July 6, 2010

We are camped at Laird Hot Springs. We went down and sat in them for an hour. They remind me of the bubbling hot springs at Yellowstone. The water bubbles up at 142 degrees in this big pool. They have steps going down into it about 8 locations. You start at the lowest one where the water is about 100 and then work your way up to the hot end as you get acclimated. When I got out I thought I was going to faint! I am planning on sleeping very sound tonight.
We had a great ride today. Sunshine all day long. Went across the northern Rockies. Spectacular scenery. We saw 2 bears, 2 moose, about 100 mountain sheep, and a chipmunk. I learned a new biker dude skill today: how to pick your nose while riding a motorcycle. It is harder than your think because you are wearing gloves and you can't pick your nose with gloves on. Talking the left glove off is easy. You just pull on the fingers of the glove with your teeth. Once off you push the glove under your right leg with your left hand so it won't blow away. If you don't get it shoved under far enough it will be gone. I know. Now your left hand is free to clean out the bugs and dirt that has accumulated for awhile in your nose. Now comes the tricky part: getting the glove back on the left hand while the right hand is steering and keeping the throttle open. Retrieve the glove from under your right leg if it hasn't already blown away. Take the thumb of your right hand, hold the edge of the glove against the handlebars while you continue to keep the bike going.

July 5, 2010

Whooeeeee!!! Woke up this morning to blue skies. Thank you Jesus!! Stayed last night at Pink Mountain Campground. Real manly place. Lots of RVs that are here for the summer with guys and families that are working on the road. The Alaskan highway constantly takes upkeep. The locals here got quite a kick out of me. The sign in the shower said it took one Looney for 5 minutes of hot water. A Looney is a Canadian dollar. You probably knew that but I didn't. I did finally get a nice hot shower.
We rode almost 4oo miles yesterday and got into camp at 9:30 and boy am I dragging this morning. Riding about 350 today and we will be staying at Laird Hot Springs. Supposed to be real nice. I have been missing my hot tub! Probably will be in more road construction today. Hope we don't get in at 9pm again, but I am not grumbling or whining! Hope to see more wildlife today.
Yesterday Glen was trying to put his rubber boots on over his shoes and while he was standing on one foot he lost his balance and fell over on his bike and knocked it over. Bent the brake handle. Took both of us to lift it back up. I am still getting to know Glen so I am kind of feeling him out to see how much ribbing I can give him about that one.
We are having a great time in spite of the weather. Challenges and near death experiences are what make life fun. Hope you all have some fun today.
...OK I guess the gloves come off. Glen has been razzing me about the fact that I said it was 350 miles to Pink Mountain and it turned out to be 390 miles. 10% error he said. Ex-engineer types.
I may be in trouble today. I put my gloves in the dryer to dry out and they shrank. Hopefully they will stretch back out before I lose all feeling in my hands wearing them. Oh the trials of a biker dude!

July 4

Went to church this morning at a little Baptist church outside Prince George. We decided that if we saw a church between 10 and 11am as we rode we would go. About 40 people; really had a good time. Felt a little consipicuous because everybody was dressed nice and Glen and I came in with our motorcycle clothes on. Generated alot of conversation. Rained all afternoon super hard and super cold. Lady at a store we stopped at said whe thought it was going to snow. I was froze to my inner organs!
Saw a bear and a moose today. Lots of bikers and it is fun to talk with them at the gas stations and viewpoints. One guy was from Missouri. We all whined about the weather. At one of the viewpoints I took my helmet off and set it on the back of the bike while I took some pictures and talked. There were a bunch of little gnats flying around and they got into my helmet. After I put it on and started riding they started biting me. I about ran off the road trying to scratch them. Awful experience. That happened to me on my ride last year, in Mississippi I think. I think I will spray the inside of my helmet.
Tried to spit today with my face shield down. Real messy. Gotta remember to put that thing up when I get the urge to spit.
Glen installed his windshield on his bike too high so he has to look through it instead of over the top like I do. No problem when it isn't raining but once it started raining hard he couldn't see. So I rode in the front and he followed my tail light. Lots of excitement for one day.

