July 09, 2013<\/p>\n
Well, well, well. \u00a0If yesterday was the most challenging day so far, today would be a close second. \u00a0We stayed at a nice B&B in Tok, AK. \u00a0We had a nice relaxing evening, filmed some video recollections of Mr. Dendog and fell asleep pretty early. \u00a0It seemed today was not going to start out perfectly when I awoke @ 5:00 a.m. (local time), to the sound of rain hitting the roof. \u00a0I changed the alarm from 6:00 to 7:00 to let Dendog sleep in a bit and hopefully the rain would be over.<\/p>\n
No such luck. \u00a0We were on the wet roads by 7:45 with rain and a temperature of 11 C. \u00a0The Alaska highway in Alaska is not in great shape. \u00a0Frequent substrate changes, heaves, holes, washboard and all twisty. \u00a0In the rain, it wasn’t much fun. \u00a0We did go through a wild fire area but were fortunate that the fire was far from the road. \u00a0When Canada, the temp had dropped to 6 C as the rain continued. By the time we got to Whitehorse, it was mostly sunny and 16C. \u00a0It felt beautiful.<\/p>\n
We went through a very long section of gravel guided by a pilot vehicle. \u00a0It was decent, but wet gravel isn’t too much fun. \u00a0We hit another section that was pretty loose gravel and my bike just drifted to the wrong lane (no cars were there). \u00a0I just stopped, pointed up the slope and got back on track.<\/p>\n
Dendog’s ratchet strapped Givi pannier held up well. \u00a0The pannier and his ankle are victims of a small “off” he had in the mud the day before on the Taylor Highway (no pictures will ever be shown). \u00a0His ankle is OK (he insists). Upon reflection, I think I didn’t fall due to a combo of the Michelin Anakee 3 tires and the really good Yamaha traction control system.<\/p>\n
We stopped to get gas at the start of Kluane Lake. \u00a0The nice guy at the gas station turned on the furnace for Dendog while I went into the garage, stripped down and put a new layer of 260 wt Merino wool LJs on. \u00a0There was another customer at the gas station at the time. \u00a0He is in the hotel room next to us.<\/p>\n
We have discovered our “waterproof” Rev’It Summit H20 gloves are in fact, not waterproof.<\/p>\n
Kluane: \u00a0Oh my! (cue George Tekai). \u00a0Somehow the skies cleared enough for us to see the lake and a significant part of the mountains. \u00a0Amazing. \u00a0Just amazing. \u00a0We didn’t stop for photo ops as we were cold and tired. Hopefully we have good GoPro video. \u00a0Driving around Kluane is a must do.<\/p>\n
I met a couple of BMW riders in the hotel. \u00a0They are heading up the Dalton to Deadhorse. \u00a0They are getting knobbies installed in Faribanks. \u00a0They didn’t know the name of the Dalton. \u00a0I suggested they watch BWOM: \u00a0Pirates of the Arctic Circle on Youtube tonight.<\/p>\n
We are in the hotel, doing laundry and drying things out on the heater in the room. Not going to be a late night!<\/p>\n
Tomorrow is another long ride down to Muncho Lake. \u00a0We are staying at a Lodge. \u00a0Before we go we have to wash the mud off the bikes, get some air in the tires and book some service in an upcoming city.<\/p>\n
So why so short in Alaska? \u00a0Our goal was to get to Alaska. \u00a0On our way we discovered our pace was too high to have much extra fun. \u00a0So we are taking more time to get back.<\/p>\n
Keep it real.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
July 09, 2013 Well, well, well. \u00a0If yesterday was the most challenging day so far, today would be a close second. \u00a0We stayed at a nice B&B in Tok, AK. \u00a0We had a nice relaxing evening, filmed some video recollections of Mr. Dendog and fell asleep pretty early. \u00a0It seemed today was not going to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alaska-trip-2013","category-motorcycles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Eskg-2Y","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milddogs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milddogs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milddogs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milddogs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milddogs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=184"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/milddogs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":295,"href":"https:\/\/milddogs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions\/295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milddogs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milddogs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milddogs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}