Our first stop was at Kluane Lake. It was a huge beautiful lake and Risto spotted a trail leading down to some sort of weather reporting station and we were able to get down to the beach with the motorcycles.
Risto made some coffee.
Graham worked on his electric suit controller. We were able to figure out which solder joints to short with a screwdriver to turn the heat on.
After we left there we had an awesome ride through the Yukon. Its a very remote area with a lot of mountains and we stopped frequently for pictures. We ran into some road construction where we took a break waiting for the pilot car. Graham took a nap, I polished my visor, and Risto smoked a cigar.
After the pilot car came we followed it into the gravel construction area. I was in the front of the line and the pilot car wanted us to move to the other lane across a foot high gravel berm. It was real treacherous crossing it and I wondered how a few Harleys behind us would do with it. We found out later that a 75 year old guy wiped out trying to cross it.
It started raining pretty hard but we finally reached the border. Risto and Graham were carrying handguns which made it interesting getting through. The customs official loudly questioned him why he would want to carry a large revolver into the United States of America. The paperwork was in order so they were allowed to continue.
After we crossed the border while we tightened our raingear, a woman we met earlier at gas station riding a BMW pulled up behind us and asked for help because her oil light was on. The oil was a quart low and Risto had a quart that we poured in for her. Everything seemed ok after that so we moved on.
Our first stop was for lunch at a gas station on the Alaska side that was out of gas, or their pumps weren't working.
We had a burger and talked with some other wet bikers. The lady sitting on the bench
shot the bear this bearskin is from
from the back seat of this Cadillac.
We heard that all the lodging was full for a hundred miles each way be we decided to push for Tok anyway. When we arrived there the weather was nice and sunny. There was cell service so we caught up on business.
The Tok campground and the hotels were all full. We were hoping to meet an old friend and go fishing at Valdez the next day so we thought we would drive another 150 miles to Valdez for the night.
The same woman who had low oil at the border pulled up and asked if she could join us for part of the way because she was headed for Anchorage. She was interesting because she was out by herself, returning from Inuvik. She was a tough little lady who rode a motorcycle thousands of miles in awful conditions and was so happy and smiling talking about it.
She followed us to Glenallen. It was 40 degrees and pouring rain and she had problems with her heated jacket on the way. But she hung in there. Wow.
It was getting late and none of us wanted to keep going but there was no lodging in Glenallen available. By chance we got in touch with our old friend Pete who was about 50 miles west of us in an RV campground. He told us to come there for the night so we climbed back on the motorcycles for more cold soggy riding. It was worth it though. He had a cabin warm and a sauna hot for us.
Graham experienced quite a culture shock. Finlanders and saunas.
Tomorrow we would head to Valdez.
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