Day one, The real story
The History of Alaska and Canada in the northwest is something to inspire. The beauty of the country and the hardships dealt with by the men and women who settled there to carve out a life, will live in my memories forever. I heartily recommend that you don’t take my word for it. Get up there and see it for yourselves.
As you may remember, I traveled to Canada and Alaska in 2005. Doug Bowen, who I’ve known since the 8th grade, was going to go with Bill Warner and I last year, But Doug, had a bout with appendicitis and colon surgery. It damn near killed him, but thank to the miracle of medicine, Doug was a 100% ready for a trip this year.
I learned last year that riding around Alaska, a sometimes cold, rainy place, can be done on a motorcycle, but can be also done in a closed in vehicle as well. We decided to go in my van, and pull two small motorbikes on a trailer. The motorcycles would be used when the roads were rough, and the weather was good.
The Van was well broken in, to say the least, but it is a good running vehicle, and we decided that if repair was necessary, it would just be part of the adventure . Doug suggested that we put new tires on it before we left, but I said that we might be able to do the whole trip on the tires that were on it, and that we could put tires on it when we got back if necessary. I should have listened to Doug on that one. But, hey, nobody is right all the time
So it was That Doug and I departed on our ‘trip of a lifetime’. We hit the road at around 9am on the 15th of June 2006. It was within a day or two of when Bill and I left last year for Alaska. This time it would be mainly in revue for me, but a whole knew experience for Doug.
We soon were talking excitedly of our new freedom. It’s funny how our lives at home are probably what we want them to be, but at the same time, a new trip on the road released the boy in both of us. As we traveled north on the inland route of 395 we reviewed the maps for a route that I hadn’t been on that would take us first to Eureka Nv.
We had a date with Keith Hutchens in Eureka to do a little dual sporting around some of the 6000 ft hill country of north central Nevada. First, of course, we had about 600 miles of beautiful desert/mtn landscape to enjoy.
The van was running well, but with the slightly oversize tires adding to the gear ratio, and pulling the trailer, it was struggling a bit to stay in overdrive of the top gear. It took us a while to relax and take whatever the van would give us. We could maintain a 55 to 60 mph cruise average. That was good enough, hell, the speed limit with a trailer was 55mph in a lot of places.
The beauty of the desert with a mtn backdrop kept me busy with the camera.
All too soon we started running out of daylight. We’d traveled nearly 600 miles and needed a place to lay our heads. That turned out to be no problem as we headed toward a National Forest where the park campgrounds only cost (at half price) $5. But this night we got a free camp by the side of the road where the stars were phenomenal.
In the morning we had only a few miles before reaching the Berlin State Park where ichthyosaur fossils were discovered in the ’50. It seems that this part of Nevada and all along the West Coast including Canada was under water at one time. As the land climbed out of the sea a bunch of Ichthyosaurs got trapped up here and left fossil remains. The fossils left by these 40 foot reptile predators was interesting. I can’t believe that I didn’t know about these thing before now…..and further more they found an example of these things 50 feet long in British Columbia. There’s always someone bigger and faster.
As we road further another ore processing plan from the old days popped up. They are all over the place up here. It seems that they would build a processing plant, and when the ore played out, they would move much of the machinery to a new plant at another mine.
We put the bikes away and got back underway, as we had to get to Eureka Nevada this afternoon. We rolled into Keith's at around 6pm. Keith's sister had pizza for us for dinner and Shawn Speelman had ridden over from the Sacramento area with his 426 cc Yamaha dualsport. He was certainly the class of our act where bikes were concerned. Of course, he couldn't compete where looks were concerned..........
More later...
As you may remember, I traveled to Canada and Alaska in 2005. Doug Bowen, who I’ve known since the 8th grade, was going to go with Bill Warner and I last year, But Doug, had a bout with appendicitis and colon surgery. It damn near killed him, but thank to the miracle of medicine, Doug was a 100% ready for a trip this year.
I learned last year that riding around Alaska, a sometimes cold, rainy place, can be done on a motorcycle, but can be also done in a closed in vehicle as well. We decided to go in my van, and pull two small motorbikes on a trailer. The motorcycles would be used when the roads were rough, and the weather was good.
The Van was well broken in, to say the least, but it is a good running vehicle, and we decided that if repair was necessary, it would just be part of the adventure . Doug suggested that we put new tires on it before we left, but I said that we might be able to do the whole trip on the tires that were on it, and that we could put tires on it when we got back if necessary. I should have listened to Doug on that one. But, hey, nobody is right all the time
So it was That Doug and I departed on our ‘trip of a lifetime’. We hit the road at around 9am on the 15th of June 2006. It was within a day or two of when Bill and I left last year for Alaska. This time it would be mainly in revue for me, but a whole knew experience for Doug.
We soon were talking excitedly of our new freedom. It’s funny how our lives at home are probably what we want them to be, but at the same time, a new trip on the road released the boy in both of us. As we traveled north on the inland route of 395 we reviewed the maps for a route that I hadn’t been on that would take us first to Eureka Nv.
We had a date with Keith Hutchens in Eureka to do a little dual sporting around some of the 6000 ft hill country of north central Nevada. First, of course, we had about 600 miles of beautiful desert/mtn landscape to enjoy.
The van was running well, but with the slightly oversize tires adding to the gear ratio, and pulling the trailer, it was struggling a bit to stay in overdrive of the top gear. It took us a while to relax and take whatever the van would give us. We could maintain a 55 to 60 mph cruise average. That was good enough, hell, the speed limit with a trailer was 55mph in a lot of places.
The beauty of the desert with a mtn backdrop kept me busy with the camera.
All too soon we started running out of daylight. We’d traveled nearly 600 miles and needed a place to lay our heads. That turned out to be no problem as we headed toward a National Forest where the park campgrounds only cost (at half price) $5. But this night we got a free camp by the side of the road where the stars were phenomenal.
In the morning we had only a few miles before reaching the Berlin State Park where ichthyosaur fossils were discovered in the ’50. It seems that this part of Nevada and all along the West Coast including Canada was under water at one time. As the land climbed out of the sea a bunch of Ichthyosaurs got trapped up here and left fossil remains. The fossils left by these 40 foot reptile predators was interesting. I can’t believe that I didn’t know about these thing before now…..and further more they found an example of these things 50 feet long in British Columbia. There’s always someone bigger and faster.
As we road further another ore processing plan from the old days popped up. They are all over the place up here. It seems that they would build a processing plant, and when the ore played out, they would move much of the machinery to a new plant at another mine.
We put the bikes away and got back underway, as we had to get to Eureka Nevada this afternoon. We rolled into Keith's at around 6pm. Keith's sister had pizza for us for dinner and Shawn Speelman had ridden over from the Sacramento area with his 426 cc Yamaha dualsport. He was certainly the class of our act where bikes were concerned. Of course, he couldn't compete where looks were concerned..........
More later...
posted by Pete | 9:10 AM
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