To Alaska and back…31 days of fun, sun, rain and memories.

[STScott]

August 2011

I am in Guido’s (my riding buddy and supervisor) office, visiting and chatting when the subject of “rides we want to do” comes up. I tell him that I am planning on riding to Alaska in August of 2012 to go see our buddy Knothead, his wife Molly (also a good friend) and their kiddo (Mat).

Guido’s eyes light up and he says “dude...can I ride with you?”. Since I really did not think that anyone else would have been willing to take a month off of work to go on a motorcycle trip, I had been planning this adventure as being a solo trip. But seeing that Guido was willing (and we are good friends) I said “sure”.

Thus began a year of saving vacation time, money, spending money at Cabela’s as we planned to camp on the way up there (more on that later) and research on what to do and see en route and while actually in Alaska.


July 22th, 2012 (all the following days are in 2012, unless noted)

A year goes by quite quickly when you are planning a trip like this and eventually a plan did come together with the help of Bill “DFW Warrior” Carmickle, Knothead and the Milepost (an indispensable guide dedicated to traveling to Alaska).

Our departure date was set for July 29th so on July 22nd I headed over to the house of my main motorcycle mechanic, the aforementioned DFW Warrior (named for the Yamaha motorcycle he rode for years before switching to the VStrom not for any warrior-like tendencies he may or may not have) to get the oil changed, new brake pads and most importantly, new shoes put on my 2006 Honda ST1300.

As always, Bill and wife Rachel were very helpful and opened their garage early on a Sunday morning to work on my bike.









So, after a couple of hours of wrenching (mainly by Bill) my bike was ready for the adventure ahead…I wasn't so sure about myself.

[Gravel Guy]

All right!

[Duke]

......

I just know this is going to be a good one.

[STScott]

July 29th Day 1 Mansfield, TX to Alamosa,CO

I loaded (well, overloaded) my bike on the 28th and tried to get some sleep. After much tossing and turning my alarm went off at 0400 and I groggily made my through my morning routine. Thoughts of what I was about to do soon got my adrenaline pumping. After all the talking, all the planning, all the preparations were over. I was actually fixing to start my dream vacation: a ride from Texas to Alaska and back! Thirty one days on the road. Me, my motorcycle and my buddy Guido.

An hour later I was at a Chevron on 287 in Mansfield waiting for Guido to arrive. He, as always, showed up right on time and we took a few minutes to prep for the upcoming ride. Guido with a Five Hour Energy and me with a Monster Drink.

Our first indicator that this was not going to be an ordinary trip made itself known in that parking lot. While we were “energizing up” we watched as a newer model Mustang convertible pulled into the lot. The top was up and the windows were tinted. It drove up to where we were standing and a short brunette stepped out. She looked to be in her late forties, maybe early fifties, and she was wearing clothes three sizes too small that might have worked if they were being worn by a girl twenty to thirty years younger than their current occupant. And then were the multiple tattoos...I wish I could describe them all but the only one that has really stuck with me was the tiger on her back. She scared me.

She walked up to us and asked, in a country accent, “do you know where the prison is? I got visitation with my son today and I always get lost”. We assured here that we didn’t know where the prison was and without another word she got back into her Mustang and drove off. And no, I did not get a photo. Like I said, I was scared.

Taking this as our cue, we finished our drinks, started our bikes and headed north. Destination Alamosa, CO.

Along the 700 and then some mile journey to Alamosa we did have some excitement. We were pulled over by a Texas State Trooper (warning only, thank goodness). While we were chatting on the side of the road with the nice trooper he mentioned that there were a bunch of Bandidos heading to the Metroplex for some kind of rally.

Sure enough, soon after departing the trooper’s company we saw a small group (four or five) of Bandidos on the other side of freeway. As is the motorcyclist custom, I waved to them. Apparently this friendly motion by two guys on non Harleys (I am on a ST1300 and Guido rides a Goldwing) so incensed one muscled up, no shirt wearing, jean vest wearing, tough guy in his own mind “1%er” that he felt the need to flip us off. Neither Guido or I were impressed or scared.

