Things I Never Thought I’d Do

From a mid-life crisis perspective, I’m not exactly sure how I feel about this, but D and I are considering buying an RV…  (Cue the mental picture of an (a-hem) older person in their 40 foot class A driving 25 miles an hour up a mountain.)

Doesn’t everyone approaching the 20th anniversary of their 30th birthday celebrate by going RV shopping??  Not me… it never occurred to me in a million years I’d ever think about doing the RV thing.  And yet, here we are.

This whole thing started because we’ve been talking for months (ok, years) about what the heck we are going to do with ourselves once the kids are on their own.  And one of the ideas we had was to take a year off and travel – or as I like to call it, our mid-life gap year.

At first, it was a year on motorbikes with tents, sleeping bags and 2 spares of gucchies (underwear for you non-Polish readers).  Sure, we can suck it up for a year, right?  Roughing it, with an occasional hotel stay would totally work… right?

There’s only one problem with this plan… D happens to be a very light sleeper.  He hears every twig snap, every whippoorwill chirp… I swear a leaf falling off a tree wakes him up.  As for me, there could be bears ransacking the campsite 5 feet from our tent and I would sleep right through it (I know this from experience… yes, this happened…) but D would get NO sleep for the entire year.

So tents and sleeping pads morphed into talk of a small camper… just enough to give us a bed on wheels.  But for a few more dollars, we could get something bigger… so a small trailer turned into a medium camper… which turned into a BIG camper… and then full circle back to a small camper… and considering everything in between in the process.

Our last few weeks have been spent researching what kind of RV would work for us, how much money we want to spend, and walking through RV dealerships trying to make sense of it all.  

There are SO many things to consider:  Gas or Diesel?  Trailer and truck (which we don’t have), or motor home?  And what are we going to do with the motorbikes?  Do we buy it now and use it for college visits with the kids?  Or wait and drive it out of the parking lot at Kid #2 graduation?  I swear, it’s more confusing then buying a house!

D is having a blast doing all of the research and looking at all of the different models – it’s become quite the fun little project for him.  And it is definitely making this year-long adventure more and more real every day.

There have been many times in my life when I’ve thought about an adventure I’d like to take, and some came together in a beautiful way.  But sometimes they just don’t make the transition from vision to reality.  And to be honest, I wasn’t sure if we were actually going to pull this one off.  But what do you know – I think this thing might actually happen!

So, for now, I’ll add visions of 30 foot travel trailers to my mental adventure book, alongside my motorbikes and my hiking boots.  I can’t wait to see where this new adventure will lead!

The Local Flavor

One of the things you really want to do when you travel is take advantage of the opportunity to learn as much as you can about the places you’re going – the history, the culture, and of course, the local traditions.

Dawson City, Yukon Territory, Canada is chock-full of the history that you would expect from a wild west frontier town.   The wood-plank sidewalks, dirt streets, and even the occasional horse hitching post make you feel like you just stepped onto the set of a John Wayne movie.

You know how in a lot of places that you go there’s always that “one thing” that everybody has to do. It’s kind of like you can’t really say you’ve been there until you’ve done “it”.

In Dawson City, “IT” is something called a Sour Toe Cocktail.

As you would expect, it gets very cold in Dawson City. Hunting and trapping are big winter activities – not only for the sport, but for the meat and the fur.  The tale goes that – back in the day – a trapper lost a toe to frostbite.  It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out the rest of the story.  I’m certain it started with a dare – and I’m sure there was a lot of whiskey involved.

So now, at the Downtown Hotel, taking a shot with a mummified toe in the glass has become the “IT” local tradition for out-of-towners.

Yep – it is indeed a toe… A real mummified human toe.

They SAY that the alcohol keeps it sterilized… but I’m not sure I’m buying it.

