. door on floor level, free wifi and looked reputable.

also to note, when i entered the town of murdo, the rainbow was a full semi-circle, and one end was basically at the days inn. heh. always follow the rainbow. what a sight the semi-circle was.

I went out in search of food, but everything closes at 10pm. vending machine food will have to do.

so that's where i am now. i'm beat. the wind knocked the crap out of me today. i'm hoping for better weather tomorrow.

cool monuments, but basically just heading east as fast as i can

2009-06-28T23:55:00.000-04:00

June 28th

So Beast (the bike) is really starting to show some wear. the motor runs well and sounds better since i dinged up the pipes, but there's oil starting to come from between the jugs. just a bit, but enough to be a minor concern for now. hell, some old harleys piss oil and keep running, so i'm not too worried right now.

I've also popped a PIAA light i think. the left one doesn't work, which is annoying and it's keeping me from riding at night, which is a good thing i guess.

the other two problems are a little more major. The right fork tube is leaking fork oil. i've busted the seal a day or two ago and it's leaking. not much, but it's leaking all over my front brakes, so that's a problem.

The other big problem is the wear on my back tire. I don't want to have to go hunting for a shop and i hope i can make it back on the same tire. i really don't have the time as i'm trying to make it back for work for the 2nd. time is ticking in a big way. if i have to go to a shop, i'll lose at least a day.

I looked at the forcast and it said these 4 states (colorado, utah, new mexico and arizona) were under a thunderstorm watch. time to head north and get away from that. i don't mind rain, and i'll ride in heavy rains, but lightning and bikes don't mix very well.

a pic from Dinosaur looking back towards Utah.

Dinosaur National Monument. i didn't want to waste to much time so i just did a quick flyby inside the park. i wanted to see if it's worth coming back in the future.a view from the road. neato

the view from the first lookout back towards the utah/colorado border
more views
I liked that mesa... i think it's a mesa... heh.The day use area was surrounded by bushes and trees. it was so different walking around that, when a few weeks ago i was walking around the arctic. heh.

Different views. blocked by the woods, but i was not geared for a hike. i could see through the trees and there were some amazing views. this is only 1/2 way up the monument road. i didn't even go to the end or on the many hiking trails they have along the way. I'd like to go back one day and go hiking there. a few problems. i'm out of shape and never hiked in my life. heh. guess i gotta learn some day.

I went back to the visitor center for a smoke break and struck up a conversation with Sandy. I told her and her friend/husband (didn't get his name) my route, and all that. people think i'm nuts when i tell them that. nuts in a good way though. I liked her dog, solomon(sp?) she said that if i needed anything that i could contact her in steamboat (a town nearby)

people are cool wherever you go. sandy, if you're reading this, it was nice meeting ya!

ONWARDS!
yes, i know the pictures look repetitious, but they were taken 15 mins apart. heh. it's always a little different and there's always something to look at so i wasn't bored. music and playing with the gps helps.
I stopped at the next town (Craig), where the GPS said i had to turn north. I hadn't eaten anything but a gas station cherry danish (which wasn't good) so i was hungry.

nothing looked interesting so i went to the El Ranchero 'authentic' mexican restaurant.

I walked in and saw into the kitchen. mexicans.(i assume) that's a good sign. at some of the tables there were a group of spanish looking guys. while looking over the menu, more mexicans walked in. heh. if spanish speaking mexican looking people are eating here... that's a good sign.

the standard chips and salsa. the salsa was cold, yet it burned my mouth. it was awesome. not from a jar. i think the chips came from a bag, nothing special.

I ordered the El Ranchero. it said beef pork and chicken. i didn't know it was a whole steak, a whole pork chop and two breasts of chicken. came with refried beans, rice, guac and small shells.

the plate was massive. i repeat. massive. it was all very good too. way too much food though.

Off north i went, to avoid the thunderstorms and essentially to get back home. I crossed into wyoming, but since i was on a secondary route, there were no big signs saying so.

I took a picture from where the Overland trail cut from east to west at this point in 1860s. this is the trail they used for emigration across the land. ie: it was the highway. this picture is looking south. i took another picture looking west, but couldn't make out the trail. i'll have to zoom in and look closer as they say you can still see it.
pic while riding. safe. I just passed the continental divide around heremore of wyoming

I took this shot without realizing what was in it. if you look at the white object you'll see the cow skull. how cool is that. i thought that was only in the movies.

Another monument.The upgraded wagons that they used.

Independance rock. want more info on it? go there or go online. i'm not your teacher. hah.
The rock itself. you can go hiking and people were walking all over it. i was running out of time so i didn't go walk on the rock. that's my excuse anyway.
I spotted this bird riding the thermals. It's wingspan was huge and it was really far away and i had to zoom in with the camera just to get this shot.
And zooming in digitally with the wonders of technology, we see this. looks like a buzzard or vulture or something, don't it? i think it's a vulture. neato.over the shoulder shot. no time to stop to take pictures. I was losing light fast.

again, i'm heading east and the sun was heading west. going faster on the bike wasn't helping. heh.

seeing this in person was cool. a reservoir that has a dam at one end, with a marina in use. the colors in person were neat.
I stopped for the night in lusk. I was worried there wouldn't be internet access at any other motels down the road and gas stations might be closed in the smaller towns. didn't want to risk being stranded in the dark in backcountry wyoming.

I got a room at the covered wagon inn. really nice place but pricy. didn't want to go to the cheaper looking motels though... you get what you pay for sometimes.

I spoke to the girl at the counter and said that i might as well hole up for the night (8:30) since i noticed so many deer along the road. ever since i entered wyoming, if i didn't see steer, i was seeing deer. there were many. i must have spotted at least 40 or so. there were many.

the girl said that up north, there are a lot more deer than down south(i didn't know that), and they come out more at dusk(which i knew). good thing. i wouldn't want to be whipping through wyoming and WHAM! a deer.

I unloaded the bike and went to the outpost cafe for lunch. it's the only thing open at this time of night and i was hungry. got a grilled cheese, a cup of soup and a salad. trying to eat better but i eat so much. hah.

another reason was that my shoulders were killing me. damn handlebars.

something just popped in my head. i haven't met any assholes so far on this trip.

many look at me funny though, since i'm in my full suit. pants, jacket, boots, gloves, helmet... and barely anyone i've run across has a helmet. no jackets or gloves. tshirt and jeans for the most part.

to any who think i'm crazy riding in this heat with all my gear. i've already had a crash on this trip and i'm certain my gear saved me some road rash (i found a small tear in my jacket) and i'm sure that my helmet is doing a good job keeping the bugs out of my face. yes, i'm warm, but it's mesh, so it's keeping me cool. i've got two bands on my wrists where my jacket doesn't meet. they are blood red. i wonder what all these tshirt people are doing.

jackpot! going real fast by pelicans to dinosaurs.

2009-06-27T23:55:00.001-04:00

June 27

As per my usual lately, i went to bed late last night... trying to blog with shitty internet. kept coming and going and a stupid fly that kept doing flybys. how annoying.

I headed south to get to where i wanted to go.

got here first.

I was starving so i went to the first diner i could spot. funny. i couldn't find one restuarant. they were all casino/hotel/restaurants.

The town's name was Jackpot. Jackpot nevada. you think they have casinos? hah.

I pulled into one that looked like it had a regular diner in it. Cactus Jacks i believe. I was really hungry so i ordered the steak-o-saurus and eggs.

That was a rib steak. freaking huge. good food for the price. funny that i had to go through the casino to get to the diner. heh. they want your money. i resisted temptation and didn't gamble.

Off i went south. interesting landscape, and it was hotter than hell.you can see on the road how hot it was.

I got to Wells, and headed east towards Utah.

Utah is over there! you can see the white sand/salt flats.

This town was interesting. Wendover on the Utah side, West wendover on the Nevada side. There's a state line across the main road right in the middle of town. neato.

Couldn't get a picture, too much traffic.

Hard to imagine having all the bible thumping mormons on the east side, and all the gamblers and whores on the west. jesus. it's like berlin, but without a wall. hah.

a monument of the atomic bomber at the visitor info place (closed on weekends)On the Utah side, i went in search of the Bonneville salt flats where they have the land speed records done. I know they have them later in the year, but it's still a Mecca for speed freaks.

This is the road that takes you there.
...and the road ends here. W00T!

There was water still on the flats... that's why they have the races later in the year... what a wonderful site.
Had to get Beast in the picture. Beast won't be setting any landspeed records today. well, maybe i set a landspeed record for a fat man on a suzuki M50, heavily loaded. 96mph. hah.

This is the gangway where the road ends and turns to salt. everyone that races goes down there. neato. Burt Munro was here. one of my heros. he followed his passion. he still holds the land speed record for an under 1000cc motorcycle. he went 183.6mph (295.5kph) on a 47 year old machine. he was 68 when he set the record in 1967. amazing.

I had to stand in the water. lots of salt. hah. the water was very warm since it was so shallow and baking under the intense heat.
They race in that direction. there's a map on the sign. neato. i was in awe standing there.

Off i went. Heading east (that's where home is) i stopped in Salt Lake city. I rode around and spotted this Waffle and Frites place. interesting, so i had to try. I got a small Frites and a diet coke. the diet's to keep my figure. hah.

Anyhow, the Frites came in a paper cone and with a mayo of your choice. He suggested Andolous(sp?) which was a bit spicy but good.
A view of salt lake from where i was standing at the time (across the street from the Frites place

this is what is across the street from the frites place. so i ate my frites in the park. the heat was sweltering. i filled up and left town. it was funny to see all the mormons walking around in their typical outfit. nothing wrong with it, it's just so... mormon. white short sleeved shirt, dress pants, black shoes. I don't know what they thought of the tshirt i was wearing. Gifted. you know the one. it's the guy with three legs. heh.

LOOK AT THE PELICAN!!

FLY PELICAN FLY!!

heh. how ignorant am i? i didn't know there were pelicans in Utah. Well, there are. (american white pelicans)

Utah is a very pretty place. it almost seem inhospitable in places, other places, very nice.
obligatory bike pic.
I was rushing east, and the sun was rushing west. the sun won. It got dark real quick. so quick i couldn't get to the next town i planned to stay for the night. the GPS said there were motels, so i was taking my chances at to what would be there when i got there, if it was full... etc.

So east i went and entered colorado under a veil of darkness. The first town i hit was Dinosaur. seriously, they called the town Dinosaur.

Everything looked closed. except for one gas station. I found a small motel (the other one looked not so great) and checked in.

The motel was nice actually, but very ma&pa run. the motel registration desk is in their home at a desk near the front door.

The room was very clean, and it was done nicely. I found it funny they had tupperware for the in room coffeemaker. for $50 late at night, beggars can't be choosers. it had satalite tv, a nice new bathroom and a microwave and fridge. what else do you need?

I rode back down to the gas station and got a microwaveable ravioli bowl and a rice crispies bar. dinner is served.

so to recap. left Idaho, went through nevada, blew through Utah (afraid the mormons would attack me) and got to Colorado

To the land of potatoes... and blue bombs

2009-06-27T01:50:00.005-04:00

June 26th

i got up late. real late. riding a lot in one day takes it toll on me. it burns me right out.

i'm still trying to get to work on time, and might be able to make it if i make up the miles, but on this adventure i want to at least see some things in the states. i'm very ignornant of the country. I, like a lot of canadians, don't actually go out and see for our own eyes the beauty of the countryside. it doesn't matter what country. Canada, the US, others. people need to travel more... they need to look in their own backyard, and then travel more. it does give you a better perspective, and a better bigger picture. my god it's a huge freaking picture. it's getting bigger by the day.

actually seeing the landscape change as the miles get eaten up is quite the awakening.

back to the program;

I left the motel room at about 10:45. like i said. late. I blasted across and stopped at this lookout looking west. this is at about 3000ft elevation. doesn't look high, but the rest of the land has quite a high elevation.

After the lookout was the a pass. Nice enough road, but the right lane is the trucker lane and you sometimes bounce around in the two ruts there. you feel like a bowling ball in a gully sometimes. this is what i thought all of oregon looked like, not like the picture before.
I needed food so about an hour or so of riding, i stopped off in La Grande, OR

This was the first town permanently settled in northeast Oregon. this was in 1862. heh. canada wasn't even a country then.

I didn't want a chain place, so i went to a ma & pa shop. instead of Ma and Pa, i found Joe and Sugar's place. It's a little coffee/sandwich shop. cozy. wifi there too i think. there's wifi everywhere in the states. i loves it. i didn't use it though.

I got a blt and salad instead of chips with a coffee. the food was really good. if you're in town, go there.

a view of the street. looks like a typical small town usa place. i like that.

More mountains? hmm.. could only mean one thing. I'm going to Idaho.

yup. idaho. I'm so ignorant about the US. i always thought it was flat and all they did was grow potatoes.

