Bertha Takes One for the Team.

June 27, 2010

Day one on the Dalton Highway (driving), we departed Fairbanks around 1:30pm after picking up some final supplies.  The Dalton Highway is roughly 70 miles outside of Fairbanks and you know it as soon as you hit it.  The pavement ends and the wild ride begins.  Dirt, rocks, mud, rain, and semi’s-it is everything that I thought it would be and then some. 

About 95 miles into the 480 mile trip to Prudhoe Bay, the van was taking a beating, so much so, that when we hit one of the many bumps/potholes/craters/who knows what the hell that just was, we blew out one of the back windows in the van.  I pulled over to investigate the damage… no bueno was the verdict.  We sat by the road for a long time considering what to do.  The problem was that we were already almost 5 hours outside of Fairbanks, for those of you thinking it; you cannot drive very fast on the Haul road so it takes a considerable amount of time to go a short distance. After a long deliberation, we decided to duct tape it and continue on.  Hopefully, that does not prove to be an error in judgment later on. 

Seeing this place and believing it are too separate things.  I have been taking lots of pictures, but I doubt that I will be satisfied with any of them.  Even extraordinary pictures do not give justice to what you are actually seeing.

Atigun pass is simply the most frightening pass that I have ever been over.  Before the ride I told myself, how bad can it be they drive trucks over it in the middle of winter.  Well let me just say that Azure and I both have a whole new respect for the drivers on the show Ice Road Truckers.  Its is going to be very telling of my training to see how my legs handle it 144 miles into the ride.  I guess it will be nice just to get over it and have it behind me.

We decided to call it a day at about 12:45am the sun was directly in my eyes and making it very difficult to see.   This isn’t a road that you try and push the limits on so we stopped and set up camp but are currently confined to the van as a result of the mosquito population out here.

We still have about a 3-4 hour drive in the morning (144 miles) but I plan on starting to ride in the afternoon.

Leaving Fairbanks

Well today is the day.  I wanted to get one last post in before we head out of Fairbanks.  We just finished picking up some last minute supplies at the grocery store and sports store, and as soon as I get this posted we are heading out to tackle the Dalton Highway. 

I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t scared.  Since I started planning this trip, I knew that the Dalton Highway (the Haul Road) was going to be the most challenging and the most dangerous.  As a result of the weather it also has to be the first segment of the trip.  Azure has been reading my posts before I put them up, but I am going to keep this one to myself.  I know that she is nervous as I am, but I feel like she needs me to be confident to reassure her.  The terrain on the Haul road will be some of the hardest that I will see all trip, oh yeah and it’s a dirt/gravel road that is usually only traveled by semi trucks headed to the oil fields, and then there is the wildlife.  I am carrying bear spray for Azure’s piece of mind, not mine.  I know that if a grizzly decides I look tasty, that number one Lance Armstrong couldn’t out pedal it, and two all that the bear spray will do is add a bit of seasoning to Mr. Bear’s lunch. 

Hopefully, all of the wildlife we will see will be at a distance. Although, I will say it happened to me when I live up here and I am sure if I have another encounter it will happen again.  When you meet a superior predator their element, wild and free, it is a life changing experience.  I have never felt so scared and so alive in my life as I did the time that I came across a brown bear in the middle of the woods on the Kenai.  It was majestic, intimidating, and beautiful all at the same time.

But the time has come, Azure is finished with packing the groceries and I can see her walking this way, so I have to wrap it up.

Nervous, scared, but really, really excited all rolled into one. One thing is for sure it’s going to be a wild experience. The next time we will be able to post will be upon our arrival back in Fairbanks with approximately 8 days of mountains and 500 miles of riding under my belt or bibs as the case may be. 

It has been awhile.

Well sorry that it has been since Seattle that I last posted.  We pushed really hard to get to Alaska as fast as possible on the way up so we didn’t have time to stop at any of the internet cafés that we saw.  There were three of them.  So unfortunately that means that it is going to be very difficult to regularly update the blog on the way back down while riding.  But at the very least I should be able to post once or twice a week.  The plan is going to be pretty simple, I am going to write a blog everyday whether or not I can post it and when we can get on the internet I will post what I have.  So that being said, here is what has been going down the last few days, enjoy.

6-20

Northward Bound

Well after a great visit in Seattle with my Aunt and Uncle we shoved off early morning only 15 minutes behind schedule, it seems we’re getting better.  Being that it was father’s day I called my Dad.  I am still amazed that my father has been so supportive of this entire endeavor.  I feel like if most men in a similar situation would have had a much different reaction.  That they would have lectured them on how it was irresponsible and childish.  My dad simply said to me “Follow your dreams son, in your heart you know what you need to do.”  Although I don’t really know why I am surprised he and my mother have been extremely supportive of all of their children, throughout our lives.  They have always worked hard to provide for us the best way possible and lead us down the right path.  But at the end of the day they have always let us make our own decisions, and been supportive of them, even if they don’t agree.  For that I am eternally grateful, Happy Father’s Day, Dad!

