Thursday, June 28th,2007

Left Calgary and headed south today on Hwy 2. South of Calgary is flat to rolling prairie for mile after mile after mile. Very green, but boring. Thank goodness the wind wasn't blowing. The last time I was on this road 15 years ago it was blowing so hard you couldn't stay on the road. Excellent area for some wind farms, which I saw off in the distance. If it's going to blow anyway, they might as well do something with it, eh? I've been here too long.
We crossed over the border at Carway without incident and headed down to St. Mary to take the east entrance to go through Glacier National Park. Well, mother nature said no. They had a landslide in the Park and were repairing the road so we could not go through. Instead we took Hwy 89 south, and 2 around the bottom and up the west side of the park. The road was motorcycle terrain all the way, tight twisty and fun. Pine forest and scrub oak with a couple of pretty good sized forest fires thrown in.
Near Kalispell we called John and Hayne because we had not heard from them all day. They had left a message on Allen's phone that they had spent the night in Kalispell and Hayne's bike was running well so they would push on today. That puts them almost a day ahead of us which is good because it gives them time to get repairs in Missoula if they need them.
We take Hwy 35 down the eastern side of Flat Head Lake which is really a pretty good sized lake. Mostly Farm and ranch land all the way to Missoula. It's very very hot and we're stripping clothes off as fast as we can. Just as we arrive in Missoula it starts to rain and cool things off. As Frank so sagely says: "It's all a matter of timing".
A few days ago we ran into a motorcyclist who said he talked to one of the Harley riders who was on the Harley ride to Prudhoe Bay. The Harley guy said that the trip turned into a fiasco. The guy talking to us was a little vague so I called up to Prudhoe Bay and talked to the security guy who had given us the tour and he verified that one rider was medivaced out with a broken wrist (one had been hospitalized before we met them at the Yukon gas stop) a total of 17 Harleys were made inoperable, 6 being taken to Prudhoe Bay, tied to pallets and hauled out, and the rest being taken out by their own chase vehicles. Never could get a firm figure on how many made it in and out on their own power. Really too bad because they were doing this as a charity run and had good intentions. Wonder if anyone in Georgia will have a fund raiser for these guys to help defray the costs of the trip.
Because this day was pretty uneventful I would like to take this opportunity to have some fair and balanced blogging. I've had great fun at Allen's expense (he provides a target rich environment). Out of fairness to Allen I must confess my own faux pas. It starts with my decision to leave my electric vest at home so I would have room for the computer. BIG mistake, which was rectified in Spokane with a new vest. It's amazing what you can cram into a bag when you are truly motivated. Having to replace the tire in Prince George was only partly my fault in that one of my reasons for going down to Nogales was to stop in at Iron Horse BMW and get their opinion on the mileage left in the tire. They thought it would make it to Anchorage as well, so 50% mine. ( You should always have new rubber for a trip like this especially on Canadian roads). One Allen doesn't even know about but out of candor must be revealed is that you should not go to the motel desk and complain that their wireless Internet service does not work unless you have put the wireless card into the computer first. Oh and then there was the gas can incident coming out of Coldfoot. You see, I had carried the empty gas can from Anchorage to Coldfoot, probably 500 miles, with one fourway bungee cord. Well, in Coldfoot we filled the cans because this was the leg that I couldn't make without more gas. I soon discovered that a full gas can needs more than one fourway bungee cord to hold it. I am so keyed up about this last leg of the trip north and excited about the perfect conditions of the dirt that I'm not really paying much attention to details. As I take off from Coldfoot, John chases me down and points out that my gas can is not where it is supposed to be. I turn around and sure enough it's not on the rear rack so I assume that it fell off and go back looking for it. About two miles back to Coldfoot is covered quickly and no gas can. I'm assuming that when it fell off it must have rolled into the bushes along the side of the road and slowly work my way back looking on the side of the road for the can. When I get to where everyone is waiting for me scratching their heads wondering what I'm doing, they begin pointing to the rear of my bike. I finally see that the full gas can is dangling behind my bike held up by the bungee cord looking for all the world like a modernistic red dingleberry attached to the back of a German transformer. Well, that was my impression anyway. An embarrassing few minutes is spent rectifying my bad judgement while my friends have great fun at my expense. Ok, so there you have it, fair and balanced reporting.