From the first rest stop in idaho. I needed a break and wanted to get some info.

inside there were free maps, and all the scenic byways maps. score! not going to use them this trip, but i shall be back. maybe. it's a nice place.
A picture of the allstarsok, maybe i should preface this by saying i went to an air museum. It's your typical small town museum all in one hanger, but this cost 8 bucks. i thought it was a little steep, but i love old war things, planes, etc.

this was kinda need, things made out of various artillery shells and bullets. lamps and vases. you can turn anything into one of two things usually. a lamp or an ashtray.

Hell, you can turn a plastic leg into a lamp. oh wait, that's been done before. (please tell me you've seen the movie)

more shells, but i love the war era posters and shells. maybe it's time to make more lamps. or vases.
love propaganda posters. this place had a lot of them.
this should please someone.

perverts, you thought bad thoughts. i meant the bombadier.

these two bombs were in a cute blue color. heh. a pair of blue bombs. (i know what you're thinking)

This will be my next bike, that seat sure looks comfy.

Seil Heil!

they had german, japanese and Indian memorabilia there too.

gives riding shotgun a whole new meaning. does this mean when you're running to the jeep, you yell out "Riding the 50!"

the old jeeps were cool... problem is that many soldiers broke their backs and tailbones riding in them. hope the hummers are a bit better on the ass.
pew pew

cool looking p40 warhawk
a p36 hawk i believe. i'm no sure really. it looked stubby.

The p51 mustang this was painted in boise idaho's WWII ace duane beeson's colors. cool.

the torpedo is at half scale. no clue what scale the sub is in. hah.

fokker triplane. same type the red baron used in WW I

an old packard.
not sure what kind of plane it is...
Link trainer. i want one for home. i think it would be fun.

the p51 mustang
a ton of displays to go through. just don't touch anything.

that's where i was. nampa idaho. where's nampa you might ask? that's what google maps is for. hah.

it's near boise.
I left nampa and bypassed boise. didn't even go through the city, i stayed on the interstate.

It was really bad traffic leaving boise. really bad. people in idaho just don't know how to drive. most stay in the left lane and don't go to the right lane after they pass. what i like about idaho is that the speed limit is 75 mph. woot. you can do 80-85 and probably won't get bothered by the troopers.

i stopped over in some small town because i needed gas and food. not much of a choice , but i went to a chain i hadn't gone to before.

can you guess where?

yup. jack in the box. and they're right. there was jack in the box. just a burger. it wasn't even that good either. meh.

My route was taking me to my destination for the night. i didn't want to ride at late, but it was already around 7pm, so i decided to get to a motle and shack up for the night.

the landscape may be boring to some, but i found it interestng. desert mixed with farming i guess. not really a desert though.

zoom. me going way too fast. i hope my GPS is wrong because it said i was going 204 km/hr. that's 127mph. i don't think my bike can go that fast.

there's a neat lookout before crossing the bridge to get into Twin Falls, ID. this is not what i thought idaho looked like

more views

the bridge to twin falls

I checked into a no star motel. it's 45 bucks has tv with HBO, clean, A/C and best of all WiFi. hey, it's clean and has (i hope) clean towels, soap and shampoo.

good enough for a few hours of rest

once checked in and unloaded i wanted to see where twins falls got it's name.

the sunset was awesome. looked better in person.

i found it. these falls were huge. damn camera doesn't take good pictures when it's dark.

i almost got dizzy looking down.

the falls threw up a ton of mist. the river goes back towards the bridge in the earlier pictures.

on a stone in the park. this area was given to the city on the contidtions that it may be used by all people. how cool is that. The adams family, 1932. hah.

I was looking for a coffee/donut shop. i couldn't find anything in the city at all. wtf. a lot of restaurants were open 24/7 but i just wanted a coffee and a bite. bah. restaurant time again.

I had seen a few of these on the interstates so i decided to pop in.got a coffee and strawberry crepes. surprisingly very good.

Go east young man and mount st helen

2009-06-25T23:32:00.000-04:00

June 25th

I couldn't sleep at all and tossed and turned all night. meh. hate when that happens. probably had a total of 3 hours of sleep. that sucked.

got up at 6am, and got ready for riding. after showering and loading up the bike, it was already 7:30. I had trouble loading the bike for some reason. it didn't help that it was raining. rain sucks. rain makes the roads slippery, makes it so you can't see out the visor properly, and fogs up the visor. blech. did i forget to mention you get wet?

i headed east on the trans-can and headed south. I decided to head south and go across the border to the states, where it would be faster than going across canada again. My GPS and Google maps both confirmed it.

So south i went to the border.

the line up was long, but it didn't take that long to get through for my turn. I expected to be wisked through like always. boy was i wrong.

They asked if i was carrying any illegal substances, fruits, weapons... and i told them i had bear pepper spray. i should have kept my mouth shut. alaska didn't care. yukon border guys didn't care. wtf.

so the border agent wrote on a little sticky, stuck it inside my passport and gave that to someone else. I was told to park in spot #3 and go inside.

I did. Seems they don't think that the bear pepper spray is allowed across the border.

it took a while, so in the meantime i stepped outside for a smoke. WRONG. they came after me and told me i had to stay inside. holy crap these people are touchy.

the agent that had my 'case' kept looking through different binders, looking through different books and running this way and that. after about 25 mins they told me to get the spray. I handed it over and waited some more. about 25 mins after that, they said it was ok, since the potency of the spray is under the amount for people pepper spray. holy crap folks. get your shit straight. you allow pistols, rifles and assault weapons, but you DON'T KNOW is bear pepper spray is legal across the borders. holy shit. am i the first camper to go through the united states border?? don't get me wrong, they were very professional and rather nice the whole time... just a little ignorant about their own processes. blah. an hour wasted.

I hit the interstate and went at a fair clip. Traffic was pretty heavy and it seems it always is heavy. it didn't help that the rain was constant. I got to Seattle just as the rains died down, but didn't stop. I really wanted to visit seattle, but i want to visit it properly for at least a few days. I wanna go to the science fiction museum dammit! well, not on this trip.

I needed a break from riding and i was near Olympia, the state capitol. I popped in to the visitor info place and god some free maps of Washington and Oregon. cool .

I took some pics of the state capitol building

and the fountain in front

and this war memorial.
took a better picture of the state building. neat architecure.
I left Olympia and got off i went to mount st helen. no. i didn't mount her, i went to mountain st helen. ya know... the volcano that went boom in 1980.

in my search for the mountain, i was confronted with a 50 foot tall bigfoot.

he got in my way, so i crushed him. problem solved.

heh. pretty cool though, they had a display of the pictures of the original, and the step by step of how the artist made it. speaking to the guy in the gift shop, seems the first one was burned down with a match. it had fur.

cool gift shop of all things mt st helen and bigfoot.

got to the longest bridge on route 504 (mt st helen route) it's a cool bridge, and what you don't see here is that it's actually going uphill. neat to ride across.
the usual bike pic.
from one of the overlooks. this valley was totally destroyed in the eruption and ensuing ash fallout. i didn't take a picture, but you can actually see large trees on the side of the road and you can in many places over 20 feet of ash, which is now the new landscape that growth is growing on.more of the valley.

a different lookout. i liked this lake.
And there she is! mount st helen!! oh wait. you can't see it. neither did i. you can see the base, some of the features of the aftermath but that's it. on the right is a lava island, and many ridges that the explosion made.

some of the aftermath
more
piss me off i didn't get to see the big crater.
not amused.

i was cold and a little wet (the rains were getting stronger) and i needed some energy. i opened a little bag of trail mix, and the noise it made, got a little fat chipmunk running. seems it's been fed before. not good. i didn't feed it.

i would take a handful of trail mix and rattle the bag. it would come over (a few feet away) and run around and under my bike, then i would scare it away. it should fear humans. they need to learn to get their own food dammit.

boing boing boing
a few passes later, it just sat there staring at me while i was munching on trail mix. i scared it away again.
heh. damn thing was fast running away. almost didn't get the shot off.
I kept heading south from Mt St Helen, and headed across the border to oregon. that's what the GPS said was where i was to go.

As soon as i was in oregon, was on I84. I continued on that for a long while, keeping a steady pace of 80 mph. i love speed limits of 65mph. i did keep a watch for cops but didn't see any.

i came across this tall waterfall. it's tall. really tall. you can see a bridge in the picture below.

i like close up pictures.
even closer.
that's it for pictures for the rest of the day. I continued on dow I84 at a fast pace. I need to make up for lost time. I84 follows the river and you pass by a few dams, and the river is pretty much in a wide canyon. it's a great view and so very different than washington, as there were no trees. it felt like a desert. all colors of yellows, with small little bushes and brush on the hills. that's it. no green grass, no trees. neato. kinda looked like the tundra, but not flat.

I kept riding, and almost got a room in a motel along I84 in some little town. i wasn't that tired yet, so i decided to keep riding. so i did. the sun set behind me, casting great colors and shadows on the hillsides, but the landscape started changing. now it was starting to become really dark.

I was still zooming along at about 80-85mph (in a 65 zone) and came over a crest and saw a grey SUV on the side of the road. shit. Trooper.

as i slowed down and hit the brakes, he flashed his lights and went dark again. I guess that was my warning. woot.

when the land is that flat, it's no wonder speeding a little isn't a big deal.

I kept it under 70 and needed a break so I pulled into a rest stop, and went to the bathroom. by the time i got out, it was pitch black. man, the sun sets fast around here.

Good thing my lights all work. Eastward i went, towards pendleton. on the GPS it looks like a large enough town, so off in search of accomodations i went.

a cheap room, ground floor, i can park my bike RIGHT outside the door and window, and they have free wifi. woot. it helps there's a 24 hour denny's near too. I did go out in search of better food but in this town there was a convinence store, 2 gas stations and denny's open.

oh well, superbird sandwhich and cheese fries were in order.

time for bed. many miles to ride tomorrow if i'm to cross Idaho, nevada and get to Utah. heh. it sounds like i'm going far south, but look at a map... the southern tip of Canada is directly east of salt lake city. heh. my map is starting to look a little crazy.

2009-06-24T18:50:00.004-04:00

June 24th

I woke up quite late today since i knew i wouldn't be getting a call in the early am for my rad. I expected the call after 2pm, to get the bke fixed on the 25th, etc. I rolled out of bed at about 11:45. hah.

a few minutes after being up my cell phone beeped. it didn't ring, but i had a beep saying i had voicemail. odd. Turns out the rad is in!! woot. I took a quick shower and out the door to drop the bike off.

I remember overhearing Mike at holeshot trying to get a rush on the rad

since i was trying to get back home across country. saying that seemed to have helped. I told danny at the fairbanks shop northern power sports that i was on a cross country tour, and that seemed to speed things up. I guess shops do understand the difference between someone who is wants something done on a bike which is to ride back and forth to the coffee shop, and someone on a trek.

BTW, holeshot seems to be a really good shop. I'm not saying any others around are bad since i didn't try any of them.

My reasoning for picking holeshot.

They do japanese bikes.

two different people on the roadside said it was the shop to go to.

They just got a brand new huge building.

they are next to a Harley shop and another powersports shop.

it was a short walk away from a good cheap hotel that had internet access

there's a Tim Hortons between the shop and hotel.

done and done.

I walked back to the hotel, but was starving at that time. I didn't want denny's so i thought i'd go get something at Tim Hortons. Changed my mind midstep. I saw a sign for Taco Del Mar and stopped in for a bite. even thought i had mexican yesterday, i wanted more. I'd never been to this chain before so i wanted to check it out anyhow. It's a fast food place that reminds me of subway. got 3 beef tacos with chips and gaucamole. good lunch. got a coffee on my way back to the hotel and surfed for a bit.

no real other update. now i have to hurry up and wait for my bike to be fixed. The oil change should do it some good.

on the walk back from the shop i noticed a lot of snails on the sidewalk. i mean a lot. one or two every few yards. i took a pic of a big one.

then a few yards later...

very odd. not something i'd seen back in ottawa. heh.

I was having a coffee a few days ago and was having a coffee later in the night and i was talking to a few people. one was a cute chick, and the other a biker(they didn't know each other). he was a custom painter and had a really radical chopper. no fenders, hard tail, great ape hangers, no speedo, etc. wicked ride.

he is orignally from the toronto area, she from here. the conversation turned to bugs. as he was from toronto originally, he knows bugs.

There aren't any bugs in Langley. none. this was at about 11pm at night and they told me to look at the lights. i didn't see one bug swarming them. no mosquitoes. nothing. ODD. thinking back, i don't think i even got hit ONCE in the helmet or on my windshield by a bug the whole time i've been riding around langley. really odd. anyhow, back to our regularly scheduled broadcast.

I got a call at 4:30 saying that the bike was ready!! yay!

That means i can get back on the road early in the morning tormorrow.