Not a group to pass up a little tradition, our group was well represented during the sour toe challenge.  Even the coolest Biker Mom in the world partook…

The idea is that the toe has to touch your lips or else you aren’t in officially in the Sour Toe cocktail club (and you don’t get your certificate).  I think it costs about $10 to give it a shot – HA!  But the penalty for accidentally swallowing the toe is upwards of $2000.  And yes – apparently that does happen more frequently than you would think. I believe it actually happened during our time in town.  It happens often enough that they frequently put out a call for new toe donations.

I don’t even want to know…

It was fun to watch. But you do notice, of course, there is no picture of me taking the sour toe cocktail challenge.  Let’s just say that, for me, some local traditions might be best kept… well… local.

Boys (and Girls) And Their Toys

I had never really heard the term “Biker Games” before our trip to Alaska and being a part of the Dust to Dawson “Rally”.  Kind of an unconventional skills challenge really where the primary objective is to show off your riding skills and hopefully not hurt yourself (or your bike) too badly.  There are usually prizes involved too – and of course, the 15 minutes of fame that comes with being crowned the biker games champ.

Apparently, biker games are a staple at any self-respecting motorbike gathering.

I’m not sure what you would call this attire?  Biker casual?

Biker games are very low maintenance – all you need is a clear lot, a can of spray paint, and an audience – and voila!

The games include a slow riding contest, the balloon toss, and finally, the “hot dog eating contest” (more on that one later).

Any bikers can play!

The object of the slow race is to see how slow you can go without touching the ground (or dropping your bike).  It sure looks easy… but it isn’t!

For the balloon toss, each biker needed a partner.  Again, this looks easy, but trying to keep your balance with someone on the back throwing and catching balloons is MUCH harder than it appears.

And then there was the hot dog eating contest…

Apparently, there is a particular set of skills that are useful for this exercise – I’ll just leave that to your imagination…

In all seriousness, it is really amazing what some of these riders can do – their control over the bikes is pretty incredible.  They can make the motorbike do things that I can barely do on my three speed bicycle!  It’s a lot of fun to watch.

I’m not sure I’ll ever be a good enough rider to participate – for now, I’ll just cheer them on from my front row seat.

Never say never though…

Storytellers

When we signed up for the Baja trip last fall, we knew it would be a very special trip (and not just because I was celebrating that icky milestone birthday!).  We hoped that we would meet some fun folks, and if we were very lucky, we might even make a few friends that we’d keep in touch with.

We had no idea…

We are blessed to have found truly lifelong friends, and fortunate that we’ve already managed to be able to ride with many of them again on our Alaska trip – with more trips in the works…

I love riding when it is just D and me – but the great thing about traveling in a group is  when the riding is done for the day, you’ve got more perspectives, more reflections on the day, more experiences, and more stories that get bigger and more colorful as the beer flows.

Every group needs a few good storytellers – those big personalities who keep the conversation going, make you laugh, make you think, and then make you laugh some more.  These are the folks who definitely bring the group together – and we are very lucky to have more than our fair share!

Sadly, most of the stories probably shouldn’t be repeated here – this IS a family show after all!  But it’s impossible not to get a chuckle out of a story that ends with “500 pounds of Man Love” (about two guys who had to share a snowmobile after a breakdown).

Sometimes, I get so caught up in my own mind that I forget how fortunate I really am, and how awesome my life really is.  Hearing these stories and getting to know these wonderful people reminds me that there are a million other perspectives out there to consider, and never-ending new places and adventures to experience.

I have gotten to experience some truly unique travels and have gotten to know some incredible people along the way.  And the real adventure is just beginning!

Matanuska Glacier

And now back to our regularly scheduled programme… which means, back to Alaska!

One of the coolest (literally) things we saw while we were in Alaska was the Matanuska Glacier. It is just off the road about two hours outside of Palmer – and is apparently the largest glacier in Alaska that can be reached by vehicle.

Pretty cool, a drive-up glacier!

