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Tune in for regular updates throughout the rally.
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| ...and the rest of the story.. | | | Well, it was a short and easy ride down the Parks Highway to Cantwell, where we had hoped to see “the mountain” – we did not. The clouds were thick and there was no wonderful view of Mt. Denali to be had this day. After some excellent food at the “world famous” Denali Salmon Bake we turned onto the Denali Highway and on to the second great gravel section of our trip. The road was mostly in good shape, but a little more washboard than we saw on the Dalton Highway. Scott almost tagged a caribou about half way across, and then I almost hit the same one. It really wasn’t that close of a call – I am sure the caribou was more scared than I was. The riding here was awesome and the scenery was even better. I would definitely like to ride this road again. We spent the night at the McLaren River Lodge. This was a place that Scott had mentioned even before we left Roseau. It was a great place with good food and reasonable prices given the location.
The next morning we got a slow start before riding the remainder of the Denali Highway into Paxson and down to Copper Center where we met up with Jack Gustafson. I knew, or should I say knew of Jack from the LD riders list and I wanted to stop in and put a face with the name so to speak. I’m glad we did, as Jack treated us to lunch and some great tales of motorcycle trips he has made and plans to make. It turns out his business partner was originally from Northern Minnesota and knew many people that both Scott and Tony had grown up with, which made for some lively conversations about life in Minnesota. We continued on down the road to visit some friends of Scott’s, Mike and Chris, who live in Chitna. I really liked this area, and wish we had more than just a couple of hours to spend there. Here we were treated to fresh “Copper River Red” Salmon and smoked red salmon as well. It would be difficult to describe how good that was. We checked out the fish wheels (now this is the way to fish) and we got a tour of the town in the “subway”, Mike and Chris’s suburban.
We pressed on that evening to Valdez to be there for the ferry ride to Whittier the following morning. We rolled into town near midnight only to find that the campgrounds were not worth staying at and the hotels were a bit too expensive. Scott and I settled on sleeping in the gravel lot across from the ferry terminal, and Tony decided that he wanted a bed to sleep in. Tony found an inexpensive hotel on the other side of town, but he wasn’t to keen on the quality. I thought the gravel lot was just fine.
Up nice and early the following morning, Scott and I grabbed breakfast and attempted to used the hot showers at the Harbor Masters Office, but no one was around to sell us the tokens required for the showers. Luckily, there are free hot showers available on the ferry boat. It was a six hour boat ride across Prince William Sound from Valdez to Whittier. Again we were lucky with the weather as the sun was out with a few clouds. The wildlife was out in force. If you were watching closely, you were treated to sea otters, whales, and all kinds of birds. We sailed right through the ice bergs from a calving glacier and even hit a few of the smaller ones. Once in Whittier, we wasted no time getting off the boat and in line for one of the longest tunnels in North America, which is the only way in and out of Whittier by land. It’s a 2.5 mile one lane tunnel that is shared by both highway and railroad traffic. Having the rails running down the middle presents an interesting challenge for motorcycles. We negotiated the tunnel without incident and continued on towards Anchor Point – the western most point in the North American Highway System. After taking a few pictures there, we made our way to the end of the road in Homer, Alaska where we camped for the night on Homer Spit (a narrow peninsula that juts out into the bay. We ate at the Chartroom Restaurant and I had some of the best fish I have ever eaten. Fresh halibut and fresh salmon – it just doesn’t get any better.
The next day it was back north again to meet up with a couple from Roseau, Mike and Sue, that in process of moving to Alaska. We had an extended lunch at Sal’s where the portions were HUGE. From there we were on to Anchorage and up to Palmer to stay with Scott’s friend Donnie. The first order of business was loading Scott’s GS in the back of Donnie’s pickup for the trip in to Anchorage the next morning. This would give us wheels to get back after crating up our bikes. We had dinner with Donnie and his girlfriend Dianna before getting some rest.
In Anchorage the next morning, we headed straight for the Polaris dealer there, Alaska Powersports, where were going to crate up our bikes for shipment back to Minnesota. The excellent staff there went out of their way to help us, and we were grateful for their help. Everything went smoothly, but it still took most of the day to finish the task. Afterwards, we had a late lunch and headed back to Donnie’s to get ready to go fishing for silvers about 80 miles north of Palmer. We fished until well after midnight before we headed back for a few hours rest. We had to be up early to get into Anchorage to catch our plane back to Minnesota. We ended up getting to the airport a little early, so we stopped in to the Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum to see some of the bush planes and history behind the bush pilots in Alaska. It was definitely worth the stop, especially if you like airplanes.
A quick airplane ride later, and we were back in Minnesota, which brings this trip to an end. We rode a total of 5,235 miles and made it to both the northern most and western most points in the North American Highway System and we rode most of the roads in Alaska. Mission accomplished.
Hopefully I’ll get a chance to post some of the 375 pictures I took on here sometime soon.
- Andy
| Andy - 08/25/2008-7:30 PM  Comments (0) View All Status (6) |
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