I walked back to the shop and picked up my bike. I spoke to the mechanic and he said that a small rock caused the problem... but not in front of the rad, but BEHIND it. what the hell.

Looks like a small rock was jammed between the radiator and the fan. He suspects that it got jammed there during the crash, and over time it bore a hole to the rad.

he showed me the rad. he thinks it came from the right (the side i crashed) and over time the fan pushed it out of the way of the hole and it started leaking. hah.

btw. rads for the M50 are expensive as hell. don't break one.

he gave me the rock as a souvenir. i'm keeping it.

I paid up and Mike from the shop pulled the bike around and gave me the key. this i won't forget. he said "the road warrior is ready" hah. awesome. i'm not a road warrior. the bike is!

i'm just along for the ride on this journey. it's not my journey. it's the bike's journey. Beast. it's all about Beast.

Anyhow, i pulled into a Tim's for a coffee and took a picture with my cell of the rock beside a medium coffee. not a very large rock, but large enough to give me a lot of problems. that's almost a $2000 rock right there.

The bike is fixed and ready to roll.

i thought about checking out of the room early, but what the hell, it's better to just get a good nights rest, have a good meal and get to bed early. hopefully i can leave REAL early in the morning and make up some very needed miles.

i have 7 riding days to get back home. I'm cuting it close. I don't want to blast across canada and the states and kill myself, so i'll be going at a fair pace without pushing myself or the bike too hard. sure i can do 1000 miles in a day, but i'd be a wreck the next day or two.

i'll be heading southwest and hitting a few points along the way that i'd like to see and hopefully i can blast through much of it and make it on time.

some of the places i'd like to visit on my way home:

Mount St Helens

Bonneville Salt Flats

Mount Rushmore

but i'll see how each day goes. no plan, no real destination except home.

just point the bike 'that way' and go.

Going to mexico... you also need a big ass to fill this seat

2009-06-23T23:47:00.001-04:00

June 23rd

I woke up and called Holeshot performance motocycle shop. The looked and called around and there was no radiator anywhere nearby. They have to order one on Suzuki Canada from Toronto. I rode over to the shop to put a deposit for the radaitor and for them to check out to see if it could be fixed. can't be repaired. to repair it would have taken a few days anyhow. they should be able to get one next day. that settles that.

I walked around their shop (nice shop) and looked at the new 2009 klr650. holy crap. $5799 Canadian they want for it. holy crap i want it. i didn't sit on it because i'd be afraid i'd buy it right there and try to figure out a way to get back home.

I left, went back to the hotel room and picked up my dirty laundry. might as well do something useful today while i wait. earliest they'll get the rad is the 24th.

my left PIAA light was winking out as well, so i figured i'd fix that while waiting for laundry. I brought some tools but couldn't find my electrical tape. i guess i'd pick some up nearby.

The coinwash was in a cluster of strip malls, and had a gas station, so i figured there'd be tape there.

I put the load in the wash and walked to the gas station. no electrical tape. crap. the clerk said that they should have some at the dollar store out back.

Sure enough, i found some good quality electrical tape there. SCORE! 1 buck.

I was running out of wire going out to the PIAA light, since i had repaired it a few times before. luckily the harness that came with the fog lights was quite long, and had female connectors on one end. This is good since with all the work i've done on the bike, i'm starting to run out of connectors.

I cut the wires and put some male connectors near the light, then used some butt connectors to spilce in the long wires back to the PIAA harness. all crimped properly, and now wrapped in tape, it works better than new. huzzah!

I called my boss and left a voicemail saying i would most probably be late to be back at work for the 2nd. the way i had planned it, i'd already be 1/2 way back across country by now, and didn't account to be down for 4-5 days. that's a minimum of 2500km i lost in those days. ack.

I had forgotten i had my camera on me, so i took a picture of the bike with the mountains in the background.

I had not eaten yet, so i rode around for a bit, looking for something interesting to eat.

I rode down to Fort Langley, which some call the birthplace of B.C. and rode around looking at the neat town. I stopped in at the visitor information booth and spoke to the ladies there. They told me some good information about the town. Then i asked a ridiculous question which had them stumped for a few seconds.

"are there any odd roadside attractions nearby, like giant things?" I had remembered reading about a giant chair in the area but didn't know where it was.

They said to try Valley furniture on Fraser hwy (near 200th street) and i should be able to see it.

off i went in search of food and the chair.

I saw on the gps a place called ChooChoo and headed down that way. it was a block south of the fraswer hwy and on my way to the chair. It was down a pretty cool street with a bunch of different shops, and NO chain stores. really neat place. i think this was langley's original downtown at one point. I parked in the motorcycle only parking (w00t) near the ChooChoo restaurant.

I changed my mind. there was a mexican place right next door so i headed there instead. The place looked authentic and had mexican music playing.

I sat down on the patio, enjoying the good weather, the mexican music and the view from the street. yes i know, the picture doesn't show that much of a great view, but it was a quaint street.

The server came by to take my order. He spoke with a slight mexican accent. that's good. maybe the food will be good.

Score! i ordered 6 mexican tacos(beef). not gringo tacos like they have at taco bell, but authentic mexican tacos (i think they were, i wouldn't know... i've never had them before)

They were really good, but a little greasy being on the plate. had they been served on paper or something, it would have been easier to eat. I ate a few with my hands, but it was messy. i ended up using a fork and knife.

delicious.
I added and enchilada (chicken) to my order, and it came with refried beans and rice.

it was all really good. and filling. i ate it all.

Since it was such a nice warm sunny day out, and i was on a patio, i ordered a Strawberry Daquiri. they had 2 sizes, large and small. the small only had 1oz of alcohol in it, so i took that one. I don't normally drink and ride, but one wasn't going to do much to me on a day like this.
This is the place i ate at. Viva mexico. probably the best mexican i've ever had. then again, the furthest south i've ever been in my life has been Chicago, so what do i know.

The view of the street it was on. it seemed to have a slower pace than the rest of the city. i'm not sure why. it was nice to see all different shops that weren't huge chains. i hate the big corporate chains... seems their only in it for the money.

I rode down Fraser hwy and blew by the chair. I did a u-turn when i could and pulled on the other side of the road. There's no real place to pull over so i just put my signal light on and stayed in the lane. ya. safe.

had to take the picture over my shoulder with traffic going in both directions, but still got it.

quite large.

I didn't do much for the rest of the day. surf the internet and later on i went down to Denny's for some supper. It's pretty easy since the Denny's is attached to the hotel. There's the shark club attached to the hotel as well, but not in the mood for something expensive.

I looked at the menu and saw chicken fried steak. I'd never had it before so i took it and a side salad. I need some type of veggies sometimes. hah.

Not bad actually. not something i'd eat everyday, but certainly different. for those who don't know what it is, it's ground beef patties that are battered ala KFC and then smothered with country gravy. (white gravy) it's a bit rich, but i like it.

back to the room to await the call saying my rad is in. they said the rad should be there by about 2pm. ack. running out of time.

"2 out of 3 ain't bad"

2009-06-22T23:02:00.002-04:00

June 22nd

no pictures today. running around doing stuff and didn't really go anywhere.

woke up early (9am) and started calling all the motorcycle shops in the area.

the motorcycle shops around here are all closed on mondays. My timing is just peachy ain't it?

I showered and headed out to a car parts store that is an authorized distributor for PIAA. I needed 2 bulbs since mine burned out.

The store Lorco is a big chain around here, so i shouldn't have a problem getting these bulbs right? wrong. he said in the whole area there were 4 or 5 bulbs, but not all in one location. earliest he could get them would be saturday. argh.

next shop, canadian tire, where else. my favorite store i think. hell, i spend enough money there.

I bought a bulb circuit tester, a little cheap thing that costs $10. i wanted to find out what the problem with the horn was and the only way is with a bulb tester, or a voltmeter.

bought another set of fog lights. the ones i had on earlier in the trip, worked but a bracket broke and i took them off and put them in my right hand saddlebag. the same saddlebag that took the brunt of the impact when the bike crashed. one of the lights shattered, so i went out and bought an identical set.

I also bought a brighter headlight, since the one i had now is the spare which was the stock light. I popped the sylvania silverstar in the crash. the stock bulb sucks.

a bulb tester looks like this. not my photo

so with the bulb tester i started prodding around. hmm. the PIAA lights aren't getting power. odd.

the other fog light connections are getting power.

i took off the seats and looked at my battery connections. everything checked out.

i checked every inline fuse i had, and that checked out. the problem with the PIAA's was that the fuse was burned out at the END. there was a hole in the fuse where it connects to the inside and it was burned out. i couldn't do a check on that fuse since it's a long glass one you can see through.

without a fuse, the lights worked. Huzzah!!

I opened the box of the foglights, cut the inline fuse from the wiring harness (i didn't need the harness since it's already on the bike) and cut the old glass fuse from the PIAA. success.

The PIAA's work.

I took out my leatherman lookalike and started filing the bolt hole on the fog light mounts. i can mount it directly under the triple tree, but the bolt is a M8 and the hole size on the mount is no bigger than M6. so with the file in hand, i went to work.

Huzzah! great success.

got the fog light mounted and working.

I put in the new bulb instead of the stock bulb. no big deal there, 2 min swap.

but the horn. the horn has been bugging me since day 3 of the trip when it failed. i think it failed right after the rain i hit on the 1st day actually.

off with internet scribbles in hand on how to connect the 12v relay properly, i went down and started checking everything over. wiring seemed good. the relay seemed good (i even have a spare) and the fuse is good. I pulled off the tank (enough to get to the wires) and checked all connections there.

what the hell. the only thing it could be would be the switch, but i already checked that.

i took the switch apart again and there's a ton of corrosion on it.hmm. could it be?

I cleaned it up as best i could, reconnected the relay and all wires and huzzah!! it worked. well kinda.

the horn actually puked mud from the dalton highway back out. about a 1/4 cup of muddy water came shooting out. hah. air compressor works. horn works, but the switch is the faulty one. damn you corrosion! why they put copper contacts on something that isn't water tight is beyond me. there was a dead bee and other bugs inside the switch housing. hah.

Horn works.

I had a bottle of water with me, and since the tank was off a bit, i poured water in. instantly i got a big leak. crap. i went back to my room and got a few packs of pepper. I heard from a few mechanics that it can stop some leaks. The problem is that my leak is really far down the rad, and it's probably too big of a hole for pepper to stop it. i know the egg trick might work, but having pepper in my block (waterjacket) is bad enough, i don't want a whole omelete in there.

i poured more water and let it run. no go. still leaking like canadian security documents.

of the 3 things i wanted fixed, 2 were done.

lights, check

horn, check

radiator, fail.

oh well, 2 out of 3 ain't bad... that's what meatloaf says anyhow. I should trust what he says... hell, he's MEATLOAF.

tomorrow, hopefully get to a shop and get this rad fixed, at least i'll know more then.

more big things, getting high, jurrasic park and beast is wounded

2009-06-21T23:28:00.001-04:00

June 21

it rained all night, and everything is humid, but it doesn't seem like anything is really wet. it wasn't raining when i was packing up, and if it was, it was a very light rain.

while packing up, i spotted this guy inside my backpack. seems he doesn't like the rain.

I didn't offer him a ride, since i'm not fond of things that can bite me. I don't know if this guy can, but i didn't want to take a chance. He was about an inch in lenght.

only about 30km down the road i spotted a restaurant that was packed. i was starving for some reason so i went in. the waitress said that they were really packed today because another restaurant in town had a problem, either it burned down, or had some sort of fire.

So i ate at Clancy's, down the road from Lac La Hache provincial park where i stayed the night before. good breakfast.

world's largest cross country skiis!! This is at 100 mile house.

These were offically dedicated to Rick Hansen, april 7, 1987

I rode on until i needed gas. i also needed fuel for the bike. I noticed that i only get tired on the bike if i don't eat much during the day. one of these helped with keeping me awake and it tasted pretty good too.
you can't get a sense of the country side with these two pictures, but anywhere there's a bit of flat land, there's a horse. it's cowboy country out here in cache creek. barren rolling hills and ranches. If i didn't know any better i would have thought i was in one of those cowboy states in the US.

from cache creek on i followed the Fraser river, which is essentially a canyon with the river below. it's a great ride and i would have liked to pull over for pictures, but the on/off rain coupled with heavy traffic both ways made it nearly impossible.

then it started raining harder. and harder. and i had to pee real bad.

I went to the visitor infomation center in Lytton but it was closed. crap. i looked around town and found a nice little cafe. i needed to warm up some anyhow. I got a coffee and decided to get a soup and sandwich at the same time. here's a pic from inside the cafe.

Those are some low clouds in the background

Blt and french onion soup. both were good and had a resonable price.

looking down the street from outside the cafe. Again, many low clouds. nice little town, but didn't stay long. i wanted to get south and hopefully out of the rain.

