Day 12

July 31. The only thing to say about this day is that it was just plain strange. You can guess the weather when I left this morning, cold (30s), rain, and fog. After 2 1/2 hours of riding, I stopped to get gas and they had a thermometer and the temperature was all the way up to 41! This was in Tok, the town where that monster 8 miles of bad road started. It goes north from the very edge of town, but because I had taken the Anchorage circle route, I came in from the east and missed it. Turning south, I saw that "Construction next 47 miles" sign and said to myself, Clear sailing now. That long stretch, if you remember, had varying lengths of graded down temporary dirt and gravel roads, as work crews prepared to repave those sections.

But here's the thing--four days of rain turns temporary dirt into permanent slime. And oh boy, is it hard to ride on. There add to be 20 or more of these quagmires and two that were 3 and 4 miles long. I was stopped right by a flagger who told me that even the construction gang's pickup trucks were having trouble getting through. On the second one I could see the oncoming vehicles with a motorcycle right up front. When they started to move that bike started fishtailing within two seconds and down he went. They got him up and he managed to get himself down the road. When I could see him, he was on a Goldwing, with a passenger and a trailer. Pretty dumb, huh?

The pilot car driver waved me to the front of the line. They were putting bikes up front, not to be nice (though it was) but to keep an eye on them so they could get them back upright when they fell over and not hold up the line. He told me to follow him and he'd show me where to go. But hey, I made it through no trouble, except I just about shit myself every 30 seconds or so.

But I made it through the whole 47 miles with no incidents. And on into Canada. (BTW: There is a declared state of emergency in Alaska because of the flooding!)

Here's what your bike looks like after 47 miles of bad road.



So things are moving along now and then I run into this long line of vehicles, stopped with a cop car up front. After a long wait, we started moving, the cop leading the column. When I get up to where he had had the line stopped, there was another line of pickups on the right shoulder and across from then a hundred yards or so of young men (and not so young men) all holding rifles and shotguns. Later I met up with another biker who had asked the cop what was going on. Turns out it was some kind of native American funeral ritual. Some young man had got killed along that stretch of road (how I don't know) and they were shooting off the guns as tribute or something.

I had gone through this section on Sunday, when there were no construction workers present. Now, there was about 5 major project underway along the route.

Then I saw a grizzly bear. I did not even slow down for that guy, a glimpse of one of the beasts in the wild is enough for me.

Now try this on. I needed to take a behind-the-tree pee break. When that happens I look for a sideroad or pulloff so I can get the bike off the road. I found this little dirt road that led back into the woods and through an open gate. Perfect! I went up to the gate, but not through, and found a tree. There was a sign on the gate saying that this property was protected 24 hours a day by camera surveliance. I'm fine, I say, I'm not going in. So I finish up and am adjusting my clothes, when here comes some guy on a miniature skiploader, scaled about the size of a lawn tractor. I don't pay him no mind, but just start walking back to the bike. He drives right up to the gate and stops the machine and just stares at me. I look back a couple times and he just sat there glaring. I must have been some kind of big threat, but how he knew I was there is beyond me. There wasn't any camera out there, so there must have been some kind of motion sensor.

Now, he isn't making any moves, so I figure I can piss him off a little by taking as long as I can to get my gloves and helmet on. And then I slowly get on the bike and sit there for a bit. Then I wave to him, but he don't wave back. He just sat there looking madder and madder. What did he think I was going to do, pack up his farm and bungee it to my fender rack?

In spite of all this delay, I made it to Whitehorse, Yukon, after 520 miles.

Finally, it is going to be cold here again tomorrow, but after that back to the 70s, just as I leave the area. And the long-range forecast calls for 70s and 80s here for the next week.