On the road at 10:00
It didn't get dark last night, but after a day on the bike, sleep is not a problem.
I reached the border crossing in about half an hour, crossed OK and immediately gassed up for the princely sum of $7.27! Oh, and set the clock forward to Pacific Time, so didn't feel so bad about the late start anymore!
The first hour of riding in Alaska was mildly interesting, but after that the day was a writeoff riding-wise, just hour after hour after hour of straight roads.
Too many of these!
In Tok, I met up with some people who had just come back from the Dust to Dawson and the run to Inuvik. Among them, Jacqueline has been on the road from Florida for 2 1/2 months, racking up 17,000 miles so far, and Ben is from Vallejo, California, on week 2 of his 3 week adventure. We resolved to look out for each other in Fairbanks, as I was just setting off and they were stopping.
I can't say much about the ride to Fairbanks, the only bit of interest was the last Alaska Highway milepost at Delta Junction and catching up with the Harley crowd from the Beaver Crossing motel.
End of the Alaska Highway at Delta Junction
There was odd glimpses of the Alaska ranges, but all the rest areas are closed out by forest, so no real oppotunities for nice photos.
Fairbanks it a lot larger than I expected, but I somehow managed to hook up with Jacqueline and Ben, which was really fortunate as Ben was just hooking up with Doug, a local bike dealer for a place to stay. Doug turned up and I got swept into the group to stay the night, it turns out that Fairbanks is a bit short on accommodation on account of the 4 jumbo jetloads of tourists that come in every day at this time of the year.
Doug's cabin, bult in the fifties by 3 goldminers.
Time on the road, 9 hours, 508k, 69mpg.
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