After, what I think was 740 some miles (I didn’t keep real good track of the miles this day), we arrived at Dwayne and Lori’s house (Guido’s brother in law and sister) and were treated to a great home cooked meal of grass fed steaks, potatoes and vegetables.

Shortly after that, I was dead asleep.

The only pictures I took on Day 1 are from our lunch stop in Dumas (we were just putting in miles)

Good food here. If you are ever in Dumas, it is worth the stop.:

[M38A1]

.

[Rman of 237]

5200 s to choose from, this has got to be good!!

[The Bruce]

and

This is gonna be fun.

Another ST1300 rider from Dripping Springs near Austin did the round-trip trip from Texas to Deadhorse (Prudhoe Bay) in 22 days. When he got finished, the white calcium road sealant had penetrated just about every nook and cranny of the bike. He almost had to take the entire ST apart and spent many days cleaning the entire ST1300.

It looks like you installed a RP3 for tires. How long did it last?

RB

[Texason]

Moar!

[Bob Dahringer]

Continue.....
Love reading Alaska ride reports, dont know if I'll ever get there myself.

[STScott]

July 30th Day 2 Alamosa, CO to Manitou Springs, CO

This day could also be titled “How I learned to hate altitude and we narrowly escape a huge storm”

When we were originally planning this trip the suggestion was made that we trailer from Texas to Colorado and begin riding from there. I was all for that as anyone who has ever ridden or driven 287 from the metroplex to Amarillo knows it is one boring stretch of road. And that was the plan....until about a week before the departure date when Guido called me and said “hey, let’s ride the whole thing...and by the way, Pikes Peak is open so let’s ride it also”. Foolishly, I said “yes” to both suggestions.

I woke up on the 30th feeling surprisingly refreshed. I say surprisingly as I had just completed the longest ride I had ever done in one shot the day before. With the knowledge that I still had many many miles to go before this trip was over I went about repacking my bike.

The night before, I had decided that I had way too much stuff on my back. Camping gear, camera gear, clothes, and so on. This made my bike very heavy and ungainly to maneuver as I discovered in some mountain passes the previous day. So I spent the first part of the day repacking. I ended up shipping most of the camera gear to Alaska ( Due to a bear trip, two days in Seward and two days in Denali I had packed pretty much every lens I own). I kept my camera (of course), the 24-105 lens and the 11-16 wide angle lens on my camera.

I also left behind some clothes, the jet boil and the dehydrated meals that I had planned to cook up.

Thus lightened, the ST1300 felt much better. I would be very grateful for this a couple of hours down the road.



After being fortified by a great home cooked breakfast, Guido and I took up the trail again.

The plan was to ride from Alamosa to Pikes Peak and then to Fort Collins or even a little further north depending on how we felt. It was not going to be a big mile day but we still wanted to make progress.

After leaving Alamosa we headed towards Pike Peak. Our route took us through Salida, CO which was also our first gas stop (unless there was a picture involved, we fell into the pattern of riding 170-180 miles between gas stops on this trip).

At the Shell, I couldn’t help but notice the big silver horse sculpture in the parking lot and we had to take our picture with it.




After all that was done we headed back onto the road. Now, mind you, I have never been in Colorado before so as we are riding these passes my “photomind” was being overwhelmed with possibilities and I did my best to keep my photo instincts in check but finally my desire to take photos took my desire to get miles under our wheels hostage and demanded “that we stop and take take pictures or someone was going to get hurt!!!

The following photos were all taken within a few miles of each other:







Picnic in Canon City (Lorey packed us a great lunch).




Now that the little photo voice in my head had been momentarily silenced we were able to carry on and we eventually arrived at Pike’s Peak.

Here is Guido signing us in as we prepare to enter the park and ride to the top.




Since Pike’s Peak was Guido’s idea, I made sure to have him pose before this sign so if we didn’t make it back our families would know, that for once, it wasn’t my fault.





