Day 7: The Sour Toe Cocktail – with Real Toe (Dawson City, Yukon 21-Aug-13)

When in the x-gold mining town of Dawson City, the thing to do is have a Sourtoe cocktail complete with human toe, which must touch your lips. Bon appétit.

Day 6: 420 Miles from Laird River Hot Springs to Whitehorse 2013-08-21

Thought on Whitehorse, Yukon Terrritory = first stop light in 2 days. Gotta get out of the big town.

Day 4: The Bad, the Worse, the Nearly Ugly, and the Good (540 Miles from Horse Lake to Charlie Lake, British Columbia 18-Aug-13)a

The bad: It rained for 8 hours straight. At one point, as thunder cracked immediately overhead, I had to stop as I could not see anything with the combination of heavy rain and fog in my helmet.

The worse: The gauge that tells you how many miles are remaining on the tank of gas decided to misbehave. All of a sudden, I was losing 1 mile off the range every 20 seconds (no I was not going 180mph). There was no fuel leak but the next gas station was 60 miles ahead and the prior 25 back. I turned around and sweated bullets until a few miles before the station, the gauge decided to straighten up and fly right. End result was 50 miles wasted, in the rain, both ways, uphill.

The nearly ugly: As I pulled into said station and got off the bike, I saw that the connector cord for the heated jacket had disconnected from both ends and, through some miracle, was hanging from part of the bike, instead of laying on the side of the road to become moose floss. This was unbelievable luck, and I promptly zip tied the cord to the inside of the jacket and will excuse any moose I meet for potential bad breath.

The good: 540 miles covered today and the last 2hrs on beautiful Hwy 29 were perfectly sunny. Plus, I now know where to get my taxidermy done.

Day 2&3 (Seattle and Horse Lake, British Columbia 16-17-Aug-13)

Yesterday was painful. 550 miles and 6 major, stop (and not so much) go traffic and a clutch that felt like it weighed 10lbs. It was more than made up for by a phenomenal dinner with my cousin in Seattle.

Today was glorious riding. I met a lovely couple in a car that are avid motorcyclists. I joined them for lunch and they insisted on picking up the tab – this is why one travels. Thank you Jack and Kaddee. I got lucky with a camp site 8ft from the water on Horse Lake, with sounds of loons in the evening.

Day 1: Motorcycling to the Alaskan Arctic (McCloud, California 2013-08-15

After landing from our previous trip and 2 days of hectic preparations, all went according to plan this morning. I left San Francisco for what will likely be a 9,000+ mile journey to the top of Alaska and back. With the bike weighing 560lb with a full tank of gas and 100lbs+ of camping and other gear added on top, to say the least, it is squirrelly at low speeds. I am camping tonight in the lovely McCloud, California just south of the Oregon border. It was a hot ride and reached 102F. Let the adventure begin.