Today we needed to get an early start to make the ride up to Whitehorse.  We had an okay breakfast at the hotel, packed the bikes lickety split & were on the road a little before 0700.  Twelve hours and 600+ miles later we are in for the night at the Casa Loma Motel in Whitehorse.  It was a pretty good day with no real drama; something we all appreciated.

We did run into over 8 miles of dirt road where they were doing construction.  When I saw the sign warning of extreme dust – we passed all the vehicles that were waiting for the pilot truck so we only had to eat the dust from the truck and not all 15 of the vehicles (including several big rigs).  We also stayed well back from the truck – but it was still plenty dusty.  Additionally, riding on this gravel road was like riding on little BB’s on glass – not too much fun at 35 mph.  We made it though and that was the only issue; other than the numb butt you always get after being on the bike for twelve hours!!

Today we saw mountain goats, bear, and buffalo.  They were all mostly in a 45 to 50 mile stretch of road.  Some of the buffalo were so close that you could literally reach out and touch them and they are BIG.  The bears were either running across the road 50 yards in front of us or sitting in the cleared area just off the side of the road – small black bears I think.  I thought we would be running into this kind of wildlife all over the place so I didn’t bother to pull over and take any pictures.  It’s difficult to make yourself take the time to take pictures when you have so many miles to put behind you – It’s something I need to get better at.

We took several breaks today which makes the ride last longer but seem shorter.  One place we stopped for gas was advertising pie & coffee for five bucks so Richard said, “I’m gonna go get me some pie.”  Rich had bumble berry (some multi-berry concoction that included rhubarb) while John & I opted for the more traditional apple.  The guy that ran the place was interesting – the tv was on but it was a music station and the music was pretty loud (hillbilly bluegrass).  Missing 4 or 5 teeth that we could tell just by talking to him – if he’d dressed the part he could have been straight out of Deliverance.  We were sitting there talking about our last leg and he sat at another table fairly close to ours just listening for what seemed like 5 minutes then asked, “Y’all want something to eat?”  We had no idea that he was the one going to be our waiter, cook and entertainment – telling us a story  about his dog being gored by a buffalo while we ate.

We rolled into Whitehorse just as it started to sprinkle, we have had great luck with the weather (knocking on wood)   After we checked in we went over to the truck stop for dinner.  Home made meatloaf & mashed potatoes with gravy and green beans.  It tasted damn good and so did the chocolate cream pie we had for dessert.  We stopped in at the dive bar next to the motel for a beer then hit the sack.  Another long day tomorrow.

At one of our gas stops we ran into a couple guys on BMW GS 1200 bikes that looked like they might have gone up to Deadhorse.  I introduced myself and found out that they had, in fact, taken the Dalton Highway to Deadhorse.  Among other things, they said we would be sorry if we tried to do it on our bikes.  Both of them own Harleys in addition to the GS 1200’s and they didn’t think they would have been able to make the trip on American Iron.  Too rough, too many challenging conditions that are destine for disaster with a big heavy bike with so little travel in the suspension.  I asked about just going to the Arctic Circle and coming back – “that would be very difficult but you could probably do it”, was their answer.  I’m starting to seriously reconsider.

But hey – no worries.  It’s all about the adventure and having a good time out on the road.  All of that is happening and if I don’t get to Deadhorse maybe I’ll have a bike that’s not broken for the effort.