If you have not ridden Pike’s Peak yet, let me give you this warning....it is not for new riders!!! The first few miles of the road are deceiving, it reminded me of some of 7 in Arkansas; nicely wooded, gentle 20mph to 30mph turns that can be taken at 40mph or higher and some short passing lanes. So it lulls you into a false sense of security and competence. Then WHAM!! You are above the tree line and all you see above you are 10mph switchbacks with no guard rails and nothing to stop you if you go wide until you and your bike hit the bottom of the peak.

These 10mph switchbacks are by golly, no kidding, heed the limit or pay the price switchbacks because not only do you have to contend with your bike you also have to watch for the idiots in cars in front of you and coming down the peak. I kid you not, coming out of one switchback I had to come to a dead stop because the idiot in the car in front of me came to a dead stop because he saw sheep!! Sheep!!. Thankfully I was able to see far enough ahead of me to get around this moron but that is not always the case on this road. Quite often the switchback you are going into is blind so you have no idea if the car coming in the opposite direction is swinging wide and into your lane.

Don’t get me wrong, it is a fun road but it has it’s dangers and you want to have become very comfortable on your bike before attempting it.

Eventually we reached the summit, 14,110 ft above sea level. Oh yeah, the temperature went from 80 to 42 on the way up.










As I was walking around the summit, taking photos and enjoying the view (we were in between cloud layers) I began to notice that I was developing a real nice buzz. I was getting light headed and my thoughts were cloudy. A little concerned about this development I tracked down Guido. He said “let’s go into the gift shop, get something to eat and drink and you should start to feel better”. We did exactly that and had been sitting in the gift shop for about five minutes sipping on sodas and eating a snack when all of a sudden Guido says to me “oh..well, I am going to get a picture of this and then we better head down...because you are turning blue!”

That made me feel better!!!




Since I don’t drink alcohol to excess while in the middle of a ride I never knew, until this day, how difficult it can be to put on riding pants, a jacket, helmet, gloves and start your bike while buzzed. I did it, but it wasn’t pretty.

And then came the ride down. Normally I lead our rides (Guido likes to learn from the lines I take into corners...sometimes they are good lines, sometimes not so much) but this time he led.

Interestingly, even as bad as I was feeling my photographer's voice spoke up to me on the descent and said “Hey Sally! You better put your big boy picture taking pants on and take some photos on the way down. You will never be here again”. So I stopped at a scenic overlook (the first scenic overlook on the way down actually...I never said my photo voice was smart....insistent, but not smart) and took the following photos.






Needless to say, since I am writing this I made it down in one piece.


While resting at the bottom of the peak we noticed that the clouds above us had taken on an ominous tone....wait, no, the first thing we noticed was that we were near the North Pole!! Yay!! Candy and Toys!!! Well, not really....just a tourist trap with a cool sign.




After taking the obligatory photo of the sign we turned out attention back to the clouds. Checking the weather on the iPhone all we saw was green, yellow and red on the radar along the route we were going to take.

Being smarter than the average bear we decided to stay in Manitou Springs for the evening and get hotel rooms.

I located a nearby Days Inn that had a restaurant within walking distance. Fortunately they had rooms and even gave us discounts due to my American Motorcycle Association card!! Score!!





After unpacking the bikes we sauntered over to Moe’s to eat and enjoy a few beers. While there the skies unleashed...so we drank more beers (it seemed the only reasonable thing to do at the time). We also did our good deed of the day by helping push a van out of the road after it flooded.

Moe’s has excellent Green Chili.







After the rain subsided we walked back to the hotel and while on that walk we saw a Manitou Springs Police Department squad car driving slowly up the road with it’s lights on repeating over and over on it’s loudspeaker “Flash floods are possible. Be prepared to evacuate to higher ground if needded”.



Satisfied that the Days Inn was as high as we needed to be, we went to our respective rooms and called it a day.

[STScott]

Originally Posted by Red Brown

This is gonna be fun.

Another ST1300 rider from Dripping Springs near Austin did the round-trip trip from Texas to Deadhorse (Prudhoe Bay) in 22 days. When he got finished, the white calcium road sealant had penetrated just about every nook and cranny of the bike. He almost had to take the entire ST apart and spent many days cleaning the entire ST1300.

