About Larry

I live in Bandon on the southern Oregon coast and I've been riding for a long, long time, years, decades. We won't go there kiddies but believe me, it's been awhile. During that time I've done most of my riding on the road with occasional off-road forays, most of which were intentional. Some weren't. Until just a couple of years ago I'd never ridden a hack - that's sidecar to those who aren't familiar with the lingo. I figure riding a hack up Alaska's infamous Haul road all the way to Deadhorse should top off my torture tank for quite awhile.

About Mac

Mac hails from Robins, Iowa and has been riding bikes longer than most people have been around. He managed to torture his old BMW past the 100,000 mile mark and presently rides a Yamaha FJR. His newest ride, a 2008 Ural Patrol is waiting on the dealer's highest shelf until the flood waters recede after which they'll assemble it and turn it over to him. The fact that he's heading to Alaska for his first journey on a new rig should tell you all you need to know about him...

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

July 21st - Up the slimy muddy Cassiar highway...






























Raining again this morning, seems like we're getting our share of it but it also seems we're getting used to it. For openers one of us (the ding-dong...me) locked us out of our room so we had to wait until 7:30am to get back in and finish loading our stuff. Fortunately the gal from Florida (she and her husband have been following us) let us back into the lobby so we could drink coffee while we waited for the manager to open up. It would have been great if the restaurant had been open but evidently Monday isn't a high priority so the curse of darkness was upon them.

Finished packing we set off in the rain heading up the Cassiar's longest remaining portion of mud & gravel. Our goal was to reach Teslin Lake campground which we did. Via the usual road construction stops, one at which we ran into the Florida couple again, etc. (They promised to email pics..Where are they?) On the way we also stopped to photo a big honkin mama moose, then had brunch at Sally's. Mac is still salivating over that one and I can't say as I blame him, they serve hot fresh baked bread that's to die for.
Without much else going on Mac decided to entertain us with a cracked windsceen. (I noticed it so I loaned him my Leatherman special edition tool to fix it with) Anyhow, he drilled a couple of holes in it which as we all know will prevent the cracks from getting worse and off we went, once more on the yellow brick road to OZ. (Teslin)
BTW, Mac informed me that Joe O'Connor totally whimped out when he faced the challenge of the Teslin potato grater bridge a few years back. Just thought I'd throw that in as Joe is following this blog. :)

We arrived at the campground around 5:00pm after a 300 mile ride, more than enough for two old geezer riders. The sun was shining, there was free firewood, and just enough wind to keep the mosquitoes at bay. We set up camp and Mac demonstrated his cooking finesse by whipping up a gourmet meal of Top Ramen noodles. I settled for canned salmon on crackers with cheese-food and a reasonable number of GT's. We stayed up very late, around 11:00pm talking, mostly about how odd it was that it was still daylight at that time. I think Mac is easily entertained...

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