According to the web, it is approximately 26 miles long and 4 miles wide at its terminus. It is classified as a valley glacier; a body of solid ice that flows like a river under its own weight through an existing valley.

One thing that surprised me is that the amount of dirt and rock debris that ends up on top of the ice.  I guess it shouldn’t have – as the ice moves it cuts through the rock, so it makes sense that the debris would end up on top of the ice.

As you might expect, despite the very warm day (it was about 80F) the wind blowing in off the glacier was quite chilly.  Refreshing actually..

As we walked up onto the glacier, there were some crevasses and some spots where you could see the perfectly clear ice below the surface.

Of course, SOME of us (I’m looking at YOU, Dan and Ian) had to go play around on the ice.  But that’s what I love about this group – always entertaining and a good time!

It’s amazing to me that the ice has been there for thousands of years, and will be here for thousands more (according to the Matanuska Glacier website, the glacier has not seen a significant change in mass in decades – good news!).

Rather awe-inspiring isn’t it?  Kind of makes you think about how short our stay on this big blue marble really is in comparison.

All the more reason to make the most of it!

Learning to Fly

This past weekend was “take two” for my try at learning to ride off road.  As you know, the last time I tried I was on my Tiger 800 and went down with a broken ankle. Now I’ve got my little guy “Xena the Warrior Princess,” a healed-up ankle, and am ready to give it a go again!

Giving it a go this time meant taking my first long solo bike trip up into PA, making my way into the forest, solo camping, and hopefully some fun dirt riding.  I wasn’t expecting that it would also include making some new friends along the way.

My bike kind of looked like that clown car with all of the carneys piled on!  The XT isn’t exactly made for all of this gear – but with my new Happy Trails racks, Ortlieb dry bags, and a few spider nets, I got my tent, sleeping bag and pad, 4 days of clothes, food and camp gear all loaded up.  My buddy motorbike camping McGyver Lt. Dan would have been proud!

Four hours up to PA, spent the night at a hotel and had one good last dinner before heading out into the woods.  No sense in roughing it until you absolutely have to, right?

There is a brontosaurus running around PA somewhere missing a rib bone!

Headed out early in the AM to the class meeting site, and spent the morning in a big gravel lot learning breaking (brake-ing the bike, not breaking bones!), turning, counterbalancing.  I was the star student 🙂  Of course, I was the ONLY student!  Which was great because I got to practice the drills as much as I wanted to until I got them right (or was too tired to keep going – I REALLY need to get in better shape!).

After a quick lunch, it was back into the woods for a few more hours of instruction then over to the campsite for the evening.

Those few hours included just a little reminder of why we ride – you can’t get this view on a Harley!

I knew there was a little “rally” going on…

There were about 50 people here – a really, really great bunch of folks who love to ride in Bald Eagle State Forest.  The cool thing about this bunch is that just about everyone rides smaller bikes – mostly 650s or smaller with a few 800’s and one 990 thrown in for good measure.  A few beers later, and I felt like one of the gang.

Saturday morning we got up early, and headed back out again for 5 hours of great fire road, dirt road, and some dual track riding.

My goals for this weekend were to approach a gravel or dirt road and not feel anxious, and to learn to go a little faster than I did a few weeks ago.  Mission accomplished – I’m feeling confident, staying within my limits, and actually having a little fun along the way.

I’m really looking forward to this coming up weekend for some new adventures up in the state forest in MD.  And that’s what it’s all about… this is supposed to be FUN!  And now it finally is…

The Long Way Home

Well, we are officially empty-nesters!  We dropped Kid #2 off at college last week – definitely a bittersweet day.  On the one hand, we now have the free time to do the things we want to – but on the other hand, what the heck are we going to do with all of that free time??  We’ve been furiously trying to fill the weekends for the next few months to keep ourselves occupied and take advantage of the good weather while we can.  The sadness will settle in later – but for now, we are focused on doing some traveling, riding, home improvement, and planning our  next big bike adventure!

