Leg 9

6/4/14
Norm's Ride
Haines Junction, YT to Delta Junction,AK

 400 Miles

Potholes, frost-heaves and Whoop-dee-doos.
 

We stayed at a lovely motel.  The Cozy Corner.  The room was super clean and the view of the Wrangell St. Elias mountain range was spectacular.  I'd highly recommend it to anyone staying in Haines Jct.


As I was loading my bike in the parking lot a fella walked over to talk to me.  "Which way are you headed, north or south?"  "North," I said.  "Well, be careful.  About 100 miles north of here you'll start hitting potholes filled with gravel and some pretty severe frost-heaves in the road.  Then you'll run into construction just before Beaver Creek.  Loose gravel, too."  Oh, great, I thought to myself.  A perfect way to start the morning...bad news.  I thanked him and we parted ways.

 

Jeff and I eventually left.  About 50 miles into the ride we saw a moose leisurely cross the road in front of us. He was tall and lanky and definitely in no hurry.  I'd hate to hit one of those things.  I knew a guy once who did just that on a motorcycle and survived.  He was extremely lucky.  Other than that things were pretty boring.  Then we hit the first patch of loose gravel-filled potholes.  Then the frost-heaves. Whoop! Up in the air, then back down again just in time to hit the next one. This is fun!!!  It's like being on a mini-roller coaster.  The best part though is being able to pass the RVs, semis and cars. They had to slow way down.  It made me feel like I was getting even with them because I'm sure they were laughing at us having to ride through the rain.  Karma!

We saw the flagman ahead with his stop sign.  Great!  At least there was a guy there this time and he was cute!!  After waiting for what seemed a very long time, the pace truck finally showed up and after the on-coming traffic cleared we started following him back through the road construction.  It was the usual ...gravelly, wet and messy. I was getting a bit concerned about gas at this point because every gas stationed we had passed was either closed or abandoned and my gas light was on.  I can understand the lack of tourism as the price of gas per liter is around $3.99 Canadian. It takes 4 liters of gas to equal 1.05 gallons. You do the math.  Expensive!

Construction stopped just short of the Alaska border and we filled up in Canada for the last time in Beaver Creek.  My tank holds 14 ltrs and I put in 13 1/2 ltrs.  I bought a Coke and some decals and readied to cross the border back into the States. This time Alaska!  Finally.  The female border guard made us take our helmets off.  Then the mosquitoes swarmed in.  It was an ugly sight and I couldn't wait to get my passport back and take off again leaving those blood suckers behind

It was a pretty ride into Tok where we stopped at Fast Eddies for lunch.  Good food.

We finished the day at Milepost 1422, the end of the Alaska Highway.  We had survived.  We took the usual pictures of the monument and visited the Visitor's Center, got some decals and the certificate to verify that we completed the whole Alaska Highway.  Stayed at Kelly's Alaska Country Inn in Delta Junction.  It's good to be back in the U.S.