July 4, 2010

Rained hard all night. My bowl that I left on the picnic table was half full of water. My tent does good unless it gets alot of water underneath it. I left one corner of the tarp I put under the tent outside the tent and water ran down the tent fly onto that small piece left out and ran under my tent. My pants and shirt that were rolled up in the corner of my tent were wet. My pad is plastic so only the foot end of my bag got wet. Got up to take a hot shower because I was so cold and I had forgotten to put my towel away so it was wet. Looked around for Glen's to steal, I mean borrow, but he was smart and took it into his tent with him. So I unrolled about a mile of paper towels in the shower room and used them. A man's gotta do what man's gotta do! The campground has a laundry room so everything is getting dried with $5 worth of quarters. I am writing this as I sit on a nice chair in the warm laundry room. Looks like the rain has stopped. Praise the Lord!

Beautiful weather today. Sunny but not to hot. Holiday here in Canada. Their Forth of July is the First of July so no road construction for the last couple of days. Nice. We only road 310 miles today because we had to stop every 20 miles. We had stopped this morning at a stand and bought a little box of cherries and had some home grown apple cider to go with them. Whoooooeeeee. Fresh cherries and apple cider must not agree. We stopped at every store and gas station after that for most of the day. I am still not feeling to good. We are camped near Prince George at a nice campground with a heated pool. I am going to go for a swim as soon as I get done typing this blog. My freeze dried dinner tasted really good tonight. Glen has freeze dried dinners as well. He forgot to take out the little oxygen absorber and when he started chewing on that he thought his freeze dried dinner might be out of date!! Have been meeting lots of nice people along the way who are interested in who we are, where we are from, and where we are going. Another motorcycle rider camped right next to us tonight and we swapped tales. Well tomorrow we are headed for Pink Mountain, about 350 mile ride. We will be going over the Rockies which will mean lots of curves and hills and also some beautiful scenery. Saw a black bear cross the road today and also say two nice bucks. Tomorrow we should see some Buffalo, caribou, and some more bear. Love ya

We are camped tonight at Spence's Bridge in British Colombia about 300 miles South of Prince George. We rode about 330 miles today. We wanted to ride 400 but we got delayed over an hour by an accident. Two motorcycles collided with a pickup. Not sure of the details. A helicopter was parked in the road. It happened about one hour before we arrived on the scene with traffic backed up. We finally got let through and two bikes were still laying in the road pretty mangled. Caused me to ride the rest of the day extra cautious. We got delayed about one hour while we were getting some lunch. The restaurant was really slow. I grumbled a bit about it, but if we hadn't we probably would have been there right when the wreck happened and we might have been in it. I think God was working that one out. I will find out for sure when I get to heaven. Glen lost one of his bags off the back of his bike today. Bungee cords!! I was riding behind and thought he had run over a tire fragment. I thought to myself, Glen needs to watch where he is going. It isn't good to ride over those tire recaps, you could get in a wreck. Then I thought, maybe that came off the back of his bike. I signaled for him to stop and sure enough he lost a bag. He might have been kind of cold if we hadn't found it. We came to this camp sight and there were literally hundreds of motorcycles. There was a big off road motorcycle rally. There was a camp sight left for us and now we have crazy motorcycle riders all around us. Even got hamburgers for dinner at their barbecue. Great weather today. Hoping for more of the same tomorrow.

First Day Out

First day on the road to Alaska is over. Camping at Lake Chelan in Northern Washington-very beautiful. I rode 448 miles today. Rained over the Cascades and once I started north on hwy 97 the wind blew terribly hard. Felt like I was riding a horse instead of a motorcycle. Met up with my riding partner here at camp. Glen Douglas. He is 58, almost as old as I am but with way more hair. Married to Mary with three daughters; the youngest is in High School. Glen was an engineer for years and became an associate pastor near San Francisco where he stayed for 11 years. He started a church from scratch 5 years ago in Port Angeles, WA. I thought it might be wise to have someone go with me on this trip. I prayed about who for several months. Glen is in one of my pastor accountability groups. He expressed interest when he heard about it and so here we are riding motorcycles together to Alaska. I believe we will have a very good time.