Day 10

July 29. Taking a down day. Went to the HD dealer and got the oil changed. Took an hour and a half and then they offered to wash it for free, so I said OK. Turns out it's some kid getting practice. Took another hour and a half, and was dirtier that it usually is before I clean it. But the kid was so proud of himself, all I could say was good job. Plus it was a lot cleaner than when I took it in and the price was pretty good.

I met a couple of guys there who had brought in their Beamers for emergency repair. (This shop is a combo HD/Victory/BMW/Honda/Polaris dealer.) One guy was from Michigan. He had some kind of electrical problem. The other was from Daytona Beach and his bike wouldn't even start. Cost him $600 to get towed about 100 miles. While we were all sitting around telling lies, in comes a woman on another Beamer. Hers wouldn't shift.

Even given the high ratio of BMWs to Harleys you see on the Highway (we cool guys just say "The Highway" instead of "Alaska Highway), isn't it odd that all of the bikes coming in for repair were Beamers? And odder that those guys were shocked that I'd crossed that nasty stretch yesterday on a Harley. Yeah, but aren't your Beamers being the bikes repaired?

Saw something I'd never seen before in the service area: A Hell Angels full dresser. You could tell whoever owned it was a real badass though, because he had a rack for a radar detector attached to the handlebar.

I'm to the point where I'm making up itinerary on a day-by-day basis. Yesteday I had decided to bag Denali because of the weather, but now I think I'll give it a shot. One benefit would be that getting back from there avoids that 8 miles of bad road I talked about yesterday. It's going to rain the next four days no matter which way I go, so why not?