More Travel pictures

[Arcticdude]

Yes, I'll bet they are. We had about 450-500 miles of dirt in our trip. Everything from wet sand slurry heading through Canada on the Alaska-Canadian to the hard pack in Alaska to loose gravel covered in calcium carbonate on the Dalton. The slurry was fun because you rode in the ruts of the semis and rv's. Your tires were well below the water level and often your footpegs were even with the top of the ruts.

The wife had this "lovely fellow" in a class C trying to push her up the road in that stuff. The traffic ahead stopped quickly and so did she. The C locked up its wheels getting stopped. We drove off, yet the C remained. It had pushed enough of a sand pile up stopping, it couldn't get going again. Couldn't have happened to a nicer fellow!

Running the Dalton, it had been raining a bunch. The calcium carbonate is put down for dust control, but becomes very slick and sticky when wet. Coming southbound, my bike starts drifting to the right and isn't wanting to respond to inputs. It finally stops as the rear wheel dropped off the berm, so it's resting on the left saddlebag. The wife is coming up on me thinking about "how smart I must be and so talented to be able to slide the bike to the very edge without going over"! Mind you she's doing all of 5 mph as she pulls up beside me thinking she's stopping! As she slides on past, I see her tires covered in about an inch of muck, with the front fender shaving it off as she rolls on by, feet down no less. Funny how the train of thought went from "what is that super intelligent handsome young fellow doing" to "oh crap, how do you stop this thing!!"

The highlight of that run was probably the fellow at the Yukon river gas station, cafe, motel, service center and emporium. He gave us all kinds of stories about people having to be airlifted out after selling their bikes and belongings after a crash on the highway. He was rather crestfallen when we returned without so much as a scratch. At that time, about the 5 miles or so before the Arctic Circle wayside were paved. It was really wild to be blasting along at 70-75 mph at the circle after putting for so many miles.

It was a neat trip, to say the least.