Last of the cold?

I'm trying to upload photo's and I'm having trouble again... So, there may or may not be photo's below.

Today we made the turn to the south on the Cassiar Highway (37) from the Yukon into British Columbia. It was low 40's, 200' ceilings and a light drizzle, with wet roads again this morning.. seems to be the pattern lately. We hear it's in the 80's in southern B.C. it's in the 40's here.. 800 miles.. that works out to 1 degree warmer for every 20 miles we go south!

The Cassiar is not nearly as developed as the Alaska Highway.. trees and foliage are right o the edge of the road in places.. makes it tough to spot critters on the side of the road. And it's a narrow 2 lanes, we've hit about 30 miles total of dirt so far... not gravel, dirt.... There was also some gravel along the way.

Keeping it short again tonight due to limited internet.

Nope... no photo's again... keeps blowing off....

Oh well, maybe tomorrow we'll have a better connection.

Mud, Rain & Cold

Tok, Alaska to Whitehorse, Yukon today. First decent mileage we've made in a while with all of the stopping in Alaska. Temp was in the 40's most of the day, sterted out colder & a bit drizzly, but warmed up to low 50's by the time we got to Whitehorse. We even got to get a peek (small one) of the sun this afternoon!

We're now going south on the Alaska Highway, and we're still seeing incredible scenery.. there just seems to be no end to the beauty up here. Today we saw a very large Moose, just standing on the shoulder of the road ahead. As we approached he headed off into the forest. A while later we saw a pretty large Grizzly just off the shoulder... I'm trying to upload the photo's, but it's been 45 minutes and doesn't seem to be completing the upload.... There may or may not be photo's below when you read this. The lobby computer costs $1 for 10 minutes..... So far I've dropped in 5 Loonies ($1 coins up here) and no way to tell how much has uploaded. I'll put in a couple more, then I'll give up..... Must be a very, very slow upload speed.

And the photo's would be fun to see too..... A couple of mud... I'm mud all over, the bike is really, really dirty... Looks like we've been dirt biking all day.. And I guess we were. Went through the bad area of the highway near the Alaska / Yukon border after it's been raining for days on end.. It was a 40 mile mud puddle.... Lots of the road is just brown, slimy mud... very slippery on the bike. Just have to point the wheel & hang on, it goes where it wants to. And, one of the Grizzly. He was less than 80 feet away I think. We stopped on the shoulder & got a couple shots as he walked along. When we stopped, I left the bike running for a quick getaway!

Just dropped another $1 in the slot... 50 minutes & still uploading the photo's... this is crazy! They must be strapping the packets to carrier pigeons.


Ok, after 55 minutes, the upload blew off..... $6 down the drain... I'll try to upload a few tomorrow if I can.

We're heading south from Watson Lake on the Cassiar Highway through central British Columbia and may not have internet access or cell phone for a couple days, seems to be a pretty remote road.... We hear the first 200 miles is pretty slimy, the the next 550 is pretty good. That willget us to Prince George, BC.....

later!

The turnaround back home.

Well, I tried to upload several really nice photo's, but the internet here tonight isn't working very well... I can only get this one up. Here's a shot of the scenery we've been seeing today.... mountains in front and behind..... And, yes, that's snow all around us.... It wasn't too bad pulling out of Valdez, but we climbed into the mountains and the temperature dropped rapidly. When we got to the Worthington Glacier, the parking lot is directly below, it was really, really cold... and the mosquitoes were really, really big! It's amazing to have large mosquitoes when the temp is in the upper 30's.. We saw 2 large glaciers today, lots & lots of snow on the roadside....



Saw some beautiful waterfalls in the Keystone Canyon.. take a look at Mikes blog (to the left) I think he was able to get a photo's up tonight.

I want to say hi to WB0UKW... bumped into them several times in the last 2 days....

We've made the turnaround and are headed in the general direction of Texas... Taking a different route home, south through B.C. then down through Idaho, not vertain where after that.

Hopefully, we'll get to some warmer, drier weather soon.

Alaska Maritime Highway

What a difference a day makes!
This is the view tonight, a nice glass of wine, and a view out the window that just can't be beat... no dump tonight!

Passing traffic... on the way to Valdez on the ferry, this ship passed us. Looks like an Alaska Cruise is in order.... The scenery is spectacular... We saw whales, seals, sea lions. rock sheep, eagles... just amazing...

I'm using the lobby computer, and this may not be the right photo... There are seals laying all over the flat island towrds the left side (if this is the right one!).

Here's a whale venting, just off the side of the ferry.... I looked & was able to grab a quick shot....

And, the entrance to the harbor at Valdez.... Most of what I saw looked like paintings, not real views.... it's absolutely amazing up here....
My brand new camera is slowly falling apart. The first parts fell off two days ago and more parts have fallen off each day. I only hope I can finish the trip with it. Check out Mikes blog (to the left) with even more photo's. Now, every time I turn the camera off it gives a long beep & displays error messages.... It may not last much longer.

The room tonight is soooo much better.. not that much more expensive, but really nice, the lounge & restaurant are really good... different than the dump last night.