            As we were getting close to Seattle the GPS that we had bought for the trip decided to die.  No big deal though, learning from past mistakes I had purchased the extended warranty.  We stopped at Sears and they exchanged the unit for us, even though if you read the fine print you are actually supposed to send in a request and get a gift certificate in return, redeemable for you new unit. 

            We crossed the boarder into Canada without much incident.  They confiscated my bear spray, apparently you can buy it in Canada and you can carry it in Canada, but you can’t bring it across the boarder.  If someone can enlighten me on the logic here, I’m all ears.

            After stopping for some groceries, we headed on and enjoyed a three hour sunset near Prince George, British Columbia.  The stuff that you see while on a trip like this truly makes you stop and look around and appreciate the creation we live in.

6-21

Wild Beautiful British Columbia

We covered a decent amount of ground on our first day from Seattle.  I was getting tired so we stopped in between Prince George and Dawson Creek (mile 0 of the Alaska Highway).  We woke up early, Azure not being used to the fact that the sun sets late and rises early even in British Columbia.  We broke out the camp cook set for the first time on the trip and made some breakfast.  As we were making our breakfast several people stopped to talk with us, and see what we were doing.  Bertha is quite the head turning van.  Every time I am in Canada I am always amazed at how nice everyone is, and how genuine they are, we received our first Canadian donation from a gentleman that stopped to speak with us.

B.C. License plate reads “Beautiful British Columbia” and they have signs all around the province that read “Super, Natural British Columbia” and let me tell you what, they are pretty accurate. On our drive the second day, we saw a ton of wildlife; 5 times we saw Black Bears for a total of 7 (one was a sow with 2 cubs), 1 moose, 8 wild horses, Woodland Buffalo on 7 different locations for a total of 16, 1 Bighorn Ram, and last but not least 1 chipmunk.  Not to mention the picturesque views all day long.   Sometimes when you are living in the city for a while you forget how much uninhabited land there actually is in the world.

About half way thru the day Azure noticed some very weird red spots on Jackie.  We tried to stop and see a vet in the biggest town we were going to hit until Anchorage.  Unfortunately, the vet only comes to Fort Nelson, B.C. once a month.  We decide to push thru and drive as far as we could so that we could get to Anchorage and get her seen. 

 

6-22

Gaining Ground on Anchorage

We knew that we needed to get to Anchorage, but we also were aware of how far away we were.  We plowed thru a ton of miles, and made it to Whitehorse, Yukon pretty early in the day.  We stopped for some fuel and as we were leaving town, had a rock explode the windshield.  Luckily it struck the side of the windshield, because it had so much force that it actually sent glass flying into the cabin on my lap.  Knowing that there was nothing much we could do about it until we hit Anchorage we kept driving and hoped that it wouldn’t leak if it rained. 

            We pushed thru and after talking to a buddy of mine in Anchorage decided that I could make it that night.  We were farther away than he thought, but his “oh sweet, so you’ll be here tonight” gave me the ability to power thru, and we got to Anchorage around 1:45am after about 18 hours of driving.  The funny thing is that he neglected to tell his girlfriend that we were coming, thanks Schwabe.  Lucky for us ,Lisa is super cool and was very accommodating.

6-23

A day in Town

So after we stormed the castle the night before we spent the day running a ton of errands in Anchorage.  We had a massive list of things that we needed to plow thru most importantly getting the dog to the vet to have the rash looked at.  Usually I would have waited to see what if anything would happen since the dog was acting normally but seeing as we are going to be without access to a vet for a long time we wanted to take her in.  Turns out they were just horse fly bites that has swelled up and looked a lot worse than they were. 

We cut short our errands , after 7 hours I was done so we headed back to Lisa & Greg’s to have some dinner before heading out.  They have an awesome deck and back yard so we sat outside and had burgers, it was truly a great time.

My poor planning meant that we had to leave because we don’t have a lot of time before we need to start heading to Prudhoe Bay and I wanted to head back to Cooper Landing to see old friends and show Azure around. 

6-24

The majestic Kenai Peninsula

After I graduated college I moved to Cooper Landing, AK on the Kenai Peninsula.  I was only supposed to be up here for three months but stayed for two years.  It’s just something unexplainable about this place.  I told Azure that it makes no sense because I was only here for two years but I honestly feel like I am home.  This place will do that to you I guess, we have only been here for less that 48 hours and it’s going to be very hard to leave. 

We met up with an old friend who is currently guiding on the Kenai river and after already rowing a trip earlier today he offered to take us down.  This wasn’t going to be a big deal for me as I have been down the river dozens of times while I lived here but I knew it would be great for Azure.

I forgot how much I love this river though and I think I probably enjoyed it more than anyone.  It was a beautiful Alaska evening; we saw dozens of bald eagles and eagle nests, a black bear and a brown bear that was fishing for some salmon.  We never even put a line in the water but it was still an amazing trip.  Best of all we got to meet Rachel, Adam’s fiancé. Like all of my friends myself included, I have no idea how he got her to agree to marry him, but hell I still can’t believe that Azure married me.

It’s been since Mt. Rushmore that something obscenely ridiculous has happened.  So I guess I was about due.  After we got back from the river, I was showing Adam the van.  Let me actually back track for a moment.  After the Mt. Rushmore incident, my Uncle felt that it would be a good thing for us to have a fire extinguisher on board.  Seeing as I had almost blown up a KOA, I agreed.  The only thing is that some time during the drive from Seattle to Alaska the pin somehow came out, Azure insists that it wasn’t her, I know it wasn’t me so that only leaves Jackie, guess I should have bought her that Frisbee she wanted.  So as I was showing Adam the van, the fire extinguisher fell out and landed on the ground upside down and since I was trying to catch it, I was directly over it when it struck the ground, it blasted me in the face with fire repellant.  As I was choking on the stuff and Adam was dying laughing, I was thinking “damn it I am going to have to put this on the blog” So I am sure you’re all getting a good laugh, as you should. Unfortunately there isn’t a picture of me covered in yellow fire repellent, but I’m sure you can imagine.

Unfortunately the time has come and as I sit here next to Kenai lake writing the last few days of blog posts, I know that when I finish we will be leaving this amazing place.  However, Azure seems to really like it here so hopefully we will be back. 

It is a grand adventure that we are heading out on, actually its been an adventure already I can’t wait to see what will happen over the next few months.  I am going to try really hard to update the blog as often as I can but bear with me in some of the places we will be over the next few months people don’t even know what the internet is.

Seattle A Breath of Fresh Air

We arrived in Seattle Thursday evening, and the weather has been beautiful since our arrival.  My Uncle and Aunt have been unbelievably hospitable.  We have been eating gourmet meals morning, noon, and night.  I told them that if they continue to feed us like this we may for go the entire trip ride 7000 miles around the Seattle area and call it a day.  That would probably be fine by Jackie. She and my Uncle’s dog Euro have been hitting it off in a big way.

Riding in Seattle is a new experience, in a very good way.  I come from a riding environment in Virginia where it’s not uncommon to have someone throw something out of a moving car at you just to see if they can hit you.  Honking, cars swerving, not giving way and pushing you off the road are not uncommon experiences.  The thing about Virginia Beach is that there is a huge population of cyclist so you would think that it would be a safe place to ride.  Here in Seattle there are bike lanes on nearly every road, where there aren’t bike lanes the cars are extremely considerate.  There are hills, winding turning routes, great roads and friendly drivers. It is a cyclist’s paradise, or at least a paradise in comparison to VB.  The ride that I took yesterday and the one today were two of the most enjoyable rides I have ever been on.  So to the drivers of Seattle and politicians who approved the bike lanes and paths, Thank You, your City is a joy to ride in.

The new bike that my family bought for me arrived this morning and like a kid at Christmas I tore open the box and began to assemble it.  A few of the pieces were missing but that’s what happens when people have to rush mix and match parts to get you the biggest cyclo-cross frame that Cannondale makes.  Luckily the guys at Gregg’s Cycle inc., a local shop here, were very helpful and quickly pieced some stuff together for me.  My new bike was amazing, I can’t wait to get to Alaska to start riding it.  Well that’s all for now I have to hit the haystack, because we are leaving first thing in the morning to try and get across the border and cover some serious ground tomorrow.

Sitting in Seattle

The ride had a big milestone yesterday, and I haven’t even gotten on the bike yet.  As we were passing Missoula, Montana we stopped to get breakfast and some fuel.  As I was inside getting our food, a woman stopped and spoke with Azure.  She suggested that we call a local news station and tell them what we were doing.  Azure jumped on-line to look up the number and it turns out that their lead story was a sad one.  A local teen had committed suicide the previous day.  We called the station, and sure enough they had us over to do an interview. There is a link below to the story. 

http://www.kpax.com/news/couple-prepares-cross-continental-bike-journey/

Our first news coverage and I haven’t even gotten on the bike, not a bad start. 

We made it to Seattle yesterday evening and have been receiving first class service from my uncle since we arrived.  It isn’t going to easy to go from first class fish and steak, to dehydrated potatoes and plain pasta.

As for today’s ridiculous/comical moment, as I was out on a training ride a bee flew into one of the vents on my helmet.  I haven’t been stung by a bee in well over 20 years, and I the last time I had a serious allergic reaction.  So there was some reason for concern.  I double-timed it back to my uncle’s and Azure had some benadryl waiting.  Painful, but at least I didn’t end up looking like Quasimoto.   

The cross bike is supposed to arrive here tomorrow morning.  I will assemble it and then we will be Northward bound.