I look high don't i? i'm not, those are just low clouds.

unsure of my facial expression there. odd. i look more crazed than anything. maybe this rain was driving me crazy.

The fraser river down below with train tracks either side of the river, and the road on the left of the river, above the tracks. at one point, both trains were going opposite directions and it was quite mesmerizing.

It rained pretty hard and traffic was pretty heavy until i got to bridal veil falls. i got my boonie hat on and went for a walk. again it was uphill and i got winded. sitting on a motorcycle for almost a month means very little excercise... not that i get any when i'm at home though.

here are the falls. this was pretty much as close as you could get as it was barricaded off. i could have hopped it and gotten closer, but i'm lazy and it was wet and muddy and seemed like it would be a bit dangerous to keep going. maybe there's a reason for the barricade after all.

walking through it felt like jurrasic park. The trees were quite large (not huge) but some were about 5 to 6 feet across. There were a ton of ferns and other vegetation like hanging moss from the trees that it felt like some kind of jurrasic jungle.

it didn't help that there were signs posted everywhere saying "there are bears here"

This is from when i ran from a velociraptor. he didn't catch me.

actually, i was just walking down the hill back to the bike and found the picture a bit funny. heh.

I got back on the bike and this is when beast showed it was wounded. btw, i call my bike beast.

Running down the trans-canada by chilliwack (she's gone gone gone) the Red light in the Speedo came on, and the little symbol for high temperature came on. oh shit.

I took an exit, and as i slowed down, the light came off. i still pulled into a gas station to check. looked ok at first.

I took off and as soon as i got back on the highway, the light came back on. I pulled into langley township and had a coffee and looked as what was going on. uh oh. a little green puddle was forming under the bike. shit. looks like i pierced the rad. I looked through the yellow pages and found a few motorcycle shops in that direction.

When i got there, the shop had moved. hah.

I finally rode to near the new location of the shop and looked into getting a motel near it. I checked into the sandman hotel and hit the internet and yellowpages for suzuki dealers and motorcycle shops in the vancouver area. luckily, vancouver is huge and there are quite a few shops in the neighbouring towns and cities.

only one problem, all the shops i called are closed on sundays and mondays. argh. summer hours my ass.

I know you can use some black pepper to plug up the holes temporarily, and use some radiator fix it solution, but both of those are temporary fixes and both need me to take the gas tank off to get to the radiator filler. argh. i really wish i could do my own mechanic work. i could probably get a rad in today or tomorrow and do it on the side of the road really, but something else is nagging me.

between the two jugs (which makes the V) i have an oil leak. it might me something minor, but i read over the manual and i asked myself... what if the water pump is fried? that would be bad.

i called over 11 places. all are either open tuesday to saturday, or they aren't answering. it's a busy time of year for bikes too. so i'll have to see how things go.

i didn't eat supper last night (stress) so i guess tomorrow (june 22) my errands will be, laundry, eat a ton of food, see about getting replacement and spares for my lights (piaa) and get a lot of good sleep.

good looking twins, big things and chef womper

2009-06-20T23:33:00.004-04:00

June 20th

I packed up the bike (as usual) and headed back up the highway where i saw a sign for Twin Falls the day before when i came into town.

Got up the road, and up this path. uphill. ack. i need to get in shape. round is a shape. hah.

I was intercepted by this sign.

a trail (left) which would take 1-2 hours each way, or look at the falls(right)... a few minutes walk.

I chose right. it was uphill the whole way and i got winded. smoking doesn't help i guess.

looks like i'm getting closer.

Huzzah! what a pair of twins. nice to see, worth the short walk.

wouldn't like to walk 2 hours just for this though. heh.

closeup

Rode down south a bit more and got to Houston. crap. too far south?

When i was pulled over someone pulled in behind me and came to talk to me. they just wanted to tell me that my backpack was blocking my tail light and couldn't see when i braked! oops. Good thing they told me, wouldn't want someone to rear-end me because of that. adjusted the backpack and off i went into town.

where i saw this, a relic of the 16th through early 19th century of New Spain (now mexico). The grinding wheel was used in mining to crush ore while beasts of burden pulled it around in a circle. The fine particles were then separated to extract the silver by mercury amalgamation. This was presented to the town of houston from the town of Real de Angeles.

now you learned something. heh.

looked kinda neat/creepy. it was in the same park.

Looks like the fountain was off that day. looks like a bunch of salmon trying to go up river perhaps?

A giant fly fishing pole! more towns should have stuff like this.

Seems like Houston is cowboy country after all. they had a few like these around town

I rode for a bit more and was pretty hungry, so i stopped in where there were a lot of cars (they all left by while i was eating) This is in Burns Lake

I had the lunch Special 'A'. it was fairly cheap.

came with a cup of soup. really good soup.

almond chicken, chow mein and sweet and sour pork.

seriously, one of the best chinese dishes i've ever had. the almond chicken was crispy and done properly, the sweet and sour pork was actually sweet and sour and the chow mein was... different. never had that before, like that and it was really good. upper left corner was a shaker of roasted sesame seeds. more restaurants should have that. hah.

I rode back south and headed to the visitor info place. I knew i'd see something big there. hah. Mr PG, the wooden dude in prince george. I didn't stay in town long, since i just wanted to make a lot more miles and head south, i just took the picture and ran.

A bit further south, saw this. Quesnel gold pan. More roadside attractions. love these things, and by the looks of it, they work. i'm at the roadside, taking a picture. didn't stay in town though. wanted to get to a campsite before it got too dark.

I got to the campsite at about 9:15 or so, quite late by camp standards. It was raining quite a bit for the last few hours mostly on and off, but my olympia suit was starting to get wet. i hate putting on the rainsuit when it's light rain because i start to feel like Ralphie in the movie "A christmas story".

at least i can't shoot my eye out.

I set up the tent, put everything inside that i needed to, put all the other stuff i needed in the vestibule of the tent (it works!) and put the bike cover on the bike. I put on my rain jacket on instead of the motorcycle jacket and got the boonie hat on. it started raining even harder.

earlier in the day i had picked up some supplies too cook over an open flame. one problem, i had no wood. I walked around looking for the camp host. In B.C. the park host comes to you to register you for the campsite. I couldn't find the host, so i just had to wait. I looked around for some dry wood i could burn and couldn't find any, but started a small fire with sticks and anything else dry that would burn. no luck on dry stuff, but i did manage to start a small fire but it was a pain keeping it going since everything was so wet.

By this time the host came around and i paid her for the site and bought a bundle of dry wood from her. hurrah!

At 10pm it was pitch black and i had to cut the wood to make a fire. I needed to use my headlamp to see anything... oh vin diesel, where are you...

I got a good fire going, and made a simple camp supper.

ingredients:

1 rib eye steak

2 small potatoes

1 stick of garlic butter (with chives)

garlic ms. dash

hot sauce

Cut potatoes and put in tin foil. add a lot of butter. wrap up the tin foil.

put steak on grill. heh. i'm a chef.

end result

quite enjoyable, the steak was cooked medium. kinda hard to cook in the dark, over an open flame without cooking implements.

lessons learned. when cooking over an open flame, a long pair of tongs would be very useful, to turn the steak and potatoes. it would also help when you accidently drop the steak between the grill and it lands right onto the hot coals. heh. yes, i admit, i dropped it right into the fire. I should have put the steak on later, letting it cook less, and put the potatoes on for longer, to soften them up more.

all in all, not bad for a first attempt.

It was dark since 9:45 so at 11:30 it was complete darkness and time to go to bed. it had stopped raining by then, but you could tell more rain was in the forecast. ugh.

at about this time i was letting the fire die out and was heading to sleep when i heard this bone chilling howling. no clue if it was just dogs, or coyotes or wolves or something else.

you hear the fire more than anything, but around the 1/2 way mark you can hear it faintly in this video. in person you could hear it clear as day. creepy.

Hyder Hype, waterfalls and glaciers.

2009-06-19T23:14:00.001-04:00

June 19th

Started the bike and one of my Piaa lights was out. crap. no spares on me anymore. pricey bulbs. I noticed that the other had a bit of an orange glow. oh well, i shut them off for now.

It was just starting to rain as i finished packing up the bike. I didn't put rain gear on since i didn't think it would rain hard today. boy i was wrong. I got about 10 kms up the road and pulled over to get the gear on. Then it rained hard, but i was dry thankfully.

I got to the road crew and was ushered to the front of the line. i love it when they do that. I don't know why they do, but they like to have the bikes up front. thank you road crews.

i had put on my piaa lights and both were working now, yet both were shining orange. odd. a few minutes later i looked down and both lights were out. dammit. now i have no extra lights on the bike at all, only the stock headlight (i blew out my good headlight on the crash)

I stopped for fuel, coffee and a cinnamon bun at Bell II lodge. i was just about to get on the bike and head out and up comes a bmw, riding 2up. of course we talk about the road (they were going north, i south) and asked where they were from. England. holy crap. They flew in to Vancouver and they were going to prudhoe bay, and then going all the way to the southern tip of argentina. They are trying to do it in 18 months. crazy! i'd love to do that trip, but maybe in a few years, and with a different bike. They took a picture of me and the bike and they're going to put it on their blog! i'm famous! infamous...whatever. hah. They told me that i should go to stewart, awesome views and all, plus at the junction south, the gas station isn't there anymore. good thing, because i don't think i would have made it to the next gas station down the line. stupid small tank.

i regret not taking a picture, but the camera was all packed away, and it was raining, etc. i'm dumb, i need a better way to get to the camera quickly.

Anyhow, their blog is www.1a-2j.com ... i'll be sure reading that one!

here's a picture of the junction. yup. all closed up.

heading to stewart, it's closer than the next gas station anyhow.

oh! a glacier. perty
Of course i had to take one with the bike. the glacier was really nice, VERY blue

All along there were dozens and dozens of waterfalls. i couldn't stop most of the time due to avalanche warnings of no stopping YEAR ROUND. by the looks of some of that snow i passed, they aren't kidding. it's a great ride to stewart, everyone should go check it out.Isn't there a song by TLC about this?

Here's the gift shop i went to. chatted with the lady running the place. says it's hard to find help since the mine closed. there were more than 2000 people 30 years ago, now a mere 450.

many places had for sale signs on them. sad, it's a nice little town.

not ancient, but neat. a lot of old buildings in this town.

the main street.

i went to hyder to see what the fuss was about. big whoop, i wouldn't go the custom's officer said "did you just go in, and pull a U-Turn?" hah. i wasn't there for long. I rode through, looked around and came back out. i told her i wan't to see what the big hype about Hyder was, but i couldn't find it. heh. she said what they meant was the ride into Stewart.

alaska's 1st masonry building, build 1896. Storehouse #4 build by the Army corps of engineers. man, those guys know how to build something that lasts. Except for the Alaska Highway, canada had to buy and rebuild it all. hah.

the stewart sign. neato. got it on my way out. the town has a lot of charm, and even though it's in a downturn, doesn't look neglected. go there.

had to take another pic of the glacier. so blue.Not going to make it to Prince George tonight, so i guess i'll be stopping at Smithers.

pics along the way

Stopped in Kitwanga for gas. saw this. kinda neat.

The mount on the bottom left is called battle hill and they used to fortify it against neighbouring tribes. a little part of canadian history. google it if you want more info. it's neato.

more Glaciers!

This one is right outside of Smithers BC.

love the clouds. makes it look volcanic.

I got a room and asked where a good steakhouse was and got directed to the Steakhouse on Main. the prices were a bit high, but the food was great. i didn't mind spending the cash.

the nachos were the best veggie ones i've ever had. the cheese all crispy...

I had been craving steak for weeks. yay. got one. it was good. i was full. no desert for me tonight.

The motel i'm at. great find. Has FAST WiFi, Cable TV, Very clean, A/C and coffee maker. This is essentially the view from my room. can't beat that for what i paid. Cheaper than the dump in whitehorse. want a good Motel in Smithers? Fireweed inn.

btw, fireweed (the plant) is called just that because it springs up in disturbed areas (logging) or after a fire.
ack 2 am, lights out.

oh... i figured that since i'm in the area, i'll probably go through the US to go back home, heading to Spokane washington, then idaho, montana, north dakota, wisconson, illinois, indiana, michigan than home. heh. that'll be a run...

telegraph creek, to camping on a lake... life's good.

2009-06-18T23:10:00.003-04:00

June 18th

I got upat 8am, went out for a smoke, but was so tired i went back to bed. I finally got up at around 9:30 and left the motel at 10:30 or so. i need to stop getting up so late. no way of getting far up the road today, especially since i wanted to go to telegraph creek.

Leaving Dease lake, there was a bear in the middle of the road. i hit the brakes but he was already on the move and hit the ditch real fast. he didn't like the looks or sound of the bike. heh. who needs pepper spray when you have a motorcycle.

I took a ton of pictures on the way to telegraph creek. i'll upload the rest when i get home, and when i can upload the large versions of them.
This was an 18% grade. holy steep. crazy ass road with no guard rails. crazy.

oh look, there's the road i'll be on down there.
same road, around the first bend above. so many switchbacks. hope you motorcycle folks know how to corner well and are good on loose gravel. that's all it was. after my crash on the dalton, loose gravel scares me a bit.
more views from the road. the road i'll be on is down there somewhere
that's the same road i'm on below... it hugs the mountain, switches back to go all the way down, then back up, then down, then up... etc.

Canada's grand canyon. I didn't know about it until i talked to the info ladies at Watson lake. A wealth of information there. it's really big, but the camera doesn't capture that. there's a man on the top left, it'll give you some perspective.

again, people used for perspective

it was really nice sitting on the ledge looking out. makes you feel small. hah.
see that road on the right, that's where i'm headed

but first i have to go down a 20% grade switchback, across a small bridge and through the tahltan reserve.

back up on the other side, looking back where i came from. you loose traction and slide off the road, it's a long way down to the Stikine river below

Beast looking down at the river below
The Stikine river
got to Telegraph Creek. i needed 4 things; gas, coffee, a smoke and lunch.

I wanted to go to telegraph creek, since i read about it in Neil Peart's book Ghostrider. go pick up a copy. it's a good book about travelling, motorcycling and human healing. kinda the same trip i'm on now, except i'm not trying to heal myself. heh. I feel bad because i kept forgetting to lend my copy to steph at work. i'll have to do that when i get back.

I had a good lunch, and bought a tshirt. I talked to the cute chick working there (who cooked my food) about me not knowing about this place until i read a book about it. he face lit up when she asked me what book, and i told her. She was told about the telegraph creek bit in it, so she got the book and liked it. she would, it's a great book.

It turns out she's the owner's daughter. heh. In the book, neil peart wanted to get a room for a night or two, and the owner was leaving for the weekend on a river excursion. The owner essentially told him to lock up when he leaves and left Neil alone for the weekend. How cool is that. neat place, i'd go back.

The ride back up the road was quicker. funny how that is, it didn't just seem quicker, it was quicker.

It was still tricky going over those switchbacks though, but i felt more confident, yet not over confident. still scary though.

Got back to dease lake, filled up on gas again (you never know what will be open down the road) and got some food for camping out. i had a bit of rain coming back from telegraph creek, but nothing major.

In dease lake there were a group of guys going north, and i was going south... as usual, we exchanged road and weather condtions. I told them about the dalton highway... one guy thought that was cool, the others looked at me like i was a crazy man. hah.

I met up with an ADVrider (Wallyworld) and chatted with him for a bit. Now that i've done the dalton, i don't care what i ride, i still consider myself an adventure rider. hah.

I headed south where the group of guys said they had a lot of rain.

looks like some of it over there

nice views, but menacing clouds.

I planned to go a bit further than Iskut, but as usual, Iskut was closed for fuel as it was 8:30. dammit.

I got fuel a little bit further down the road at Tatogga lake resort. really nice place, nice lodge, etc. i walked in asking for fuel and interrupted their meal. hah. Mother and daughter were actually just finishing up. The daughter helped me get the fuel and i was off. Hot daughter. damn.

I decided to risk it and camp at the government campsite i didn't know if it would be a good site or not, etc. turns out it was great. spoke to the park person and she said that the telegraph creek road was a lot worse back in the day, and narrower. i would not have gone with my bike in those conditions!

at any rate, it was $15 and she gave me some free wood. i don't need much. awesome spot and even had a wooden box to put the tent up in. nice and soft.
the spot was about 15 feet from the lake. seriously. how sweet is that.

spot #7 at Kinaskan lake. awesome. park person said it was one of the best spots.

I bought this nifty waterbag in fairbanks at the sportsman's warehouse. you put water in it, and you can set it down. and you can pick it back up again.

nifty. remember kids, always have water on hand if you are building a fire.

walked the 15 feet to the egde of the lake for some pictures

the clouds were mor purplish. really cool looking.

taken from my campsite. seriously, 15 feet.

I saw these too loonies on the water. the one in the back kept looking over at me, but kept paddling along. I like Loons.

I wish i could have stayed there a few more days, but alas i need to head back home. I was looking over different routes on how to get back home. so far i've done 13164km on the trip and the shortest distance to get home without sidetrips would be 5538km. heh. Poor beast is getting a workout.

I'd like to try to see what the fuss about Stewart bc/hyder alaska is all about, but don't know if i have the time. we'll see how it goes.

more bear asses, a road to nowhere and a nice little ride

2009-06-17T23:05:00.000-04:00

June 17th

I left the whitehorse dump as soon as i could.

the saving grace of the shitty motel was good hot water pressure for the shower and a fan. The fan works wonders for drying all the wet gear overnight. the hot shower helps me. hah.

apart from that, it was nasty, not as bad as the motel i stayed at in edmonton 3 years ago, but bad enough.

didn't take many pictures leaving whitehorse to watson lake, as i'd been through there before, so no need to stop for something i'd seen before.

saw these two bears munching on something

funny, just as i was taking the bear pictures, Frank and Selena (that i met in coldfoot and prudhoe bay) drove by me heading to watson lake. hah. small world. they must have taken the top of the world highway.

the clouds looked nice over the mountains

Right before i got to watson lake, i passed Frank and selena and waved, maybe they recognized me. hope so or else i'd look like a lunatic. heh

I stopped back into watson lake at their signpost forest, where the visitor info is. spoke to another nice lady who gave me a bunch of information i needed for the cassiar highway, namely gas stops, motel/camp info. She also said that what i saw the other day was a wolverine(not a badger i'd thought previously), as they are common around here. i'll say one thing, i wouldn't want to go toe to toe with a wolverine. they look pretty fierce.

she also told me the difference between a grizzly and a black bear. bigger shoulders and eyes more forward. hah. no matter what kind of bear, i wouldn't want to meet one alone in the woods.

anyhow, i left watson lake, and headed south. A note to everyone going down the cassiar. every store/gas station, etc, closes at 8pm. so find what you need before then, there's someone at the campsites until 10pm though.

I got gas at good hope lake. the store inside was quite large, but very empty. about 20 bags of chips, and some pop. that's about it. wow. these tiny villages are falling on tough times it seems.

also to note, the road from the start of highway 37 going south was pretty rough, with a lot of frost heaves, potholes and gravel stretches. the further south you get on the 37, the better it gets.

leaving town, i saw a dog on the left side of the road, and it was coming towards me going to the center of the road, i avoided it, but it turns out it wasn't a dog, but a goat! I missed it by a few feet. there was traffic coming the other way, and they braked in time. seems they were there for a minute or so until the goat moved.

pic along the cassiar

some lake along the way. the camera doesn't pick up the torquoise color of it. nice lake.

I rode down the cassiar, in search of the defunkt town of Cassiar. The town is now closed. it was for sale in 1992... guess they never found a buyer. It was getting late and i wanted to get to dease lake for the night. that's how far my tank of gas would get me anyhow.

This is from the bridge going to the town of Cassiar. I never did find the town, i went as far as i wanted to go and turned around.

I stopped at a rest stop before hitting Dease lake. Nice quite place where all you heard is the wind in the trees and the water flowing. some small rapids on the left of the below picture. the color of the water was pretty neat.

like the sunburst lense i have on my camera? oh wait, i don't have one.

the bike looks lonely.

I liked the symmetry of the trees, the mountains and clouds. it looks better in person

last picture i took before dease lake.

right before getting into dease lake (about 5km) a moose darted across the road. liberal use of the word darted, as it wasn't too quick, but as soon as it heard/saw the bike, it got into the woods and didn't stop moving.

I got to dease lake at about 8:30. gas/general store was closed. not much else in town, so i headed to the motel across the street. good clean room, Wifi (although slow) and satalite TV. better than whitehorse for the same price. oh ya, it had a fan too!

I asked the motel guy if there was a place i could get food in town. he said everything is closed as of 8pm, but there was a store across the street that i could get icecream, chips or chocolate bar. so off i went across the street.

it was some kind of ooddball store. a little bit of everything. only edibles were chips, chocolate bars and icecream. So a can of pringles and a super fudge was to be my supper, and a root beer.

good thing i packed some food, so i had a small can of fruit, so that was dessert. blogged a bit for the night and hit the sack. boy was i tired.

from Snag to whitehorse. Grueling. grueling. almost killed me

2009-06-16T23:50:00.003-04:00

June 16th

Yup, back in whitehorse now... but lets back up a bit.

Left the campsite, and anything i didn't put in the tent was damp or wet. It rained during the night and i'll need to dry everything out. still worth it though. $12 campsite (has wood for a pit) and $9 smokies. that's $21 and it would have cost me $89 plus food in a restaurant.

i had to stop yesterday since i almost fell alseep at the wheel. more than a few times. damn dangerous

today i hit the road at about 10:30. not great.

The road condition on the yukon side was an absolute horror. the road essentially had whoop-dee-doos in it, and almost threw me off the bike more than a few times.

The day started off nice enough.

I was not waking up so i stopped in at this gas/motel/cafe place. It looked a little run down, but hey, i needed coffee.

Inside there was a table and 4 chairs, and over every nook and cranny there was stuff. some for sale, some not. it was like walking inside someone's house.

by this point i pulled up a chair and asked for a coffee.

Cold and wet, a hot coffee by a wood stove sounded good.

The place is run by an older couple that have been running it for the last 40 years. we chatted for about an hour but i had to get some miles in, so i bid them farewell.

a nice couple harsh times for people out here.

the coffee and warm fire and chat did me some good, i felt good riding now... not falling alseep.

those clouds do not look good.

more clouds to the left and right, and when i looked in my mirrors, there was rain there too.

i was going to get a bit wet.

I did get a bit wet, but not that much. i needed gas and food so i stopped in at Destruction Bay

really good beef barley soup and ham and grilled cheese sandwich. hit the spot. can't remember the name of the cafe/motel/gas place, but the cafe closes at 2pm. i walked in at like 1:55. hah.

good food.

around the lake by destruction bay

non picture interlude.

From around 4pm until about 6:30, it rained. it rained really hard. I thought my rain jacket and liner would keep me dry. they didn't. i thought my rain pants would keep me dry, it did to a point.

i didn't have a chance to fall alseep now, it was just bad weather. my facesheild fogged inside very badly, and i had water coming on the inside of the visor as well. gotta figure where it's coming from, but i think it's coming in from the vent ports. arg.

I was cold. freezing. it was roughly 6 degrees C and my hands were cold and wet, my feet cold and wet, and i was starting to lose ability to move my arms and legs. not good. i needed off fast.

I tried to go as fast as i could, but hydroplanning over puddles scared the shit out of me.

I finally got to whitehorse, where it was not raining as hard and was a bit warmer. 8 degrees C.

i pulled in to the 1st motel i saw that had internet and doors out front. i walked inside with all my gear on. i slowly took off my gloves and helmet. my hands were purple and shaking and wet. I was shivering.

got the room and quickly some gear off the bike and inside. I took a hot shower for about 30 or so minutes. my hands were burning. wow. i was not in good shape.

I laid down for a bit and got dressed. thankfully i put my clothes in big ziplock bags so it was dry.

I only had wet shoes and wet boots. I chose to put on the wet socks (wool blend) and put on the wet shoes. funny. my feet were warm.

went out and got some food and a coffee.

The place was an absolute dump. the internet was a coin operated computer in their front office/lobby.

the room was crap. there was even blood on the floor. seriously. gross.

i couldn't wait to get out of there.

to whitehorse and beyond

2009-06-16T11:57:00.000-04:00

in whitehorse on shitty internet.
will post when i have a chance.

laters.

always go to the end of the rainbow.

2009-06-15T23:26:00.003-04:00

June 15th

woke up and oiled my K&N air filter that i had cleaned the night before. wow. that thing was nasty dirty. i had rocks stuck in the filter. i put a bit too much oil, and they say to reclean and re-oil. too bad, not gonna do it.

As usual, i woke up too late again. it took me a while to figure out how i was going to pack up everything. everything packed up, i left.

like my packing job? got a $20 motorcycle backpack which i strapped to the back. it works. the stuff sack on the left is way too huge and isn't waterproof. meh.

On the same stretch of land that i saw a moose earlier going from Delta Jct. to fairbanks, there was another moose. maybe it's the same one as before. there was another moose on the other side of the highway not too far away too.

do the dew. rinds, all the fat, zero carbs.

Lunch womper style at a gas station.
got to the end of the AlCan highway. (alaska highway) still not sure why there is two names for it. annoying.

