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Can you tell I brought one book with me?  I’ve now read about twelve pages.  Not exactly a book reading trip.  But at least there’re lots of good quotes in there!

It always gets better.

Dude, stop taking photos. Just get us outta here.

We woke up ready to leave Skagway. In a big way.  It could be a cool town.  It’s not.  At all.  Total, complete, tourist trap.  The cruise ships come in and dump out a bunch of bulging, stuffed wallets and belts.  When these walking suckers leave, everything shuts down except for essential services (which apparently includes two of the worst bars you’ve ever seen).  The buildings are all fake western facades selling the worst of tchotchkes, gewgaws, baubles, trinkets, and kitsch, and somehow, the cruisers are all taken in by it.  “It’s soooo realistic and gold-rushie.  It’s just like being in the wild west.”  Yikes.

Could be cool. It's not.

At one point in the morning, I realized that I was using crappy wifi in a crappy bar below our crappy rooms drinking crappy coffee enduring crappy music in a crappy town listening to some fat crappy guy talk loudly on his phone about shit he did with some crappy (probably imagined) women the night before in some crappy bar (that we were in too!).  Get.  Me.  Outta here.  Crap.

But, we were rewarded with an UNBELIEVEABLE ride along a great, sweeping road perched on a cliff above alien-blue lakes at the bottom of steep, craggly mountains covered halfway up with trees.  We had a tailwind the whole ride, and the sun was shining on our backs.  It was one of those rides when you look down expecting to see the odometer report that you’d gone 30 miles, but in fact it read 60.  They were just ticking off as we enjoyed the views. It was worth enduing a night in Skagway for these miles.  Good call Brad!

I’d say that this was the best riding we’d had yet, but if I did, I think I’d lose all credibility with all three of my readers (but it might have been our best riding yet).  Photographing this landscape is just beyond me and my little Canon Elf (that’s my camera you freaks).  Just can’t do it justice.  But, I’ll try anyway..

Just one of the many views.

If you don't recognize that look, it's one of flabbergastination. New word for a new emotion.

Lakes, mountains, and sky oh my!

A pure road.

Our road on the right. Have you ever seen a road that wanted to be ridden as much as this? You can see it smiling.

From another view.

And yet another. Tired of this yet? Me neither.

Gotta have some black and white action.

Almost done! One more after this one...

Last one! Was it worth it?

Got hit by a rock today in the arm.  Oowwww!  We were on a stretch of road that allowed us to roll up to higher speeds, and as we were passing a huge work truck heading the other direction, it kicked up a violent meteoroid into an orbit in direct competition with Planet Wags.  I was doing about 80, and the truck was probably doing about 65, so I figure that put the rock at about 40-50 coming at me – that puts the missile at a combined 120 as it hurtled through the air on its mission.  Think of a major league pitcher throwing a nice, round, leather ball at max speeds of 95-100, and now compare that to this rock with jagged edges, teeth, elbows, and malice bearing down on me with no way to avoid it.  I saw it coming on, and there was nothing I could do but watch as it threw off it’s tail of light and anger and hate.

When it hit, my whole arm went sort of numb, and I thought, “I’m hit!  I’m hit!”  I just sort of slumped over to the left and waited till feeling came back as I dragged my arm like a useless garden hose.  I was yelling in my helmet from the ridiculous pain. But I was also laughing at the same time as I was reminded me of a time my family was at the San Diego zoo years ago.  Cracks me up now to think of it.  Definitely worth telling here:

We were all wandering around the avian section enjoying the multitude of bird varieties when we hear my dad behind us saying, “I’m hit!  I’m hit!  Man down!”  We turn in shock to see a huge glob of bird shit on the side of his head.  He’d been maliciously eared by some ill-tempered magpie with impeccable aim.  We all obviously lost it as Dad stood there with a lost look of helplessness.  He didn’t even know where to start to improve his situation.  I’ll never forget that look of pleading.  As I rode along with my arm hanging loosely by my side, I found that I was laughing so hard in my helmet that the pain was gone and my eyes were tearing up.  I almost had to pull over.  All was good.  I guess that’s what family is for, and I’m lucky enough to have many of those moments to keep me laughing in my helmet.

One good stop along the way in some funky town that has the train that goes to Skagway.

Forget the name of this train. And the town. Oh well. Just go and see it.

Conductor Brad says "all aboard!!" Then he's confused. "Hey, why won't this thing fly? Is it on rails or something? What the hell? I'll make this thing fly whether it wants to or not. Where's the throttle?" I saw this train fly about three minutes later. Lifted right off the tracks driven by fear of what Brad would do to it if it didn't fly. They're still talking about it in this town I can't remember.

Some of the ride was a repeat of the ride up as we reentered the Alaskan Highway.  And actually, it was kind of nice to ride through some terrain that had already blown us away once.  We could ride and just enjoy without wanting to take a picture every mile or burn it deeply into our brains.  We were alone in our helmets with music and our thoughts.  Or, in Brad’s case, he was just alone with his thoughts.  Sometimes he goes without music and rides quiet.  Yikes.  I don’t think I’d want to be in there for that long.  That’s gotta be a scary place…

Is this the inside of Brad's brain? I think not. I don't see any unicorns.

Clearing customs (for the fifth time this trip with three more to go), we made a beeline for Rancheria where we’d stayed on the way up.  It was nice to pull in and get our same rooms.  Felt like home.  Strange though, when we were here a week ago, the place felt so incredibly wild, remote, and edge-of-the-world.  Now it feels sort of suburban.  Some of that was due to the fact that the weather was very pleasant on our return while it was vicious on the way up, but it’s amazing how quickly human nature grows accustomed to things.  That can be good and bad – it’s always a bummer to lose our sense of awe with the world.  Of course, seeing a moose with her two calves across “our” small pond feeding on grass added back to the wildness.

Hello mamma and babies!

We finished the day deciding that we needed some hand signals for pullovers and such.  I mean, we have like 4 days left on a 21-day trip.  Nice work.  All we’ve come up with so far is the signal for “I have to pee.”  You hold your arm down low and make circles like your arm is the trunk of an elephant.  We apparently have mildly exaggerated opinions of ourselves…

Hey.  Whassup.  Miss me?  Yea you did.  Smile.

Say cheese.

And, our updated trip.  Down to “R” now!  Still so far away!