Once we finished our college move-in duties this past weekend, it was only Friday and we had a free weekend with nothing to do.  And then there were two…

When you are starting in Northern Ohio, where do you go from there?  We decided to take the long way home and head back to Virginia via Toronto.  Not quite as much of an adventure as being on the bikes, but we wanted to make the best of it and check out some future riding routes and camp sites.

We left Ohio, headed north to Detroit and over the Ambassador Bridge to Windsor, Ontario.  By the way, I think the entire state of Michigan is under road construction, and as we approached Detroit, the highway was closed for construction.  WTF?  The main highway through town to the border?  So after a little detour that I’m really glad we didn’t have to do at night, we made it into Canada.

This part of Canada is VERY flat and there is much more farmland than I expected.  Two lane divided highway that was a flat as a pancake with a ton of camping at every exit.  This would be an amazing bike route!

Of course, once you are in Canada, the road signs are in both English and French.  They have lots of warning signs – don’t drive tired, don’t text and drive… but one in particular gave me a bit of a chuckle…

Points d’inaptitude… LOL.  Boy, do I know a BUNCH of people I’d like to give points for ineptitude!

Once we started to get closer to Toronto, the traffic picked up, and we got off the highway and stumbled across the most quaint little community called Port Credit.

We saw a Tapas restaurant, stopped for dinner and ended up spending the night.  There was a street festival – the BuskerFest – going on that evening.  TONS of people around, and lots of good people watching.

That’s one of the things I absolutely love about traveling by car or bike – if you let yourself get off the highway and onto the back roads, you can experience places and events you’d never see on the turnpike.  Spending the evening in Port Credit rather than going on to Toronto was a wonderful experience.  Don’t get me wrong, Toronto is a fabulous city – but Port Credit felt more like home.

We even got to see Toronto from our hotel room – not a bad view, eh?   First in the evening where the sunlight made the city absolutely shimmer and glow and the next morning when the low shroud of fog made the skyline look like something out of Lord of the Rings.

The rest of our trip took us through upstate NY, and back through Pennsylvania.  Back to the real world slowly but surely.

Now it’s a new week and a new world to get used to.  But I guess it is kind of like any other adventure you undertake – you aren’t sure where it is going to lead, so you just get on your gear and hang on for the ride!  And away we go…

The Road to Dawson

Our destination for the motorbike portion of our Alaskan adventure was, of course, Dawson City, Yukon Territory,  site of the Dust to Dawson motorbike gathering (it is NOT a bike rally… they hate it when you call it a rally).  There is only one way to get to Dawson from Anchorage, and it is by taking the Top of the World Highway.

The highway (using the term loosely) is a 79-mile long, mostly hard-packed dirt road that takes you across the border into the Yukon and ends at Dawson City at the Yukon River.

Generally speaking, the road is pretty wide, and not terribly steep, but it is just challenging enough (even in a truck!), that you really have to pay attention to your driving and try your very best not to get distracted by the views.  Which ain’t easy…

The term “Top of the World” describes it perfectly – the road goes on and on overtop a seemingly never-ending series of vistas where the view goes on forever.  It truly does feel like you are driving along the top of the world and looking down on ridges and mountains that just keep going and going.

The pictures really don’t do it justice – it is really rather awe-inspiring… And there is the cutest little border crossing!  No, ma’am, no alcohol in this truck 😉

Plus the requisite photo opp…  the only thing missing was the rest of our Baja crew… well, that, and the “N.”

This part of the world simply astounds with its beauty – I kept thinking that nothing would top the view, until I went around the next curve and my breath was taken away one more time.

Oh, the Weather Outside Is… 85 and Sunny??

So, everyone always talks about how bad the weather can be in Alaska.  Last year, when our friends Ian and Kristina rode to Dawson City, it was cloudy, foggy, and rainy the entire trip.  The Top of the World Highway was more like the “Top of the Clouds” mudfest!  And the weather can change in minutes – from one valley to another, there can be rain, snow, hail (more on hail to come).

