Friday, June 18

I'm pretty sure we made it to the wild, wild west. We're in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada. It is definitely a rough town (also, very busy - of course, there's absolutely no other towns around here). We walked past a bar on the way to our restaurant, and we about got blown over by the smell of marijuana coming out of the bar. Rough looking crowd at about all corners. Yikes! Good news is that our hotel has special accommodations for motorcycles - they have an underground parking garage for them so they're safe. I chose wisely when I chose this place.

Another day almost identical to yesterday - I thought we were through the mountains yesterday, but shazam, there we were back in the midst of snow-capped mountains, forests, and just gorgeous scenery. The only difference today would be more water - lots of mountain-top lakes (one of them was 52 miles long, and we only drove next to it for half the distance) and pools of water surrounded by marshes where the moose like to hang out. It was beautiful. Got skunked today in the wildlife watching department, though - but, with such amazing surroundings, it didn't matter that much.

Slept great last night - had a clean, "normal" hotel - so didn't have to keep one eye open all night and my nose could take in the sweet smell of nothing (as opposed to musty/smelly) all night long. Could actually put the TV on this morning and watch the weather - WOW, technology is great!

I'll let Duane go into detail about the ride/road itself - I'll talk about the food! The prices for food in restaurants in Canada is ridiculously expensive. At Subway, we ordered a 6" turkey sub, a 6" cold cut sub, a package of chips and two drinks and the price was $17.50 Canadian money ($17.00 US). For breakfast Duane had two pancakes and two eggs, I had a bowl of oatmeal, 2 coffees and one orange juice and it was $21.00 Canadian. Ouch! I guess they have to pay for all their social programs somehow. All the food is that expensive. It's crazy. As long as we're talking about food, I'll tell you where we went for dinner tonight. We went to Klondike Rib & Salmon Barbecue. Duane had Musk Ox Stroganoff and I had Wild Caribou Stew. Both were absolutely delicious. I was surprised that the caribou was actually gamier than the musk ox, but neither was really overly gamey tasting. As I said, both were great!

Short blog today (don't you all send me a comment how thankful you are that it's shorter). I'll let Duane take over. We are just thankful for this experience, for all of you checking in and for your prayers.

Gayle - BOTB

OK FOTB's turn,

Now for an update on the bike, (OK Eric?) the beemer is running great, one small problem with an incompetent driver, (me) a REALLY bad parking lot, lots of potholes and loose gravel. Anyway, I was patiently waiting for my "spot" at the gas pump, and did not realize that there was a pothole under my right foot, my turn came and I attempted to put my right foot down, the ground was not where it was supposed to be, and when I did locate it, my foot kept right on moving, thanks to the loose gravel. All in all, it set down "softly" on the highway peg, which promptly got the snot bent out of it. (Oh, and I, Gayle will add, on my lower leg, but that came out fine also.) We set the bike up, no harm, no foul. If that's the worst that happens, we'll be just fine!

OK, now for the canadian roads. Since we left Ft. Nelson, (about 350 miles from the start of the ALCAN) the next 530 miles have been "seal coat". With that process, they put really heavy oil on the road and spread 3/4" rocks on it about 1" to 1 1/2" thick and you ride on it until it turns into the canadian version of "asphalt". When you ride on it at 65 mph, it feels like a really hard, packed, stone road that is a little "tracky", not smooth at all, just coarse and tracky. That's the best I can do to explain it.We have had about 20 miles of the fresh sealcoat, and let me tell you, it is an interesting experience riding on an inch of gravel/rocks.

Average today was 42.4 mpg. Not bad with a full load and 65 to 70 mph. Last night we stayed at the Airforce Lodge in Watson Lake, it literally was built in 1942 to house US Airforce personnel when they built the road. It has 16 rooms and last night 14 of them were occupied with motorcyle riders, I counted 2 Goldwings, 5 Harleys and 7 BMW's. The majority of bikes we saw today were BMW's.

That's it for today, 400 miles tomorrow, with "frost heaves" in the permafrost for the last 150 miles! Yippee!