“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go.  But no matter, the road is life.”  Jack Keourac, On the Road (1958)

“Dude, this might be the coolest fucking thing I’ve ever done.  And I’ve done a lot of shit.”  Brad Lunsford, The Long Way Up (2011)

Wow, lots to tell, and I missed a couple days.  Who knew that wifi would be so spotty in the Yukon?  Well, long post today, but I think it’s worth it with all that happened, so grab yourself a drink (because I’m funnier when you’re drinking) and settle in…  I’m actually writing this in Fairbanks, and we’re hitting the Haul Road to Deadhorse and the Arctic tomorrow, but first I’ll catch you up.

When we last left our intrepid adventurers, they were in Fort Nelson about to leave for

the Yukon.  We join them as they leave Fort Nelson…

I don’t know how to describe today. We got started in the legendary Fort Nelson Hotel.  As far as we can tell, it’s legendary status comes from overcharging and wildly pressured shower heads – one of the many dangers found in this great wilderness.

For the second day in a row, I could swear that my showerhead was the front end of a high-powered pressure washer used to take paint off siding.  I’ve balled myself three times now and nearly face planted each time but managed to stay upright

and not do serious damage. Yes my friends, take it from one with experience – the dangers and risks lurking in the great white north are many and varied.

After recovering and enjoying yet more powdered eggs, we headed out not knowing what to expect from today’s ride.  I only wish I wasn’t so vocabularically (it’s my blog, and I’ll make up words if I want to) challenged and I was able to describe what we rode through today.  Mountain after mountain, vista after vista, the miles fell away like so many leaves from an autumn tree.  Each mile was more spectacular than the last, and I no longer care about the miles.  We’re just riding.

We were blown away by the scenes all day long.  Here’s a glimpse of some of the images we road through.

I only wish I had the skills to do what we were seeing justice – the photos just don’t quite translate the immense staggering, wild beauty of this land.  What I would not have done for a camera with interchangeable lenses.  The elf is great, but it’s really limiting out here.

Rolling through mountains of a scale I have never seen before, we get into the grove when we see handmade sign after handmade sign touting cinnamon buns – and we must stop.

We walk into a dilapidated building surrounded by dilapidated buildings, and we find people sitting around tables.  Waiting for cinnamon buns.  In the middle of nowhere.  Oh yea  So we stop a mountain of a man who looks oddly comfortable in an apron and order one cinnamon bun to split.  He looks at us with disdain and says, “Two strapping young men like yourselves are going to share a cinnamon bun?” Oh shit, if we waffle now, we’ll look like even bigger pussies.  I remember thinking, “just hold your ground Wags. He can smell your fear.” With tails between our legs, we mutter, “Yes sir, one bun please.  Two forks.”  We have just ridden over 3,000 miles on motorcycles to the Yukon, and

this guy looks at us like we’re a couple of girls taking a break from shoe shopping to share a blueberry scone and gossip at Starbucks before waltzing over to Nordstroms to check out the sales. Anyway, we wonder over to a table occupied by a young, friendly looking guy and ask if we can share the table.  I can tell he doesn’t really want to – we have clearly been ostracized from this quadrant of the galaxy, but he reluctantly nods his head.

The bun doesn’t really get delivered to our table – I’d say it landed.  It’s gotta way 3 pounds, and it was worth the mockery.  This thing made the buns at the farmers market in Madison look like second hand leftovers.

This experience was cloaked in an oddness only found in the far reaches, and the entire place had a very surreal aspect to it.

Brad was convinced these people turned back into aliens the second we left.  I’m not certain, but I think they were from Galaxy CB754G Sector 5. We expected to see men in black suits at any moment.

Happily full of sugar and more sugar we head outand start to really experience the wildlife.  Elk, bears, deer, bison, all on the side of the road.  As it turns out, I’m more of a danger to myself than these wild animals are.  We pulled over to get a photo of the first elk we saw, and as I was putting my kickstand down on a hill, in gravel, while trying to keep my eye on the elk, and down came my bike.  Off I rolled into the gulley.  Fortunately, I nailed the landing.  Unfortunately, Brad didn’t get the roll on film, but he was nice enough to stop midway over to me to take a picture of my folly.  It took both of us to drag the bike across the ground and get it upright (it was upside down) by using the hill to our advantage, sweating, swearing, and laughing at the same time.  We looked the bike over and it appeared to be absolutely fine except for scratches on my cases (trashed my New Belgium sticker!), some dirt in the engine guard and minor repair to the hand guards.  Amazing since we had to drag all 700 pounds around in a circle. And those stupid elk didn’t stick around for a photo!  Bastards!

