Errant errands and the trip was a complete failurez

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

Summit lake and Fairbanks revisted

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.