June 12th, 2007

Today we left Tok. (<;)Tom was at the side of the road waving goodbye with a tear in his eye as Allen drove by. (<;)

Meanwhile back at the ranch. The drive to Anchorage was pretty uneventful except discovering that John's chain was about to fall off. The KTM's get about 14,000 miles to a chain and set of sprockets and John's bike has over 14,000 miles on it. When we stopped at Glennallen we called ahead and had the motorcycle shop, where we had tires and appointments for service the next day, order a chain and sprockets for overnight delivery. The bike barely made it to Anchorage. It rained on us much of the way but the scenery going down was beautiful. Tall mountains and rivers everywhere. The picture above is the Matanuska Glacier. Even though it was raining it was really quite a sight. Too much traffic aggravated by road construction made the trip a little tense. Way too many motorhomes with very inconsiderate drivers.

Anchorage is quite a substantial city with a lot of amenities and yet we had trouble getting rooms. We had heard that this early in June we shouldn't have trouble getting rooms but we did and it caused us to change our "fly by the seat of our pants" for rooms plans for the rest of our time in Alaska. We called ahead and got rooms for the trip up to Fairbanks, Coldfoot,Prudhoe Bay and then out to Dawson City with some difficulty. If we had waited another day we might have had some real problems.

We all enjoyed Anchorage. Good food, friendly people and some unique shops. The Museum is top notch. It gives you a really good sense of the the history of the indiginous people and the difficulties of early life here.

We had planned a two day layover in Anchorage for tires and service on the bikes and it was a good break. Carol enjoyed some "retail therapy" as she calls it. The rest of us had seen the weather reports on Prudhoe Bay and are getting a little concerned. People here are telling us that this has been the coolest/wettest spring that they have had in a very long time and the high temperatures in Prudhoe Bay have been getting barely above freezing. So the guys are off to the outfitters store to get yet more warm weather gear. Frank has been "accessorizing" along the way buying a new and different pair of gloves in almost every town we stop in. I think he's up to14 pair (or at least that's what we accuse him of) . By the end of the trip they will be stacked on his bike like cord wood. We all did some shopping and just had the stuff sent home by the stores. No room in our saddlebags for things we bought, too much warm weather gear! Hopefully we'll get up there and not need it, yea right.

(<;)One of the mornings I went out of the motel to find these three little gremlins on my motorcycle demanding candy or they would ride off with my bike (<;) Oh, wait a minute, that's my grandkids, Micah, Rylee and Weston, who's mother says : "Just say no to motorcycles". How are you kids doing? Grandpa misses you. Micah and Weston, haven't seen a polar bear yet. Rylee, no Giraffes either.

It took the motorcycle shop the full two days to get all the work done and we used the time to recuperate and prepare for the next more difficult leg. I had some wind coming over the top of my hand guards and freezing my arms so I "supplemented" the guards with some conveyor belt rubber. Looks tacky and Allen almost had a coronary laughing at them calling them an embarrassment. Well he had no clue what I was going to do next. Remember that tire that I bought in Prince George? Well we know that the knobbies that we just put on to ride the dirt haul road up to and from Prudhoe Bay won't get us back to Flag and we are going to have to get new tires we think in Montana. Ipso Facto we have ourselves a genuine, authentic, and certified continental kit on the back of my motorcycle. No sense in throwing a perfectly good tire away. Besides, reminds me of growing up in Brannen Homes/Pine Knoll in Flag, you just make do. I quit worrying what other people think about such things a long time ago. The extra gas can is needed because there is a stretch on the haul road north of Cold Foot that I can't make without more gas. Sort of makes the bike utilitarian looking in a trashy sort of way, don't you think? Allen says I have to ride at least a quarter of a mile from his Land Yacht.

Carol may stay in Fairbanks because the trip from there up is pretty dangerous if the weather turns bad. The Haul road gets very slick if it gets wet, so we'll see when we get up there.

We're all anxious to get back on the road. Tomorrow, the 15th, were off to Fairbanks.