Now to finish up between Tok and whitehorse... then i'll have completed the alaska highway

no clue why this sign was at the the endpoint of the highway. never saw any bulls. maybe they meant Bison. didn't see any around there either.

told ya the mosquitoes are huge.

the 3 different pipelines. top is the original, the 2nd is the canol pipeline, the 3rd is the aleyska pipe size. the large pipe is 48" in diameter.

took this picture of the local proctologist tool.

heh.

crossing a bridge somewhere...Before Tok, after Delta Junction

hmm... don't like the looks of those clouds.
nice pavement, a bit of rain, but not that bad

I almost fell asleep at the wheel more than a few times, so i pulled over. i needed a break.

I decided to make Chubbs 2.0

you can barely see him there with all the rocks in the background. bah. Chubbs 3.0 will be better, faster, stronger. well, better maybe.

the international border between the US and Canada.

this is a neat site. wonder what cops patrol here. hah. yes, i was speeding, didn't see any cops.

Neat monument there declaring the international border and all.

cheesy i know, but i had to do it.
the road was really really rough, so i took a break at this little place. the alaska highway on the canada side is really rough with frost heaves and they are working on it. the problem with working on it is a lot of loose gravel and mud. meh.

this was a neat lake, this is just a tiny part of it.

got through customs without any problems (wasn't expecting any either) and went to beaver creek. i was starting to get really tired at that point so i looked for a cheap motel. they wanted $89 a night. i decided to camp for the night instead since the weather was not that bad.

I bought some smokies ($9 for 6) and went for a ride, knowing there would be a government of yukon campsite somewhere down the rode. The campsites are only $12.

I kept riding and there were some nice rainbows there as the rain was on and off. so i followed the rainbow.

not liking those clouds, you can barely see the mountains.
pictures don't do it justice, you just have to be there to feel it. to see the colors for yourself and see the sunlight playing over the mountians as it shines through the clouds. go there. everyone should travel more.

somewhere over the the rainbow...
i'm not liking those clouds. scenery was nice though.

looks like i'm riding right into the thick of it.
it was getting late... and saw this rainbow and followed it.

funny, i found the government campground at the end of it that i was looking for, the Snag campsite. hah!

always follow the rainbow. the bugs were bad at first until i got the 100% deet out. they don't like that stuff at all.

made a fire and cooked my smokies. damn axe is breaking. i've used it what... 3 times? piece of crap. bad design i think.

anyhow, made a fire, warmed up and went to bed too late, as usual. i lost an hour going over the border so that's screwing me up a bit, because you get even more light in the yukon later.

took this at 12:30am. too much damn light.

always follow the rainbow.

the scout's motto is "be prepared"

2009-06-14T22:00:00.003-04:00

my dad called me to make sure i was ok. hah. he worries too much.

I went back to bed because i needed it.

I got up when Steve and Levi were leaving for dawson city. Off they went (about 10am)

I started talking to Wayne. I had met Wayne the day before and we had talked last night quite a bit about travelling, biking, etc.

Wayne is travelling with his son Wyatt in a BMW with sidecar. the coolest thing ever. For a father and son to go across the country is so neat.

I have their website, but not on me, i'll have to find it and post it.

here's Wayne and Wyatt. Wyatt is 9. cute kid.

took a picture of a sad bike.

went out shopping for bags for the bike. wow. not much can be found, but i think i'll manage with what i did. I bought some dry bags. not exactly the right size. well, that's putting it mildly, i can fit in one of them. crap. well, i'll just have to roll them up and make do.

bought a backpack that should fit on the bike somehow, and some atv saddlebags.

it'll work out. i hope.

went to Carl Jr's for some food. seen it on Tv so i had to try it.

burger was good, the crispy burrito was good too. better than McDonalds anyhow.

Errant errands and the trip was a complete failurez

2009-06-13T21:42:00.001-04:00

i set my alarm and got up early. 8am. ack.

dropped off the bike with the bars and grips and took a cab back. I stopped in at a coffee hut that was down the street from the RV park and got a bagel/egg thing with a coffee. walked back, got a load of laundry and did some blogging.

today isn't a big picture day because mainly, all i did after dropping off my bike was my laundry, blogging, and not much else.

After i had some clean clothes, took a nice long hot shower and shaved. that felt good.

The shop gave me a call with some bad news. Seems the bars won't fit because they are a bit too long and high. dammit. the only bars in town.

The mechanic (doug) said he try to make the bent ones work.

I've been toying with the idea of going up the Dempster highway to Inuvik, but sadly i have to let that idea go by the wayside. I don't think i have enough time to go up there, with my bike in the condition it's in, and make it all the way home. There are certain risks i don't mind taking, but that is a risk i don't want to take.

I was vey sad when i made the decision to not go to Inuvik. after all, that is what this blog was originaly all about.

maybe that's why i don't like to plan anything. when it doesn't work as planned, i get rather down on it.

I picked up the bike at 4:30 and doug did a good job. the grips are on and the bars don't seem so out of whack anymore. I got some new dunlop 404's and we'll see how they handle.

Steve was at the denny's having a coffee and levi and i joined him. Steve's and levi's stories are great. i could sit there and listen for hours. what a great bunch of guys.

right after we finished eating we looked outside. hard rain. crap. Levi and I had left a lot of stuff out and it would be wet. Steve left his side of the tent open. not good.

the rains stopped and back to camp. we cleaned up the wet stuff and tried to settle down early. I blogged for a bit and hit the sack. I slept pretty hard.

didn't take any pictures, too busy running around

I like to hit the bars.

2009-06-12T23:59:00.001-04:00

We took off from coldfoot and headed to fairbanks. We were keeping a good pace as the roads were good but i had to pull over more times than they did. i was just beaten down. I took fewer and fewer pictures as the day progressed as wanted to get to the shop and find out what they could do to the bike.

I was ahead of Steve and Levi for a little bit. I needed a break and waited for them here. great road.

levi i believe
Steve i assume.

damn bmw's... all look the same. hah.

father and son ready to ride out of frame.

love this picture.

I caught up to them but had to stop for fuel at yukon crossing or else i'd never make it back.

The road was still good, with a bit of loose gravel which gave me a bigger pucker factor than it would have a day ago. got through that ok.

Steve was waiting at the entrance of the dalton where it turns from pavement to gravel. as soon as he saw i was ok, he sped off.

on pavement i gave it all i had just to keep him in site, but i backed off a lot. Steve is an exceptional rider and he knows how to put that machine in the corners without crossing the line. it was great to watch someone ride like that on pavement.

at one point something hit me in the hand. thankfully i wear gloves or else this huge bee would have hurt. this is not even 1/2 of it. the rest of him got jammed in my air vent.

no more pics for that day, but i ran around fairbanks.

1st the nothern power sports.

they didn't have grips, or bars, or signal lights or a throttle grip. Danny there made a call and thought one place might have some stuff. Thunderhead.

I went over to thunderhead and was able to pick up a set of Iso Grips, and he had some bars that might fit the bike. I also got a relay for the horn and i asked if they had bulbs, but i didn't know what i needed.

The guy there (forgot his name) went out and tried to get the type of bulb from the left signal. the lens broke off. hah. crap.

he gave me a few bulbs and taped up the left signal. just like new... kinda.

i got to the campground and met up with steve and levi again.

They told me about the Chinese buffet place so i went there and ate. pretty good selection, not huge, but so different than what i'm used to at home. cheese baked clams, etc. Not much pork though, so that was odd. the food was actually quite good.

I spent about 9 bucks at a car wash to get the bike mostly clean. after 9 bucks it looked dirty still. it'll take a long time to get all that mud and calcium cholride off the bike. good enough for now.

I got the left signal light working at least. a bit of duct tape and a couple of crimped wires was all it took. duct tape is very very useful.

that's it for the night. tomorrow, the bike goes in the shop.

functional but ugly.

I fixed up my issues too. seems that a giant callous is on both my index fingers and it hurts bad. steve had the same problem too. I patched myself up so it wouldn't hurt so much.

ahh.. the joys of motorcycling.

now i know why they call it deadhorse, alaska

2009-06-12T23:55:00.002-04:00

Been there, got the t-shirt.

i'm safe and sound in Fairbanks again. bike going into the shop tomorrow morning for new tires, and other stuff that needs to be ... ahem. repaired.

will try to get this blog up to date soon. read the below for the updates. when they say it's "WiFi" and Highspeed internet, it usually isn't. like right now... i'm hijacking someone's internet. hah.

From a dead horse to getting cold feet.

2009-06-11T19:57:00.000-04:00

Went to bed at about 1am at the caribou inn. I didn't have any trouble falling asleep but stayed up for a bit thinking what i'll be doing with the M50. Time to customize i guess. strip it down when i get home, fix what has to be fixed and make it a nice cruiser as it should be. no more bashing this thing around like it's stolen.

woke up at 6:45 and had a smoke outside.

the local wildlife was out and about.

is prudhoe bay pretty you ask?

here's a picture. you decide. i'd say no myself. It's an industrial complex. i'm not sure why, but everything is painted that same blue. maybe to see it in winter?

the temperature at this point was about freezing. zero celcius. 32F. it was cold in shorts and a t-shirt.

saw Frank and Selena there packing up to go south again, and Spoke to John and Ulla again.

went inside and had breakfast. i wasn't hungry, but i hadn't eaten anything since little snacks along the road, and the last meal i had was in coldfoot.

steve and levi were there eating already. wow. levi up before me, that's a first. haha.

i ate a bunch and went back to bed. i wanted to catch a few more hours of sleep before checking out.

I woke up and had another smoke. went to see the front desk of the inn to see if their maintenance guy could help me out.

Got the maintenance guy and he lent me a very large and long crowbar. maybe i can bend the handlebar back in position. I used it and it bent back in a bit, but still needs to be bent down. no leverage, but it was a bit better than last night. it's rideable.

brought back the crowbar and went in for a small snack. who knows when we'd be eating again.

I asked an alaska air guy if they shipped bikes and he said that sometimes they do. at this point i was too tempted to do just that, so i didn't investigate that avenue. I'm riding Beast home. Maybe i should call Beast, the Mothership, since that's what Levi said it looked like. I look like the spaceman on his mothership, saddlebags and dry bags flapping every which way. hah.

Here's a pic of ADVRider Maxgreene (i think i got that correct) he came to deadhorse 2up with his wife. He was then packing to go south solo. she took a flight home. I can understand her. I'd take a flight too the way i was feeling.

The mothership surrounded by the BMW escorts.

we went to the gas station and fueled up. one pump, works only by credit card, and we were i na lineup.

after i filled up a couple were having problems talking in english and they needed fuel. They were on bicycles. They started talking to themselves in french so i was able to translate. They needed about a litre of fuel for their camp stoves as they just flew into Prudhoe bay and were touring down to calgary. Steve was next in line and asked him if the french couple could buy fuel from him. Steve said he would give it to them. all is well.

Steve is an old time MotoX guy, used to run enduros back in the day and he's done quite a bit in his day. He still runs motorcycles, but his other hobby is long distance bicyling. I explained all that steve also does bike touring as well, so he understands. everyone left happy.

We went to the general store. when asked for directions it was "the blue building down the road, you can't miss it" well, most of the buildings are blue.

we walked in and it looked more like a hardware and parts store. A great store really, with everything you can think of to fix almost anything. no real gift shop though.

turns out the store was upstairs. hah.

In the general store, bumped into Ulla and John again. funny. I think the 'catch of the town worked there.' maybe it's because i hadn't seen a good looking woman in a while... but wow. nice. :) sorry, no pictures, that would be a bit creepy.

Bought a few shirts, batteries, stickers, etc and went outside. This is where levi roped me into being the resident psyhcologist for Bigfoot. Levi and Steve are making a bigfoot mockumentary where they' ve been tracking bigfoot down all the way up to alaska. i can't wait to get a copy of that, it's pretty neat idea and they are doing it really well.

My bike crash is due to bigfoot lunging at me while i rode past him. that's the story and i'm sticking to it.

pictures of the sign at the general store.

My ADV salute. Can i be a honorary ADVRider now even though i don't have a KLR/BMW/KTM or any other dual sport? hah.

I got there. i'll get back. Deadhorse didn't kill me.

I won.

Levi and Steve by the sign.

Woot. 10,000Kms on the odo since leaving home May 26th. heh. i wonder how much more will be on there when i get back.

The three of us road to the end of the road in deadhorse where the sign says "private road, no access"

Levi at the sign.

Steve... well, Steve kinda missed the sign and kept going. hah. he's gone further than we did.

showoff. hah.

we left deadhorse after a few pics and left town. i was leary about the damn gravel, thinking it might bite me again. it didn't. 30 miles out, a herd of caribou wanted to cross. they did.

pics of the hills. in person they looked really neat and you could pick out the different colors. very nice to look at.

a few more times miles apart, they kept crossing. At one point Levi noticed a young buck to our left, about a 100 yards away running with us. Levi slowed and stopped and so did the buck. when we started going, the buck started again. we repeated this for a few more times. it was neat to be playing a game with this buck. he kept his distance and kept running with us. a memory i won't soon forget. We finally sped off and i could see him running his heart out trying to catch us. he didn't.

i sure hope it doesn't rain. i was trying to be an optimist that day, because i don't think i could take any more rain and slick roads.

stunning scenery nonetheless.