So, we came prepared…

We had rain gear, fleece, long undies, wool socks, heavy boots, light boots, heavy coats, light coats… be prepared, they said..

Well, someone was really, really smiling down on us because for 90% of the trip, this is what the weather Gods in Alaska served up during our trip…

Sunny…

Morning lows in the 60’s..

Daytime highs in the 80’s

Nary a cloud in the sky most days..

Now we did have one day of riding through a sudden, BAD hailstorm.  We had stopped to help out a rider that had gone off the road just outside of Chicken, Alaska.  (Chicken, Alaska.  Yes, that really is the name of the town!  Legend has it that the founding settlers found large groups of the local chickens called Ptarmigans and wanted to name the town after them – but they couldn’t agree on how to spell ptarmigan, so they just called it Chicken instead!)

Chicken marks the end of the tarmac headed east, and the beginning of the tarmac headed west back into Alaska from the border.  We were about 10 miles outside of Chicken, when the clouds started rolling in.  Ian and his Mom stayed behind with the rider and a few others to wait for the sweeper trailer (he’s the last one out of town following behind all of the bikes just in case of an accident or emergency) while the rest of us went ahead to try to beat the storm.

We didn’t leave soon enough – no more than 5 minutes back on the road the skies completely opened up.

This is the only picture I got of the rain – it was so bad that I couldn’t take my hands off the wheel because of all of the standing (rushing) water on the roads and the potholes.  Plus, I had a line of bikes riding behind me so I couldn’t take any chances.  There was even some hail – which hurts, a lot, when you are on a motorbike.  It’s like little bb’s from a gun pummeling your entire body.  If I had been on a motorbike, I think I would have been freaking out.  Heck, I was freaking out in the truck – I couldn’t see 10 feet ahead!

By the time we got into Chicken, the rain had slowed, and by the time we dried off a bit and got some lunch, the rain stopped and we were on our way again.

Later that day, it was back to 85 and somewhat sunny…

So thanks for the outstanding hospitality Mother Nature, and the motorbike Gods… for the meteorological perfection, with just enough bad weather to give us a little adventure on our adventure bike trip.

Jiffy Pop? Hell to the Yes!

When you are riding a motorbike from Anchorage up to Dawson City, YT and riding through Tok, the ONLY place to stay is at Eagle’s Claw Motorcycle campground (you can find them here on the web.).  Vanessa is the BOMB!  She’s the owner, and she runs quite a cool operation.

There were hundreds of bikes in the campground – and our Alaska friends seemed to know everyone in the place!

Our group shared a large camping pad and the cabin next door.  Because of the burn ban due to the dry weather, we couldn’t have a campfire, but Vanessa let us use the camp grill so we made the best of it.

Despite this being our first night of camping, and not having a clue where everything was,  we did pretty well and got it all set up pretty quickly.

The ground was covered in an exquisitely soft layer of moss – it was like sleeping on a green fluffy cloud.  Really.

Dan, one of the Baja Bunch, had ridden his bike up from Cali – so he had already been camping for over a week, and had his routine down pat.

We all decided that Dan is the McGyver of motorbike camping – his panniers are like the clown car in the circus where the clowns just keep coming and coming out of this tiny vehicle.  Dan had all the comforts of home conveniently stowed on his bike – hammock, hatchet (“It’s a TOMAHAWK!”), tent, bike repair kit… you name it, he had it.

But when Dan pulled out the camp stove and a package of Jiffy Pop it was game.over.

Dan – we all bow to your McGyver-ness… (for his next trick, we fully expect him to disarm a missile with a tampon and a paper clip).

Great friends, good beer, the beautiful Alaskan wilderness, days of riding still ahead of us AND freaking Jiffy Pop…Who could ask for more?