Sunday 22--interim Post

I will go back later and add the missing Days and pics, the last few days have been very trying and tiring, I finally got to Alaska yesterday, the 21st. I was ready to get back to the states. It is nice to be back in the USA, Friday, I left Watson lake, and drove all day to get to Haines Jct. There was a big bicycle rally going on there and the town while small was overran with Hundreds of bicyclists.
From there it was off to TOK Alaska, it was nice to be back in the USA.
This evening I am Fairbanks Alaska, the hotel only has wi-fi in the bar and there are a bunch of people down here and the connection is poor. I will go back and add pics later and fill in the blog details.
I am in a little bit of a rush, schedule wise, I talked met a couple of motorcyclists last night in TOK, one of them actually works in Prudhoe Bay, we visited about the ride, and he said it was a real B*&%H, he indicated that I would have a pretty good chance of making it on my bike if the weather held out. I guess there have been 3 fatalities this year so far on motorcycles on the Haul road. When it rains it is just a soupy sludge.
I plan to get up early in the morning and stop at wal-mart and get a small gas can, the mileage between gas stops is pretty big and are on the fringes of the limits of my bike in the best of conditions, so I plan to carry and extra gallon or two of gas. 20 miles north of Fairbanks the pavement ends and it is called the "Haul Road" primarily because its only real use is to Haul supplies to the oil field at Prudhoe Bay. I under stand the truckers drive like crazy and have no affinity for motorcyclist, so I will be on the watch for them. From Fairbanks it is about 230 miles to Coldfoot Alaska, which is the farthest north truck stop in the world. I will fuel up and stay the night there, if everything works out ok, from there I will go approx 50 miles to the Arctic circle, and from there another 200 miles to Prudhoe Bay where I will stay the night, then head back the next day. They are calling for good weather the next 3 days, and the 4th is marginal so I'll keep my fingers crossed.
My bike seems to be running fine, and I think the tires have enough tread to make it, I have a couple of extra tubes in case I have a problem, but was not able to locate an extra tire to take. I don't anticipate any mechanical breakdown. If there is a break down there are two basic problems, first of all you just can't call a tow truck, and if you do their fee is $5 per mile, each way, the other problem is that above the arctic circle, there are Polar bears and unlike their brown and black brothers to the south, they are not scared of humans, in fact they enjoy them as a food source! They will be looking at me with drooling lips, saying to each "Hey other look at that well fed Kansas Beef, Its gonna be steak tonight Honey!"
1000miles of dirt road in 4 days, It will be very remote, so I doubt that I will be able to update much until the end of the week.

Tim