Based on the quantity of Kracken consumed the night before I set my alarm for every 2 hours and got up to drink a litre of water and have a pee. When the alarm went off for real at 0845 I was 95% successful in washing out all of the toxins applied the night before. I was a little bit slower packing up the bike as I was still sorting things out a bit, but we were off by 10 after 0900. Bill had his helmet on for about 20 minutes before I was ready but I resisted s...

Enjoyed a sleep in until about 1030 then up and packed by 1045. I had that sleep in because I am meeting my Brother in Law Bill today in Shelby, Montana and we are going to ride together for several days. He rides in a crew called 'Coots on Scoots' to which I am a recently adopted member having turned 50 years old last week, the entry level age. They like to depart at 0600 and finish riding early afternoon before it gets too hot. I like to leave at 1100 and stop ...

So the day was upon me. I had one last client meeting and a site inspection and I was home by 1400h. I had been up quite late the night before getting all my 'road gear' together. I laugh when I think back to the simpler bike trips of yesteryear where I would only need to take clothing, toiletries and riding gear. Now my pack list includes laptop, iPhone, iPad, iPod, iPooed (just checking to see if you are still there!) Bose noise cancelling ear buds, Hero cams...

Welcome to NOLA 2015! This year we are traveling to New Orleans, Louisiana, also known as The Big Easy. I did some research into that name and there are several theories. The most popular is that a newspaper columnist in the 1920 was trying to contrast New Orleans with New York City which was starting to call itself The Big Apple. I guess that is sorta like why we call Calgary 'Hard Town'. Another theory is that it was 'easy' to make a living if you were a music...

So today was the big day! After all the talk about the drive and wading in the Arctic Ocean, today was the day I would actually begin my drive on the Dalton Highway, or the haul road as it is somewhat more accurately known. Driving northbound out of Fairbanks the first part of the day was on the Livingood Mining Company highway which was a perfectly smooth new asphalt with fresh perfectly straight yellow lines. Certainly not what was to be expected for the balan...