It's only been a couple of days since we rode from Fairbanks to Coldfoot but it seems like a week ago. Maybe it's the rain and mud but it's definitely something mind boggling. Our stay in Fairbanks turned out to be nicer than we expected in spite of the high-priced grubby hotel. I think it was due to the nice staff who treated us courteously and made us feel at home. In any event we headed out early, stopping at a new McDonald's for breakfast. That's always a welcome change from the over-priced independent places and the food quality is consistent.
Moving on we rode several miles out of town before stopping for gas and an opportunity for me to get into my red rain suit. I really hated to do it as it seems whenever I do it immediately clears up and it becomes a sweat-shop. Of course that's what happened again...
The ride to Coldfoot took us past Linvenfoot, the beginning of the Haul Road. Mud, potholes, washboards; all contributed to bone-jarring riding that threatened to tear the sidecars off our bikes. At one point I hit a pothole large enough to launch my spare tire and both gas jugs. The spare is cabled onto the luggage rack but jugs went off into space, landing on the gravel but not busting open, a testimony to durability of the plastic they're made of.
We stopped for a few minutes at Finger Mountain and then on to Old Man, now for sale and where Mac and Joe stayed eleven years ago. It looks exactly like the pics in travel books but has a sense of desertion about it. A little further on passed over the Arctic Circle and stopped for pics and to make blood donations to the local mosquito population. Several gallons lighter we headed north again, arriving in Coldfoot late in the day. Pricing out the hotel rooms at the $179 per night convinced us to go camping at the Marion Creek BLM park 5 miles further on. The Golden Age Passport made it more attractive at $4.00 per night. Even with the new bear-in-the-area warning signs... Mac built his best ever fire and it was still going at 4:00am in spite of the torrential rain that set in around 10:00pm and continued for most of the night. He'd asked me a couple of days back if my tent was really waterproof and this night it proved to be so, I slept dry and warm. In the morning after breaking camp we rode back to Coldfoot for breakfast and then it was back on the road to Deadhorse.
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