Dan's Travel Adventures

Regrouping after Deadhorse, we head from Fairbanks to Talkeetna. It’s not a long trip, so we add in a road we’ve heard is special – the Denali Highway. Southeast out of Fairbanks, we head to Delta Junction, and then due south to Paxson. All are little towns, little Alaska towns with almost no population (Paxson:26). It’s striking that as we travel through most of Alaska, we see more temporary crew housing than houses. Except in big cities, there are almost no suburbs. Sometimes a random development down a dirt road, but not many. It is both the largest US state, and the most sparsely populated, by a fair amount. Montana has nearly 6 times as many people per square mile.

Denali highway lives up to its hype. It gives us beautiful glimpses of the Alaska Range of mountains, the range that includes Denali, the highest peak in North America. The roadside is sprinkled with RVs, where families and hunters are experiencing a truly wild environment. `Some are in large groupings, indicating this is a repeated ritual, a gathering in the wilderness to escape. On this day, Denali itself eludes all our attempts to see it. Denali is very often shrouded in clouds or fog, and today is no different. We think we see a peak, but it might be clouds. We have miles of running toward and then along the range, but never see the enormous outlier in the group. No matter, we are planning a flight-seeing tour of Denali the next day. Leaving from Talkeetna, we will travel in the same planes and land on the same glacier as those who wish to summit Denali, all contingent on weather, of course.

We stay in Talkeetna in a cozy cabin, where two single beds are up a folding attic staircase. Barely enough room for our bags and ourselves, but it’s clean and cute, and we manage just fine. We spend the night by going into the little downtown of Talkeetna – just a couple streets really. It’s that weird little town that every state seems to have at least one of. Hippies, $8 ice cream scoops, a photo booth made from an old VW microbus, some outfitter shops. Eclectics at their finest. We find a nice place for dinner, and talk a bit about the weather for the flight in the morning. We are hopeful for good weather, but failing that, at least bad enough to cancel the flights, so we don’t go up and see only clouds.

Alas, morning breaks and it’s raining hard. We call the charter company, and they confirm all flights are canceled due to icing at the elevations they need for flying the range. It’s a huge disappointment, but we soldier on.

Head south, we work our way around to Tok. We’ve passed near, but bypassed Anchorage, as we don’t think there is much we want to see there. Tok is a busy place, and we find lodging at the Golden Bear Motel, and a decent meal at Fast Eddy’s. We run into another group of ADV riders, and exchange stories and ideas about roads. They are still heading up, we are heading back, and it’s a lively talk.

From Tok, it’s a quick run the next day to Whitehorse. We book at room at what we think is a hotel, but turns out to be a BnB of sorts, so we wind up in a 3BR condo, and live in luxury for a night. We walk to dinner, as we do so many nights, because the thought of suiting up and getting back on the bikes after a whole day riding is just unbearable. The walking gets our bodies moving and the conversation rambles along with us – covering what was, what will be, or sometimes what is. On this night, our conversation is far ranging, and quiets down when the food arrives in the Greek restaurant in town.

The folks at Yukon Yamaha remember us. We’d been there maybe just a week prior, but for us, those days were epic, and we’ve put probably 2800 miles on the tires we installed then. Back to street tires and on the road by 11, we chat over breakfast about about whether these tires will get us home.

When we reached Deadhorse, there was a shift in how we thought about the trip. We had made it to the farthest point, so when we turned around, it was “heading home” in a sense, albeit from 6500 miles away. We would experience this at several milestones ; crossing back into Canada, then back into the states, then for our final turn east. Each time, home seemed closer and our longing stronger. Six weeks is a long time to be away from the people, places and routines we call home. Our trip has been a discovery adventure, but my dreams have begun to be about home.