June 19th, 20th and 21st

Sorry, out of sequence. Above left, the border looking into Alaska. Above, Delta River.

The end/beginning of the Dalton Highway. The picture on the left is my bike under a sign at the start of the Dalton Hwy. It's caption should read: "Oh so now you tell me."

The picture on the left is Allen and Carol.

The pavement only goes a few more feet and then turns to dirt.

Finally got to a place with reliable internet and don't know when I'll get it again so I'm going to combine some days. The 19th we left Coldfoot headed the same way out towards Fairbanks that we had come in on, the Dalton Highway. Another very fast run with a couple of seizures. When we stopped at the Yukon River (about half way) for gas we ran into about 40 police and retired police from Georgia that were headed to Prudhoe Bay on HARLEYS. There purpose was to start from Prudhoe Bay and go all the way to Key West in Florida on a charity run. They were all decked put in their do-rags and leather vests but nary a heavy coat among them. We talked to the guy running the support truck and he said that all the people at the Harley dealership in Anchorage had told them that they were crazy and NOT to take Harleys up the Dalton. Not only were their bikes not the right bikes, they were ill prepared to make the effort. What we took two days to do (500 miles of about 70% dirt one way) they were going to try in one. They had already had one misshap with injuries and damage to a bike and had barely ridden the dirt portion and none of the difficult part. For as over-worried we were, they were sublimely oblivious. When we saw them it was almost noon and they weren't even 25% there. We tried to counsel them but I'm not sure that there is a more stubborn lot than policemen. I'm going to try and follow up and see how they did.

The rest of the trip south was pretty uneventful. The picture above is of my bike near a sign at the start of the Dalton Hwy. Zoom in to read the sign.

Hayne needed to stop in Fairbanks to get some repairs to his fork seals and then he, Frank and John caught up with Allen, Carol and I in Delta Jct, south of Fairbanks, where we spent the night. Scenery is the same trees, trees and more trees. Never thought that I would get tired of trees, but it's a little like driving through Kansas and seeing corn. After awhile it all looks the same. The picture above is of the Delta river which apperantly floods quite regularly.

June 20th

We drove down Hwy 2 to Tetlin and turned north on Hwy 5 (turns to 9 in Canada), also called the Top of the World Highway, headed to Dawson City, the center of the Alaskan gold rush in the 1890's. As we drove along this road we started seeing sign of a recent forest fire. Mile after mile it went, as far as you could see everything was burnt clear to the ground. It was one of the most incredible sights that I have ever seen. The road to Dawson is about 50% dirt and it took awhile to cover miles because of all the RV traffic so I'm sure it seemed to take longer to traverse the fire area than normal but the size of it was staggering. When we stopped in a little gas stop on the way called Chicken, they told us that this fire was 1.3 million acres(several lightning fires all converged), and that the year of the fire (2004) Alaska had over 3 million acres burn. It is truly hard to comprehend a burn that large. The sad part is that this area is pretty dry and it will take many generations to come back. The picture above of the hills is the border station with Canada and as far as you can see past the border station it is burned forest. Apperantly, unless a fire is close to a home or structure, they just let it burn and only fight it with air tankers.

When we descended to the town of Dawson City the road ran into the Yukon River. No Bridge. Remember me talking about the Yukon River and how big it is? At Dawson it is still huge and the cost to build a bridge is just too great so they use a ferry. Kinda neat.

We spent the night in Dawson and did some shopping. Imagine Tombstone married to Jerome and made bigger and you get the idea. A lot of history about the gold rush is here. The one most misunderstood is that the Alaska gold rush was really in Canada. Dawson City, where most of the gold was mined is quite a ways into Canada. The best way to get there then was to take the paddle wheeler boats up the Yukon River, which crosses the entire width of Alaska, and there were 30 such boats running the river in it's two year heyday.

June 21st (Thursday I think)

We leave Dawson City headed down Hwy 9 toward Whitehorse. More road construction and yes more gravel. After the dust choking that we took yesterday getting to Dawson City we are ready for the dust to be over for awhile. Voila! it rains on us as we arrive in Whitehorse. Frank and I have hit the two week wall. Fatigue is setting in. We are both drowsy and very sore. Never thought that I could fall asleep riding a motorcycle but could have today. We've been doing roughly 300 mile days the last few days so it's not the mileage, just a lot of time on a bike wears you down.