Day 16 – 17 Jun 2014

Very eventful day. We left Fort Nelson heading to Dawson Creek 284 miles away. Dawson Creek is mile 0 of the Alcan Highway so we needed to get our picture in front of the sign. Not much to see along this stretch since it is in the flat lands east of the Rocky Mountains. Lots of trees and a long 2 lane road. We drove 110 miles before we saw any civilization and it was a strange module gas pump. We had to read the instructions, take an on-line training course on how not to blow the thing up then finally got the thing to turn on (see pictures).

We did have several incidents along the way; I saw 5 black bears, a long legged moose who couldn’t decide if he/she wanted to cross the road, a small deer with the same problem and I dropped my bike at mile 0. I thought I would throw that last one in and maybe you wouldn’t catch it.

More about the bears. I already had a picture of a single bear from the day before but we came up on two bears; one setting and one on its feet. I stopped in the middle of the road about 30 feet from them and was watching the bear on his feet who was watching me as I tried to get my camera out of my tank bag. I couldn’t find it so I focused on digging through my gear to find the camera. When I found it I turned back to the bears and there was only one bear; the one setting. Here is the thoughts that went through my head in a flash. “Wait a minute, where is that other bear?” “Jerky, I have beef jerky in my bag, that bear can smell the beef jerky. Where’s that bear?” I had on my full coverage helmet and it is very restrictive looking to the rear. I’m trying to look behind me to see if the bear was sneaking up to get the jerky while that other bear was a decoy to keep me focusing to the front. I finally decided that he must have went into the woods but it was a tense moment. I got the pic.

When we got to Dawson Creek and got our pics we continued on to Grande Prairie where Jim had scheduled a bike service for his warranty. It was around noon and we had already discussed the night before our plans to separate at this point. I had decided that I was quickly getting exhausted and not getting much sleep so I was going to head direct to my folks in Tulsa then on to Little Rock. This cut out the trip to Glacier National Park but we had met all our goals for the trip and I was ready to get home:

Achievements:

1              Iron Butt day 1 – 1038 miles in 16 ½ hours

2              Reaching Alaska

3              Reaching Arctic Circle

4              Completing Alcan from end to end

The rest was just an endurance trip and riding every day from 300 to 600 miles is an endurance.

After leaving Jim at Grande Prairie I continued on to the south of Edmonson, Alberta. A total of 666 miles for the day. This puts me within range of the US border and on to Cheyenne, Denver, Kansas and then Tulsa by either this Friday or Saturday.

Now for dropping my bike. Jim and I have ridden about 5000 miles since we started this trip on 2 June 2014. I have refueled this bike probably 40 times with no problems. I had parked the bike at the pump, gotten off to pay and was remounting it when it just went over to the other side with me halfway on the bike. I heard a terrible crash (which a 900 lb bike will make) and I’m rolling across the parking lot along with my Shoei helmet. Jim was on his bike and facing away from me so didn’t see what happen. Two guys ran out of the building and asked if I was OK. I was OK but had no idea what had happened. I’m very careful about parking on slopped surfaces as a result of other instances I won’t discuss here. The parking lot was not sloped. The 2 guys helped me lift the bike and I started looking for damage. Scratches on the hand guard but the crash bars did their job up front. At the rear the right box was knocked off its bottom brace and was jammed close to the rear wheel. I took off my coat and tried to take the bag off the normal way; no good jammed to tight. I finally stood on the bottom brace while pulling on the bag and it snapped into place. Everything looks like it is ok and I rode the bike many hours later that day at 75 mph so I guess I was lucky. My only theory is that we had just rode a tough 3 hour stretch, I was tired, I had on my bulky boots, armored riding pants and jacket. I must have caught my foot on the back bag as I mounted and it was enough to send it over. I was real careful the rest of the day getting on the bike.