This is what you call a GOOD road.

like those runs of potholes? once you hit one going 50 mph, you hit them all.

an even better road. this is essentially the same track of land that was the mud the day before.

The road to coldfoot was generally good, with just a few wet spots. at one point, levi stopped and said "this is it" pointing down.

It was a great road surface, but a bit wet. This was the same strip we went across in deep mud. looks like the grader was out in the morning and removed that layer of crap.

coffee at coldfoot. finally.

we got to coldfoot, had some food, relaxed and camped for the night. we had talking about going all the way to fairbanks, but we agreed it wouldn't be a good idea. i don't need another mistake 2 days in a row. I was still dead tired.

to deadhorse on a dying horse. what an adventure

2009-06-10T02:46:00.005-04:00

Woke up at around 8am. really bad sleep. Damn dogs were howling all night keeping me awake.

got up and took some pics.

one of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong.

yup. the blue tent, it's not a bike.

there were other bikers there as well. spot what doesn't belong in this picture.

yup. my bike. 6 bikes. 5 are dual sport/adventure bikes. one's a suzuki cruiser. odd man out.

I had to set up my tent away from them because i didn't belong.

hah. actually i didn't, but thought this looked cool.

buffet breakfast. was good. really starting to like biscuits and gravy.

and cottage cheese. and bacon. mmmm... bacon.

coldfoot viewwe left at roughly 1pm. this was going to be a long long day. memorable day. a hard day. a very long day.

weather looked nice...
Levi running the rear...

Steve and levi up front

those clouds don't look too fun.uh oh. this is where we pulled over and we all got into our rainsuits. we would need them. this was 1/2 hour after leaving coldfoot. maybe 20 miles or so away.

yup. it's raining over there.
we had a light sprinkle for bit. i didn't take the camera out for about an hour and 3/4. camera's don't like rain much. then it was nice. roads were a bit wet in spots, but mostly dry from this point on

And then we hit the big Pass. Atigun Pass. what a road. i wouldn't like to do it in the rain, wouldn't be fun and it would be downright dangerous.

Steve and Levi talking on the pass. This is the first time you see their faces, it won't be the last.

and yes. That is Ewan McGregor. I asked for his autograph, but he refused.

neato. make sure you know what gear you're in kids. don't want to burn out those back brakes.

More rain, as you can see from the smudge on the lense.

the rains were with us for the better part of the rest of the ride.

what a neat picture of the pipeline, don't you think?

uh oh. more nasty weather.

see that road down below? it's nasty stuff. slippery and it's not just mud. It's the Calcium Chloride they put on the roadbed as a binding agent. when it gets saturated with water, they scrape off the top and re-spray with calcium chloride to harden the surface, or else the water would just wash away the road.

the view from behind my windscreen. the view from behind my helmet screen is about the same thing.

Here is the conversation that took place.

Steve - "how many miles have we gone in this?"

Levi - "about eight"

Steve - "How many more miles of this?"

Levi - "About eight to ten"

In reality i think it was more like 20 miles of this stuff. Before and after this it was just as slick, but not so much mud.

some people up here call it whale snot. it cannot be accurately described.

you need to experience it first hand.

Btw for any adventure riders. notice the tires these guys have on. heh. that's adventure riding.\

wait a minute. i was on a cruiser with street tires. i am king.

nasty stuff. the stuff of dreams... or nightmares.

it's not deep here, but in spots it would swallow your whole foot up. seriously.

just a light drizzle at this point.

here we start to see the tundra. very flat land.

Are we having fun yet?

caribou. they were all over. herds of them

stopped to take a picture of a pingo. flat as can be in every direction and nothing to be seen. except this mound miles away. must be a pingo.

and then, at roughly 10:45pm, it happened.

I crashed the bike. I was doing well, no drops throughout the day with all the horrible weather, and at some points i was in a groove and hitting about 65-70 mph over the ruts and i was in full control.

it was late, i was tired and i slowed down. Steve and Levi blasted past me and kept going. they wanted off the bikes bad. I figured if i slowed down, it would be safer. wrong move.

This happened about 10 miles (or less) from Prudhoe bay.

the road was as straight as could be, and i guess i was in a more 'relaxed' position on the bike (instead of almost standing on the pegs) and i slowed down and the back end went to the left, then to the right, the bike going lower to the ground with every swing, almost lowsiding it, then to the left again, then to the right, then Poof I highsided over the bike and the bike smacked into ground on the right side.

motorcycle speak

- lowside. the bike falls and you are behind/underneath it.

- highside. you usually wind up flying over the handlebars.

It flew me over so violently, but at the same time, not.

I was thrown to the ground, landed on my elbow, hip and back. all areas that have armor. the wind was not knocked out of me. it's like i landed on a giant pillow. i'm not kidding.

what happened was that there was a huge pile of loose gravel, about 4 inches deep, and when i landed on it, it cushioned my fall.

Do not panic people. the only damage to me at this point are a few cuts on my knuckles (from the actual riding pics to come later) and a small cut on my thumb which i think i go when i picked up the bike.

wow. the bike was pretty messed up.

all the luggage and bags flew off in one clump. the saddlebag on the right side ripped at the seams. a few D rings that i used on the bags to tie them together got ripped out too.

The back seat got ripped off. I couldn't figure that one out at first.

first things first ,Put bike on center stand. that puppy was up on the stand in 2 seconds flat. adrenaline i guess.

2nd assess damage to self.

my body felt fine, helmet wasnt' scratched at all, gear all in one piece, no rips except for a small bit on my boot. guess a rock took a little chunk out. my thumb had a bit of blood on it.

get everything off the road and pick up the pieces. wow. debris.

once that was done i got my first aid kit (yay) and got a bandaid. a small one. i used an alcohol wipe to clean around because that calcium cholride gets into everything. there. that's done.

I started assessing bike damage. first things first. does the bike start.

Check. it gets into gear and it can roll. rideable. good start.

Now to assess the damage to the bike. not pretty.

from front to back.

Right side mirror smashed

front brake lever end snapped

starter button gone. must have popped out in the crash. odd.

right side handlebar grip smashed. this is the throttle. not good. i can rev the engine tho, so that works well enough.

tank scratched and not punctured. not dented either. good.

handlebars bent. not great, but i can still ride it.

right peg and back brake bent up towards the bike. uh oh.

both mufflers dented to hell. still attached to the header and on the bike solidly enough.

back seat flew off. what the hell?

tourtank gas can scratched and dented. uh oh. i don't see any punctures, so that's good.

busted right signal light. it was hanging from a wire.

highway peg snapped off. it's a cast past, can't be welded.

so here's what i did to make it rideable again.

duct tape on the grip. good now.

duct tape on the front brake lever. it's short, but i kinda like it without a nub now.

taped up the mirror. forces me to make shoulder checks.

right peg and brake. looks like the bolts were just loose. i tightened it up and the peg looks right, and bent the brake pedal out. good as new.

nothing can be done about the mufflers.

rear seat. i feared it sheared the bolt off. nope. put a spare bolt in the hole and tightened it down. good as new. musta popped out earlier and i hadn't noticed. really odd.

the tank at the back looked a little loose and i'd find that trouble later it seems.

I cut the other wire off the signal light and put it in the saddle bags... wait... saddle bags.

ug. the right saddlebag was ripped at the seams. the left saddlebag looked mostly ok.

D rings were ripped out of all the bags. i'll have to figure something out.

It looks dirty, abused and broken, but it's rideable.

Levi came back to look for me. he couldn't believe i was ok. I guess i've fallen so many times i know how to now.

i do my own stunts.

here is Beast. beast isn't happy, but he isn't weeping oil or crying any fluids. heh. tough bike.

i packed it up with bungees, tie downs and a cargo net and off to deadhorse we went.

I was a little freaked out, and just then it got REAL dark and the fog rolled in. we couldn't see a thing and couldn't go that fast with these roads.

We got the to caribou inn and spoke to the manager. we were exhausted. she made us laugh and smile so we liked her for that. since i was down on my luck she made me a deal and took a bit off the price for me. still expensive, but after a crash, i can swallow it easier.

i left everything on the bike except for the tank bag, and we took our rooms. i showered right away and went to bed, expecting to be hurting in the morning. it was about 1:30 by the time i went to sleep and my alarm was set for 6:30 in the morning. breakfast stopped at 7:30

"Go north young man"

2009-06-09T16:58:00.004-04:00

I woke up feeling like crap. I think staying up late did me in. Maybe all that greasy KFC didn't help any at all. Rule of thumb for any traveller. Don't eat KFC when you're on the road. unless what you are driving/riding has a built in toilet.

a skewed view of the campground.

so i decided to go north and attempt to go to the arctic cirlce. might as well try while i'm here.

Stopped at Grandma's pies. was told they were good.

I got one. It was good.

some construction on the highway north of fairbanks
I seemed happy as a clam don't i? that'll change. hah.

some views

the sky threatened to open up and pour, but it didn't.

Woot. Got to the start of the Haul Road. The James Dalton Highway.

There was an Alaskan Motorcycle tour guide talking to two other bikers on GS'. He said that if i had a problem that his tour had a support vehicle (with extra bikes) following them the whole way and they'd lend me a hand if i needed it.
These are the two that were talking to the guide. it was dusty. real dusty.

I had to give them a lot of space. we had to all stop because we couldn't see a few times.

Then we hit the first of the mud. It was pretty bad and i thought i was going to go down a few times. the BMW guys had their feet out for a lot of it, almost acting as skiis, but none of us went down.

at the second patch of put (about a mile or so long) they went into a pullout hafway through. I never saw of them again.

I heard later from other riders that they were deciding between going to deadhorse or go on a hot springs tour. looks like they turned around.

it was pretty muddy, but i soon learned that this is nothing. it gets worse. way worse.

Nice Scenery though

The road was in good shape. The pipeline is the only reason for this road. it'll be in many many pictures.

one of the pump stations on the way up to the arctic circle. can't remember what number. 6 maybe?

This is the long bridge crossing the Yukon. This camp is aptly named Yukon Crossing.

The yukon crossing all in one shop.
muddy. At this point i had caught up to the KLR tour group and many came out to take a picture of my bike. they thought i was some kind of hero. no quite, just extremely niave and ignorant. some would just call me crazy i suppose.

I met a large (east)indian family here travelling to the arctic circle. Nice bunch of people.

There was only 1 gas pump. the tank was above ground and it's not something you see often.
Got gas and headed to the Arctic Circle.

obligatory bike pic.

Got to finger mountain. neat area. the rocks get pushed out of the ground by the permafrost, and it creates this.

heh. cheesy picture.

do you know how hard it is to set a timer, then run, jump up rocks and pose as a fat man? now easy.

Heh.

I made it to the Arctic Circle!I took group pictures of The family, and they took mine. I should have taken a picture of them with my camera, sadly i didn't. I didn't know if i should turn north of south, but it seemed close to get to coldfoot camp, so i decided to head north and see how it goes.

Got to Gobblers Knob. Seriously? who would name this??

The mountain ranges in the distanceThe road i came fromI found Chubbs! I don't know what he was doing all the way up here, but he seems to have lost weight. (sidenote, yes i made him)

Chubbs checking out the views.

They say there's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. they're right, it points right to the oil.

Finally got to coldfoot camp.

whew. it was a long ride and a rough ride to get there.

I didn't know what to do now so i wanted to see if i could book an arctic tour to get to the arctic ocean. I bought a calling card and tried calling the Caribou inn. over and over... and over.

I finally gave up and was going to camp up the road. I would try to call the caribou inn in the morning.
I got to the bike and I met John and Ulla from Denmark. (they are on the left)

we chatted for a while and thought what i was doing was amazing (read: crazy)

John (probably Jon) and Ulla were on the bus trip north to Prudhoe bay, where they would take a flight down to Anchorage, and a cruise to vancouver. neato.

This is Frank and Selena. They were from california and decided to go north to deadhorse on a whim. Frank has a nice Toyota landcruiser, with a popout tent on top. awesome truck and i think it was made for this road. should have taken a picture of the truck.
No more pictures after that, but i decided to try calling the caribou inn again. no luck. I started talking to someone about that. we chatted for a little bit and as it turned out, the best thing i've done to date.

This is when i met Steve and Levi. They're a father and son team from Oklahoma, making a grand trip, like mine, except on better bikes (1200 GS adventure)

Steve invited me to sit for coffee with them and we chatted. and chatted. I really liked these guys off the bat.

I asked where they were camping the night and said right here, as it's free. i didn't even know that. hah. the camping is free, the showers $10. go figure. I decided on doing that.