Talked with the cook on the ferry ( really good clam chowder) and he turned up at the bar tonight.. bought him a beer and we chatted for quite a while... His wife came in later, she's a teacher on the west coast of Alaska, teaches native kids in small villages, he's a cook on the ferry line..... what a life they live, we talked for quite a while....

Tomorrow we head north, back towards the Alaska Highway. We plan on heading down the highway, back to Watson Lake, then south on the Cassiar Highway through British Columbia for a while. Then we'll find a road that will drop us out somewhere around Idaho I think...

Today was a good day! Tomorrow they're predicting rain again.....

Rain, rain & cold

We're not going to make it very far down the the Kenai peninsula today.. we're already holed up for the night. It's raining hard enough that we can't see the scenery (or the road), so we went to Whittier & booked space on the ferry to Valdez for tomorrow. There's only 1 ferry a day, and it's about 6+ hours, so we won't get into Valdez until about 9pm. The hotel tonight is pretty much a dump.... The have a grocery & hardware store downstairs, and the building is left over from the US Army, vintage WW II, or slightly after.... The view from the window is of the dump.. appropriate...
To get here, we had to ride through a 3 mile long railroad tunnel. The train is waiting also.... it's 1 lane & changes direction every 45 minutes. Motorcycles go last, just before the train. They say we go last since if we lay the bike down they can get an abulance in afterwards... Couldn't picture it being that bad, but it was pretty interesting. It was slick metal grating between the tracks... the tunnel was just wide enough to get 1 train through, and we had to ride right down the center of the tracks... couldn't let the wheel go over onto the track..... interesting. The train came out shortly behind us....


The scenery must be just incredible on a nice day... The ice and snow is right down to the road here, if only we could see.... With the rain, and the road spray from the other traffic, we can just barely see the road....





Oh well, maybe we'll have a better day on Saturday. No riding tomorrow, the hotel tonight is right at the ferry dock, and the one tomorrow is also right at the dock in Valdez... we won't ride again until Saturday... then we start heading in the direction of home again...

Denali jeep trip.....

We did the Denali Jeep trip today! One of the best parts of the trip so far. Thanks to Nick & Nathan for setting this up for us (hope you guys are enjoying our thank you).. For those who have seen the movie "Into the Wild", this is the trail he walked to get to the school bus... We didn't quite make it back that far, the rivier is running too high to cross, but this is fairly rugged terrain. We didn't see anything but Snow Hares on the way in, but on the way back out, there was fresh bear scat in the road..... We didn't miss the bear by much... The trip was great, pretty rugged jeep trail, and a bowl of beef stew and hot coffee waiting for us in the back country.


This guy is pretty interesting, he lives in a tent at the end of the trail.. a tent, not a cabin, and cooks the stew for the tourists....... worked on one of the Alaskan fishing boats for a while, & now lives in a tent..... The stew was really good! And some more fry bread.... He has no vehicle back there, he's about 18 miles back in the wilderness. No electricity, but a battery operated satellite phone in case of trouble. Those are canisters of bear repellant on his belt... He said he had been hearing "critters" up close all night long...

On the way out, there was just enough break in the clouds to "sorta" see Mt. McKinley ... We saw it better from 200 miles away the other day! That white in the center of the photo is the mountain, not clouds....

More of the trail.... That water is probably 2 feet deep, those were some DEEP holes in the trail.....

Headed south to Wasilla this afternoon.. low 40's and light rain again... I don't think we'll ever see the sun again. I hear it's 100 and dry in Dallas..... We're frozen up here.... I'm back to wearing my winter gear again & still shivering. We stopped at a small roadside cafe & I had 2 hot chocolates before I could stop the shivering.....

Well, up early in the morning and south through Anchorage to the Kenai peninsula. Another day or two and we'll be at the turnaround point & have to start thinking about heading back toward Texas again...... We have a general idea of the route, but haven't made specific plans yet, hope to be able to catch a ferry to Valdez & then back north to the Alaska Highway again ( only 1 highway in & out of Alaska)

Weather says cold & rainy again tomorrow..

Later everyone!

Denali!

We made it to Denali early today, a preety short ride from Fairbanks... Seems like the last 3 days have been short mileage & lots & lots of eating..... Believe it or not, I'm tired of eating!
Here's a shot of us at the beginning of Denali park... Unfortunately, we can never get a shot of both of us.....

And... more beatiful scenery... It's amazing.. every time we round a curve, it just gets better. Lots of snow up here still. Talking to Nick at the jeep tour company, he said it snowed here 3 weeks ago! we have a 4wd jeep booked for the morning, back through the backcountry in Denali park.. hopew to have some good photo's of that tomorrow....

And, just to show how much we're roughing it... here's dinner tonight. Baked Salmon on a cedar plank, King Crab & artichoke dip in a bread bowl, and a beer sampler of the local brews... it's tough being on the road... And the hotel is fantastic.. the desk in the room is over the Nenana River at the park boundry..

Short post tonight, we can only use wifi in the motel office, so we're in a hurry. here's Mike updating in a pretty nice setting.... Not bad!!

Well, off to Anchorage after the jeep tomorrow... more then...