Peenie Wallie

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July 28, 2014

Day 10 - Fort St John (Mile 40) to Toad River Lodge (Mile 402) (Mon 7/28/14)

Above: McDonald Creek in Stone Mountain Provincial Park.

(Mon 7/28/14)

Update: I am alive and well and resting peacefully at the Toad River Lodge at Mile 402 on the Alaska (ALCAN) Highway.

Starting Odometer: 17,532
Ending Odometer: 17,923
Miles Driven Today: 391
Miles Driven This Trip: 3,270

Map of where I went today.

Current Location: Mile Marker 402

Today, I'll drive up the ALCAN Highway, through Fort Nelson, and on to the Toad River Lodge at Mile 402. Fuel stop along the way:

Fuel Stops:
Mile 40 Fort St John
Mile 173 Bucking Horse River Lodge
Mile 280 Fort Nelson
Mile 402 Toad River Lodge

Alaska highwayToad River Lodge km 647.4/mile 402.2 (HM 422). Cabins with kitchenettes are available, reservations recommended. A very nice RV Park, that has full hookups, free satellite TV and Wi-fi. This is an excellent restaurant with home cooked meals. Service station with fuel & repairs. 250-232-5401 855-878-8623

Weather forecast for the ride: Clear and sunny, high of 80 degrees F. Party cloudy in some places.

============================
Revolution Honda 250-263-0334
Fast Tracks 250-787-1930
High Performance (250)785-8125
Artec welding leaving fort st john...last set of lights before charlie lake.
Mile 50 Alaska Highway
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http://youtu.be/g8rDEMezDPg

http://youtu.be/UMOKFLqMTHo

http://youtu.be/cr4NP0y6ZJ0

http://youtu.be/awzj3TUMnXo

OK. So, where to begin. It's 10:00 p.m. and it's still broad daylight outside. So, we'll start with that.

This morning I woke up in Fort St John. I've learned that, if you want to get some distance, you've got to get an early start. That's the key to covering any ground at all. Get your ass out of bed and get rolling. At 8:00 a.m., I'm moving.

I figure out where I'll spend the night. Today, I'll drive 360 miles.
Make a reservation at the Toad River Inn. Plan each of my fuel stops for the day. Check the weather along the route.

Packing my gear. Roll out for breakfast.

The thing that's odd about traveling like this is that you actually spend most of your time in remote, desolate areas, and then occasionally you pass through civilization. So, I think this is different than how most people spend their time. I'd argue most people cling together in these little population clusters for whatever reason.

And when you're back in civilization, you inevitably have this little wish list of things you'd like to pick up. Food. Gas. ChapStik. Things like this. But then, something happens like...you need a new rear-view mirror. (I dropped my bike yesterday and broke one of my rear-view mirrors.)

So now, you have to deal with the mirror issue. Now, I'm through with the whole "task avoidance" issue. I'm way beyond that. Ignoring the problem isn't going to make it go away, and driving without functioning mirrors is so dangerous there aren't words. I'm not that stupid.

So, you go for the shotgun approach. Go online...start searching for motorcycle dealerships. Call them all. No one stocks rear view mirrors, of any kind. So, now I need to find a welding shop. Yesterday, I asked someone and they told me that ArcTech Welding was at the north end of town, so I drive up there and show them my problem.

Like...OK...so we're far enough from civilization that we don't stock parts. For anything. But these guys have the tools to make or repair anything.

Dude welds up my rear-view mirror like a champ. Only problem is that now, it's so loose, it's practically useless. It wobbles all over the place. We try crimping down on it, but nothing works.

Like...I'm fixing to be driving through some of the most desolate forests on the planet. I need to get everything fixed right now and hit the road. Procrastinating gets you nowhere.

One of the things that I've struggled with, all of my life, is that I don't like to impose my will on others. I'm shy, and grew up in the South where you don't want to be rude, no matter what happens. It's all about being polite.

But, the truth is that, you need to tell people what you want them to do. This is never something I've been comfortable with. But now, I'm getting better at it. Normally, I'd just leave there without communicating to the people what I wanted. Or I wouldn't even go there to begin with. But not now. I need him to fix it exactly the way I want it. I'm paying for it.

"Look, dude....it doesn't matter. This is what I want you to do. Just weld it. I don't care."

He tacks the mirror in place so it won't move.

I drive up and down the road a few times to get the mirror where I want it, and he welds it in place. It will never move again, but at least I have a functioning rear-view mirror. The stock KTM mirror on the left has not been behaving well either, so I have him weld it also, just for good measure.

The guy is as cool as the other side of the pillow. Used to live in Colorado Springs. Cuts me some slack on the weld time so when I check out, I only owe like $30 CAD.

Now, I'm rolling up the "Alaskan Highway" as they call it. We're not in the mountains here. More just flat plains and occasionally some mountains off in the distance. Still pretty, but not as striking as the mountains.