They invited me to ride with them in the morning, and i accepted. again, good decision on my part. it's rare i make those, so once i do, it's a real good one.

stayed up till 2:45am drinking coffee and chatting with Levi about almost everything. Levi is a late starter (as i) so it worked out.

at 3am, head finally hit the pillow... or the rolled up sweater is use for a pillow.

Summit lake and Fairbanks revisted

2009-06-08T14:32:00.002-04:00

I broke camp and rode for a while. stopped to take a few pictures. This is along Highway 1 between palmer and chickaloon

i liked this nice country type road. relaxing.

stopped in for breakfast. I'm pretty ignorant about some things, like Biscuits and gravy. I asked what it was and the lady running the place described them. Interesting food.

It may not look great from this picture, but the food was fabulous. I'd eat biscuits and gravy again, but i don't know if it would ever be as good as this.

The lady running the place hatched a goosling since the ravens kept attacking the nest and eating the eggs. damn ravens. btw, the ravens up here are fantastically huge. really huge.

The geese were afraid of me. that's a good thing.

cute little things too

Pinacle mountain was the place i stopped for breakfast. good food, friendly and had a lot of old farm tractors and equipment out in the lot. a museum almost. Some of these (like the grey one with red wheels shown below) looked like it was in running order. even had new plugs in it. neato.

I bumped into 2 bmw riders that were on their way to wasilla, and then on to deadhorse. They are on the ADVrider forums as well. They are posting "2 mariners in search of the artic ocean" or something like that. I'll have to check that out when i have the chance. man. keeping a blog up to date on the road is tough to do.

more views along the highway

as usual, road work. I don't mind the road work and the waits because the road surface was really good. very smooth and no bumps or cracks. I have to hand it to road workers. It's a tough job (for the most part)

In this section they were blasting up ahead so it was about a 15 minute wait.

A glacier up ahead. it didn't look that big, until i passed it on my right. It went for miles and miles.

this road was neat. followed the side of the mountain the whole way. goes down to a bridge then back up.

going down.
Going back up. it's so big i couldn't get the whole road in the shot.

Mountain porn.

Obligatory Bike pic.

The land flattened out for a bit near the junction between the 1 and the 4.

what's that i see in the distance? a bird?

A plane?

Nope. it's a mountain. it's a nice sight to see after a long stretch. the mountain kept getting bigger and bigger until you're practically at the foot of it.

neato.
I took Highway 4 (richardson highway) and took this shot of the pipeline. The scenery was a bit dull, and the road was not in good condition. I was starting to get bummed out a bit.

I was running low on fuel so i gassed up at Paxson, and spoke to a KLR rider from fairbanks. He said the scenery gets better up the road.

He took the fairbanks to Denalli, go across the Denali Highway to paxson and was going north to Delta Jct. to get back to fairbanks. a nice day trip it would seem.

He was right. The road north was great.

the views were a nice sight. freezing up there though.

Took some pictures of Summit Lake. It wasn't frozen over, but had a lot of ice and snow on top of the lake.

the talking heads song "road to nowhere" popped in my head when i was riding this stretch. it felt as if the road kept going and you'd never reach the mountains.

I was wrong. didn't take long and next thing you know you're weaving through them again.More of the pipeline. It's like following the yellowbrick road. You know it leads somewhere. gotta find out what that is.

More mountain porn.

see those big upright pipes with fins on top? has something to do with thermal heat exchange so that the pipe doesn't move. they use thermal heat to keep the ground the same temp so it doesn't heave. I didn't read much into it, but you can if you want.

"We're on the road to nowhere... hoo ... haa ..."
Bif Naked- "spaceman, oh spaceman, come rescue me..."
It was a nice ride up the richardson up to delta jct. I took the 2 back to fairbanks where Molly was up to her knees munching on grasses.

Molly likes tall grasses. sometimes bark.

On my way bank to fairbanks i saw Yoni again going the other way. He must have gone to deadhorse and back. He recognized me and gave me a huge wave. I wish him well on his southern adventure now that he was started it at prudhoe bay.

The sky was neat.

Got into fairbanks and decided to camp for the night. did some internet that night and was trying to decide was to do for the next day. go east back to the yukon? go north to the arctic cirle? desicions, decisions.

First things first. Had to get food as i was starving.

Went to KFC for something different. Man. KFC in canada sucks to KFC in the USA. Then again, KFC sucks period, i don't know why i even bother to go there.

Got the stuff we don't have back home, mainly Extra Crispy, and mashed potatoes. delicious. It was odd but the KFC was joined with A&W. heh. back home it's KFC and taco bell.

The chicken skin was great. awesome. The chicken was slimey and gross.

I spoke to the campsite host and he said that He spoke to Yoni and that Yoni made it back from Prudhoe bay and was dirty as can be when he got back. Did some internet and crashed for the night. i'd decide what to do in the morning. north was starting to get on my brain though.

The Odyssey to Homer

2009-06-07T23:20:00.005-04:00

First pic of the day. The t-shirt i got from Chicken Alaska. neat place, but the roads to go there suck. The motel in Anchorage wasn'tthat bad for the price (compared to the rest in the area, but it wasn't great. At least it had HBO. The motel was across the street from the airport and i could see the Control tower from my door. The back window showed no promise as it was a broken down clothes dryer. I signed out of the room and headed towards my destination for the day. Homer, Alaska. Jewel comes from there i heard.
I took the seward highway to Homer. Absolutely Beautiful. A ton of bikers were out today, and i could see why it's a destination of choice for bikers.

This little bird was cute. kept giving me the stink eye though. Reminded me of the bob marley song "three little birds". that song keeps getting stuck in my head. if you haven't heard it. listen to it. here's some lyrics;

Dont worry about a thing,

cause every little thing gonna be all right

Singin: dont worry about a thing,

cause every little thing gonna be all right!
Rise up this morni

n,Smiled with the risin sun,

Three little birds

Pitch by my doorstep

Singin sweet songs

Of melodies pure and true,

Sayin, (this is my message to you-ou-ou:)

the views.

obligatory bike pic

drive by shooting

Stopped at the Sunrise inn for some gas and decided it was a good time to get breakfast. The breakfast was great and it was a really nice place. I'd go back.

from the table at the sunrise inn

delicious

more views

The two volcanoes across the bay.

see?

Iliamna

redoubt. you can see it smoking

iliamna

Redoubt smoking... 54 miles away

Stopped at a lookout in Homer and met Johnathan. He works for the local radio and we chatted for a long time. He's originally from Indiana, but moved here 5 or so years ago. I can see why. He explained to me about all the volcanoes, about the area and we talked about biking (he used to ride). I had heard that there are a bunch of Bald Eagles at the Spit(the arm of land that goes to the sea where the ports are) in Homer, but Johnathan said that if i wanted to see a lot of them up close, go to the dump since that's where they hang out. He thinks the Turkey should have been the national bird (as with Ben Franklin if i recall). Johnathan was a great wealth of information on the area.

the overlook at homer where i met johnathan

bald eagle at the lookout. there were more and closer, but didn't manage to get the camera out in time.

tried to get a pic of johnathan but he was too fast (and i too shy to ask him for a pic)

drive by going on the spit to the end.

pics from the spit

The Spit was a bit too commercial for me, but i could have taken the ferry all the way to Dutch Harbour. I didn't.

people fishing at the end of the Spit. to the left (out of frame) you can take a ferry to

dutch harbour.

Pictures from the beach/public camping

I did go wade out in the water. The pacific (this part anyhow) isn't as cold as the Atlantic i went swimming in last year. Still gives me shivers

obligatory bike pic. Beast wants to go for a swim. maybe just a bath.

mount redoubt again

Mount Iliamna again

I left Homer and made my way back to Anchorage, trying to think of where i should spend the night, but i wanted to eventually make my way north.
I stopped at a safeway and got some supplies for the night. I had decided on camping out to try to save some money, plus it's fun.
When i was packing my bike up, I hear this awesome accent asking where i'm from. I nearly melted into a puddle right there. She's full irish but living in Palmer now. a) she was smoking hot. b) she had that irish accent that can make you weak in the knees. hah.
we chatted for a bit (mainly about my trip) and we went our separate ways. sorry boys, no pics, her boyfriend was standing right there and i don't think he would appreciate it. hah.
Something tells me i see a riding trip for a month in Ireland... maybe next year.

I rode for a bit more and all the traffic was putting me to sleep. hot. traffic. monotony. at one point i looked down and my right fog light was hanging from the wires. WTF?

Passed a moose that was on the white line on my side of the road. With traffic going both ways, i slowed down but kept going. wow. big beast when you're 3 feet away from it. no chance for a picture as there was too much traffic.

I decided to take a break and pull over next chance i got.
I killed the engine got off the big and... uh oh. forgot to put the sidestand down. oops. Drop #3. no damage and was able to pick it up. Rule of thumb kids. don't ride if you're exhausted.

Looks like the bracket i made broke in half. odd. it got rusted out somehow. really odd.
I rode some more and looked down and my right PIAA light was off. crap. burned out maybe? I'll look at it later in the day. only have 1 spare of those.

no pics as i was trying to find a camping spot for the night.

I found a national campground and got some wood. I noticed that when i took the wood off, i snapped the neato fuel line vent tube. crap. Swapped out the piaa and took off both the fog lights. Meh. don't need them really, if i get stuck, i'll figure something out.

this is like 1am i think

all in all, a great day.

too tired to post the june 8th report, but all is well. May be offline for a few days. Going to go to the Arctic Circle up the haul road and i'll see how that goes. should be back online in a few days (~june 10-11ish)

Mountain Porn, no cowboys, some moose knuckles...

2009-06-06T23:51:00.005-04:00

I left Fairbanks a little late. I go to bed too damn late. heh.
It was overcast and had some light rain. No big deal, just wish it was a bit nicer out.
I headed for Anchorage on Parks Highway. I was hoping it was a bit better than the alaska Highway. A nice valley view. already it's better. you could see pretty far across the valley, and i bet on a clear day you could see further.

Then i started to get into some mountains... the roads were nice and the weather seemed to be clearing up.
I got to the small town to Nenana. Went to a local diner and had Eggs with Reindeer sausage and hash browns. I ate Blitzen and he was delicious. wish i had more. The breakfast was so good that i was halfway eating it before thinking of taking a picture. breakfast came with 2 sausages.

as you can see, overcast but the views were nice. always passing creeks, streams and rivers between mountains.

i rode to the denali visitor center and asked about riding to the end of the trail. only their tourbuses go there up there, and i didn't want to spent entry fee to the park and then take a long tour with a bunch of tourists complaining about this and that. i guess i'm a bit anti-social, but it think it's that i just don't like the majority of tourists. I love talking to the local people though, they're the interesting folk.

Leaving the visitor center, there were people standing around taking pictures of something behind the porta-potty's. I had to go that way to get to my bike, so i went the other way around the porta-johns and this is where i met a Mandy, a local...

we talked about munching leaves and i took pictures mostly.

Reminds me of the Northern Exposure opening credits with the moose.

Now we start the Mountain picture porn. it's pretty much all i dd for the rest of the day. Ride, take pictures, ride, take pictures while riding... etc.

the pics are small in size, but you'll get the 'picture'. heh. seriously, you have to be there to experience the mountains. i've been through the rockies of BC/Alberta, but this is different for some reason. maybe it's all the snow.

my helmet is so shiny.

proof that i was there. i didn't gain weight, it's the helmet that pushes on my cheeks.

drive by shooting

I had pulled over because a bird flew at me and hit me in the foot and bounced off my boot. It was a light hit, so i hope i didn't hurt or kill it.

love the reflection.

not many mountains here, but you can see the weather was gettng better and the clouds clearing up.

no mountains, but i liked how the clouds looked in this one.

Mt Mckinley is over there somewhere... probably hidden by the clouds

damn car ruined my shot.

obligatory bike pic

a lookout with Denali (Mt Mckinley)

damn clouds. you can barely see it as it's all white and behind these mountains (i think anyhow)

zoomed in, you can see it here (I think this is denali)

at the same locaiton there was a WWII memorial. touching.

more mountain porn. when you see it in person it makes you feel small. very small.

Pulled over for gas since the GPS said next gas station was 98 miles away. I had less than 1/3 tank left so i wouldn't have made it. Turns out the GPS lied as there were quite a few gas stations along the way.

This is a neat little all in one shop at Trapper Creek. I spoke to a guy there for quite a while about all things, alaska, coffee, politics... but i had to move on since i wanted a place for the night in or around anchorage.

Kept riding on unil i got the the Mat-Su area. I was looking for a washroom but found this instead. a war memorial of all who died nearby and those that are from nearby.

sad. they have 2 empty slabs. are they expecting that many more deaths?

a couple of drive-bys

and that's all for tonight. Tomorrow i either head north again or head south to Homer.

Hmm.. maybe an odyssey is in order.