Later in the day, I very nearly repeat this, but with higher stakes.  I see a bear about 40 feet from the road, and I want to get a picture, but I don’t want to pull all the way over because it looks awfully close.  Since no cars are coming, I stop in them middle of the road, but there’s a problem.  I had just pulled out a huge chunk of jerky, stuffed half of it in my mouth, and the other half is in my left hand – my clutch hand.  I get the bike stopped in the middle of the road, barely, but it’s in 6^th gear and I can’t operate the clutch, which slips out of my hand and kills the bike.  Now I’m stalled in the middle of the road in 6^th gear with a bear 40 feet away – and my hand is stuffed with beef jerky! Meanwhile, Brad’s behind me nearly dislocating his shoulder waving me over to the side.  My mouth is so full of jerky that when I try to yell over to him, I just drool all over my chin.  Why I couldn’t drop the jerky is beyond me, but I finally stuff the rest of my fistful into my mouth, get the bike down to first gear and get the machine started again.  Brad is looking at me with that wild-eyed look that so openly says, dude, are you retarded?  I can’t even explain myself since I’m nearly choking to death on half a pound of spicy jerky.  And of course, the bear is gone.  He sort of sauntered off with a disgusted look – like it wouldn’t have been sporting of him to attack such a useless target.  I emerged a lessor man with salty, brown drool down my chest to show for it.  But I saved the jerky.  I’m like some kind of jerky superhero.

Off we went, with no picture of elk or bear.  We’ve now seen so many elk that you may end up having to enjoy the earlier picture of Elroy as we’re not stopping for elk anymore.  I do love the way they run past us with their noses in the air – it looks like they’re strutting their stuff and saying that yea, we may be running, but it’s on our terms.

Road through hail today!  Pretty awesome.  Never done that before.  Come on, that’s sort of exciting.

A few more photos from our incredible riding:

After more unbelievable riding, we made another stop at a roadside “café.” We finally found some Yukon stickers for the bikes, and as I was putting those on my side bag, I noticed that the bag was really loose.  Some investigation yielded the culprit – the structure holding the bag on had failed due to a screw shearing in half.  Uh oh.  We pulled out the tool kit and set to tightening it up as best we could.  It was still looking really precarious, so I got out the bungee cord and got to work.  After some serious McGuyver action, I think I have the thing almost as good as new – maybe better!  Feeling pretty proud of myself, we motored on.

Stopping again in Watson Lake, a lady gave us a great map of the Yukon that I took into

the bathroom and promptly dropped in the toilet and peed on.  It was getting time for me to stop riding.  I was tired.  Then we ran into a guy who’d been on the Dempster Highway up to Inuvik (the other road in North America that penetrates the Arctic Circle), and the water pump on his Kawasaki (water cooled vs our air-cooled engines) ceased up, which was making his engine overheat since it couldn’t get water.  So, after some trial and error, he found a water jug, scavenged some rubber tubing, and created his own water resevoir that he could squeeze with his knee every 40 miles or so when his engine started

to get hot.  All of a sudden, my bungee cord fix on my luggage just didn’t seem too impressive.  Put in my place in the Yukon yet again.  I had done what amounted to putting lipstick on, and he had done major surgery.

We ended the day in a great little spot with a great view.  We met the local pothead, and enjoyed several beers under the moose.  At one point, a Uhaul truck pulled up out front with an advertisement for British Columbia on it.  I said, “why would they advertise a mosquito?”  Brad replied, “ah, dude, that’s a dragonfly.”  “Ah, I need to go to sleep.”

The views from our place:

Long post today, but so much happened.  It was the best riding I have ever done, and so much happened.  I know that I am missing so much, but I’m trying to get it all in there.  I think of the best shit on the bike, but then when we land, it’s gone like a forgotten dream.  I gotta get a recording device to get stuff down.

Surprise!!!!

Oh shit! I forgot to put in the route update!  Here you go: