Although I was up quite early, I can only imagine when Bill gets up, I was waiting for a possible video shoot in Toronto to firm up or go away. Being 4 hours behind Ontario was frustrating to say the least. I had to delay our 0900 departure time at least an hour, I called Bill with the news and, naturally, he took it in stride.

Here is his confutation of yesterday's blog:

Hi, Bill here. I just read Lou's blog and concur with everything he said. It's quite entertaining to see Lou's behind, high in the air, until it was my turn. At least I have some forewarning.

At the Border crossing, I make it a point to have my helmet and sunglasses removed. I've learned to do this by being chastised a few times by not so friendly guards. When I meet a guard that wants to visit I'm more than happy to oblige. When they ask me where I'm from I explain that my principal residence is in St. Albert, AB but that I have a summer cottage in Penticton B.C. (My scooter has B.C. Plates).

The guard wanted to know if I was travelling with Lou and I explained that yes he's my BIL and we were on our way to Prudhoe Bay. He was very interested in my scooter and wanted to know if I had any trouble keeping up to Lou. I explained that it's an automatic constantly variable drive train and had lots of power."How fast will it go?" he asked and smiled when I told him that it's top speed is 115 MPH.

It was ironic that when Lou had raw sushi for supper the menus warned that some meals MAY CONTAIN raw fish! They better!

I like the part about him concurring with every thing I say, if he can keep that attitude for the rest of the trip, we'll get along fine!

About 5 minutes to 1000 the email comes in I have been looking for, the video shoot is postponed to early September which gives everybody involved some breathing room! I start packing the bike which takes about 5 trips. If you recall I asked to be by an outside door, which I was, but it was alarmed fire exit and was at the opposite end of the building. I don't leather up until the last minute to avoid working up a sweat.

After I have all my ***** on the bike, I stop by Bill's room, which is right by the front door, and pick him up. Luckily the mo'tels back parking lot is right on the road we need to be on, and as we fueled up on our arrival, we can just depart with minimal fanfare.

Headed northbound we redrive the Interstate we came in on, albeit with considerably less traffic. This Interstate does have these enormous potholes though, ranging in size from a dinner plate to an extra large pizza to a coffee table, and they appear to be 2" - 6" deep. These potholes were along the entire length of the Interstate both coming and going. I wonder how road maintenance can be allowed to not have these filled in. I increase my following distance to the vehicle ahead so I have more reaction time to dodge them. I have larger than average wheels on my bike but I would still hate to hit one, there is a good chance of bending a rim. With Bill's much smaller wheels I would be worried he'd do an endo!

I tried to search for an image on the net to illustrate how dangerous these would be, especially on a road with a 75 mph speed limit and although I didn't get a picture, I did find numerous websites advertising help for people whom have had their vehicles damaged by potholes in Alaska to seek compensation from the government. Apparently it is a huge issue and there are many class action lawsuits underway.

So a quick check of the US Doppler Radar website (shows active rain) finds the only wet spot (ha!) in AK is right over Anchorage, looks to be maybe 100 km tall, goes from the coast, directly inland north. Should be able to drive out of it in an hour or so, although the rest of AK is covered by variable cloud. In the end we have to drive almost all the way to Fairbanks before we see the sun.

At first we are driving through a corridor with endless commerce on either side of the highway, many traffic lights and a lot of other cars. When I say a lot, I mean in comparison to being on a highway and not seeing another vehicle for 10 minutes at a time! It takes a little while longer than usual but we eventually find ourselves on a single lane divided highway which will flank the Denali Mountain Range. Traffic has fallen to normal, meaning mostly non existent, levels.

Although our total mileage goal today is modest at 578 kms we are somewhat cautious with our fuel, filling up at 200 km intervals. The map shows a Horse Latitudes stretch of almost 200 kms with no services. We don't want to get caught in the middle of that out of sync with the gas stations. We stop for lunch in a Subway in the middle of nowhere in a town I can't remember the name of!

I would have thought the Anchorage to Fairbanks corridor would have been similar to the Edmonton to Calgary corridor with the same constant flow of traffic, but the highway is deserted just like everywhere else in this state.

Frequently we would see no oncoming traffic for a long time, and then a long stream of vehicles all bunched together. This can only mean one thing, single lane, pilot vehicle led construction ahead. We don't see it for a long time, but eventually the all too familiar 'Road Work Ahead' & 'Be Prepared to Stop' signs appear by the roadside, and we start slowing down. There are about 4 vehicles already stopped ahead of us but I notice the flag man is in the oncoming lane waving us to the front. Sweet! We won't have to eat their dust passing through the construction site.

As it turns out the flag man, Nathan, was just lonely and wanted some company other than the cloud of skitters circling his head. He was a very interesting dude, although he did make a comment about Bill's bike that included a reference to fellatio that caused an awkward moment. Fortunately,it passed and we had quite the enjoyable visit for the 30 minutes it took the pilot car to return. Apparently, the road was being straightened and an alternative rail crossing was built to remove some S turns that had been causing motor fatalities. So nice to Alaska giving a ***** about the safety of drivers on their roads.

Once, a long time ago, on a trip somewhere when I was some place, Wyoming maybe, I pulled up to a lonely flag man in the middle of nowhere. I stopped my bike, turned off the engine and flipped up the visor, then said 'What's up Jack?' You know, as in, hey, how is it going. The flagger got a little coy and had a funny look on his face. He said; 'how do you know my name is Jack? Pretty funny!

The rest of the day's ride was quite uneventful, we did eventually find the sun about an hour outside of Fairbanks. Hwy 3 is kinda funny because it bypasses Fairbanks to the West, then turns East, then South and comes back down through it. I had selected accomms on the outside of town, mostly cus they were the cheapest, but also they were very close to our Arctic Ocean Adventure departure point.

We had talked to some guy some where (sorry to be vague but I am writing this after our Arctic Ocean Adventure and those memories are all I can think about) and when we mentioned we were looking for a good seafood restaurant in Fairbanks, he highly recommended Pike's Landing. Entering Fairbanks I knew I had to turn onto Airport Way, but there was both an West and East option that I was not prepared for, natch I took the first one which turned out to be wrong! However the first place we are able to turn around in was, fortuitously, the parking lot of Pike's Landing! See what I mean about charmed life?

(I just asked Bill for a 15 minute extension so I can publish this, it is 0945 Monday morning, naturally he said yes! Thankx Bill!)

Upon turning around we were on Airport Way, found Old Airport Road and were at our mo'tel in under 5 minutes. We planned to go for dinner in about an hour so we had some time to freshen up. I called us a cab to go to Pike's Landing. The parking lot was full and I was worried we wouldn't be able to get a table, it was Friday night after all, but they ended up having a gigantic patio and there were only a few people inside. I prefer to sit at the bar and while it took a bit for the nice bar keep lady to warm up to us, it was a good night.

I had the cold seafood platter with King Crab upgrade that was outstanding. Bill had more than a few of his super high end Tequila's and we had a bar tab as long as my arm! Not necessarily the best behaviour on the eve of our testing of the limits of human endurance.

Bed by 2300, up at 0200. Too excited to sleep!

Anchorage to Fairbanks
578 kms today, 5277 thus far
7.5 hours in the saddle