Rolling north, I see three guys gassing up as I pass through some little town. Pull in to ask them where they're going, and it's my old buddy Brian...he's the guy that I pissed off back at the hotel in Prince George. I asked him where he was heading and he said "to bed", but then felt bad and left me candy on my motorcycle in the morning.

So, it's Brian and his two sons.

"This is the first time we've ever ridden together," he explains. His two boys are doing a fine job as the 3 of them head down the road. I follow them for a while, but then drop off to take photos and lose them.

At some point during the day, Rachel, one of my head-hunters calls me, but I'm not really into answering phone calls in Canada. A) I'm not really looking for work and 2) It's probably going to cost me eleven hundred dollars to talk on my cell phone from Canada so I just ignore it. Probably, she's calling to say the last client won't pay my invoices and that my phone lines are going to be disconnected and recycled to prevent global warming and feed the starving pygmies in Biafra.

The next group of cyclists I ride with I meet up at some point, and we ride for a bit. Then pull in for gas. We eat lunch at a gas station in Fort Nelson.

There are four bikes in this group. Three guys, and a chick. The chick's name is "Te-Ta". I ask her who's bike she's riding on the back of, but apparently, they've trained her to operate a Harley on her own, somehow.

So, we're sitting out back of this gas station at Fort Nelson. We've all been on the road about 10 days. Only I started in Denver 10 days ago, and these guys started in Key West. I'm like..."Holy Shit! You made it here from Key West in 10 days? WTF?"

Like, here, I think I'm Joe bad-ass, and these guys are schooling me. I'm driving 300 miles a day and they're driving a thousand. They consider 750 miles to be a slow/bad day.

They're on this race, apparently...called the Hoka Hey. It's supposed to raise awareness for some Indian tribe, apparently. I dunno. I'd never heard of it before. But it's a race from Key West, Florida to Homer, Alaska. The first year they did it, some Indian guy put up a $500,000.00 cash prize, and there were something like 600 entrants that paid $1,000.00 entry fee. This year, there is no cash prize, apparently.

Apparently, you can track their location online by their rider numbers here. I was riding with rider numbers 720, 685, 342, and 78. (Update: I just checked...it looks to me like their locations are shown about a day behind. Also, number 78 has had problems with his location tracking since crossing into Canada, for whatever reason.)

The riders all have some time of tracking device mounted on their bike. I suspect it works off of cell towers. They say it works off of satellite. I'm not certain how it works. But, it allows them to track the bikes remotely, somehow.

"Jim....I can't ride a thousand miles in one day," I whine.

"Sure you can," he replies. And, I'm sure that he's right. It would be nice to put up some bigger numbers. I'm going to try riding up to 500 miles a day, or this trip will never end, I'm afraid. But, the problem is that, when you ride too long, you start getting sort of punch drunk. I fall into dull stupor and sort of zone out. It would actually be easy to fall asleep on the bike, I think, if one didn't get enough sleep.

In any event, so I end up riding with 4 people who are in this endurance race. Jim is sort of the unofficial lead, it seems. We're all riding together, and I'm bringing up the rear.

The Alaska Highway is in pretty rough shape. They say there are two seasons up here...winter and road construction. The roads are all torn up, so that you're perpetually waiting at a work crew stop sign or rolling on through clouds of dust from vehicles up ahead stirring things up.

Finally, the Alaska Highway gets to a section that isn't under construction and winds through some really nice scenic mountains, so I wave them off to stop and shoot photos.

Take a few pics of the mountains and the valleys. Some of these shots I just can't pass up. Can't let myself do it.

Then, I race off to catch up with Jim and company. Suddenly, off to my right, a see an animal I've never even seen before. Not clear what it is, but I stop and get some shots of this animal. it looks something like a deer/elk/moose type of creature, but I'm not sure what it is.

Pull up to the Toad River Lodge to find Jim and company getting gas. Everyone is pretty shaken up though because Jim apparently left the road and went down into a ditch. So, I missed this. This happened while I was taking photos of the Sasquatch down the road. I show my photos to some guys standing around. Apparently, it's a Caribou. Neat. I've never seen one with my own eyes before.

So, Jim and company pull out, leaving me alone at the Toad River Inn. There's another guy on a bike here though, and I ask him where he's going.

"To the Arctic Circle," he offers.

"Good. How many miles you ride in a day?" I ask.

"500."

"OK. What time do we leave in the morning?"

"We ride at 8:00 a.m."

"Good deal. See you then."

So, this is good to finally be close enough to my destination that other people are going there and people don't seem shocked when I say "I'm driving to Alaska". Now, instead, they say "Where in Alaska are you going?"

And that's a pretty good feeling. To know that, finally, I'm closing in on my goal.

Photos in the Extended Entry.

Posted by Rob Kiser on July 28, 2014 at 9:46 AM

Comments

Posted by: Jeff on July 28, 2014 at 9:11 PM

Posted by: Rob Kiser on July 29, 2014 at 2:14 AM

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