You have to leave the city of comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover will be yourself.
I got a late start to the day because I had some business calls in the morning. I told myself not to worry about finding a job while on this trip, but a couple of opportunities kind of fell into my lap and I had to take advantage of them. I had one call left when I realized it was about to rain. I quickly packed my gear and left Anchorage as it was starting to shower. I was headed for Chicken, AK just north of Tok.
I took the Glenn Highway, which turned out to be one of the more scenic highways I took in Alaska. There were some glaciers right off the highway and beautiful rivers. Along the way I saw a Moose staring down the road with it’s jaw open and some weeds hanging in its mouth. It looked dumbfounded. I swear, Moose have got to be the dumbest animal ever.
Up until this point I really hadn’t encountered all that many bugs. That changed on the on this day.
Everything was great until I hit Glenallen. Then the heavens opened up and it poured on me for a few miles. I just just waterproofed my gloves and bought new rain pants. They passed this first test.
I had planned to make it to Chicken but because I got a late start I wasn’t going to make it that far. Also, by the time I made it to Tok I could see some dark clouds off in the distance that I didn’t feel like riding under. So I decided to stop in Tok and check out this motorcycle campground some guys in Fairbanks had recommended.
This wasn’t your typical campground. They had some primitive tent spots but then they had some more unorthodox options like a teepee and ambulance. For $20 I was considering taking one of them since I was planning to wake up early the next morning and didn’t feel like having to pack my tent.
Unfortunately, both were reserved, but they had a bunk cabin that was set up similar to a hostel. There were four beds for $10 a piece. No one was there yet so I decided to grab one of those. I didn’t really care if anyone else came, but it would suck for them when they found out I talked in my sleep and got night terrors.
For staying at the campsite I got this awesome sticker that’s probably my favorite out of all the ones I’ve gotten this trip (Sorry for the profanity).
Just across from my cabin there was a guy sitting next to his BMW R1200. I saw on his canister that he had a sticker from Prudhoe Bay and started talking to him about his trip. He pretty much said it was hell riding up there. The gravel was 4 inches deep and he never rode any faster than 35mph.
Talking to him made me a bit nervous about my ride the next day on the Top of the World Highway considering its all gravel, but he assured me the road was well maintained and better than any road construction I had encountered all trip. I still bought an extra gas canister just in case considering it took me an hour to go 17 miles up to Salmon Glacier and the Top of the World Highway spanned ~70 miles.
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