It looks like you installed a RP3 for tires. How long did it last?

RB

After 10,000 miles the front and rear are still going strong.

[wanabeguru]

GREAT-more please

[Texfire]

Time pull up a chair. I never tire of hearing about great rides and I suspect this'll be one.

[STScott]

July 31 Day 3 Manitou Springs, CO to Dubois, Wy 510 Miles
“ That’s the Biggest Jackalope I Ever Saw”

As would become a theme on our trip, we were up early and on the road with the goal of beating Denver rush hour traffic and being in Jackson, WY that evening.

I25 between Manitou Springs and Denver is two lanes going north and two lanes going south. I can say this for the people in that part of Colorado...they sure do enjoy going to work! I can find no other explanation as to why we were doing 80mph and being passed with regularity!!!

Thankfully, morning rush hour traffic in the Denver flows south into the city so we were able to go north and hit Fort Collins to make our first stop of the day at the unfortunately named “Kum and Go” gas station in good time.

Shortly after leaving Fort Collins we picked up 287 (well, not too shortly...I tried a “shortcut” that did not work so well) but we did eventually cross into Wyoming from Colorado after seeing a bit more of Colorado than was originally intended.

From 287 we took I80 across the southern part of Wyoming. Other than the wind that kept trying to blow my bike all over the road this stretch of highway is BORING. It made me wish for a cruise control and a pillow.

I had programmed my GPS to use the “quickest time” mode to calculate our route so, for whatever reason, it had us pick up 287 and head north from I80 to go to Jackson...man, was that a beating!!! And after looking at a map I have no idea what the GPS was thinking.

Anyways, we were stuck on 287 for way too many miles and the speed limit is 65mph. The road is straight and there is nothing to see. Add those two together with a low speed limit and you have a recipe for disaster…..or a traffic stop.

We ended up with the traffic stop. As we were westbound, a Wyoming State Trooper passed us eastbound. I tried waving to hopefully stall the inevitable but to no avail. As soon as I saw his brake lights come on we were pulling to the side of the road and killing the bikes. Before the trooper was pulled in behind us we had our licenses and insurance cards out and ready for his perusal.

What really irritated me was that I had now lost leverage over Guido! When we were leaving Texas he was in the lead and managed to get us pulled over, something that had never happened in all the rides I had led us on. I was having good fun reminding him of that fact every chance I could. So I guess it was Karma getting back at me as I got us pulled over not two days after that. I was really hoping this was not going to be a trend during this trip.

After giving us a verbal warning and lecture about the dangers of speed (which we deserved) the trooper was kind enough to help us plan out the last portion of the day. He told me that Jackson was still a couple of hundred of miles away and that there were closer, better and more affordable places to stay on our route.





He recommended that we get a bite to eat in Lander, a town not too far from our current location.

He also said we should either camp at Brooks Lake (his direct quote “the prettiest place in the world”) or get a hotel in Dubois (pronounced “du boys”), a city just east of Brooks Lake. After thanking him for his kindness and advice we were once again on the way.

Taking the trooper’s advice we stopped in Lander and ate at the Gannet Grill. The burger i had there is easily in my top ten of burgers. Guido enjoyed his meal also.








Lander was a neat little town and kind of reminded me of Fredericksburg in the way the main street was set up with shops and restaurants for guests and tourists.



By the time we reached Dubois we had 510 miles on the bikes making camping the furthest thing from our minds. We both wanted cold beer, a warm meal and a comfortable bed so we found the Rocky Mountain Lodge. This place was definitely a throwback to the days of the motor lodge, in a good way.





The manager, Thomas, could not have been a nicer guy. After getting us checked in to our rooms he invited us to come back in a couple of hours to have some watermelon on the back porch with him and some other guests. Assuring Thomas that we would be there, we settled into our rooms and then went to explore a sign that had caught both of our attention while driving through town:



And sure enough, inside the store they did have the world’s largest Jackalope!!!!







Once we were done playing with the Jackalope we went in search of beer. It took a bit of doing but we were able to find the local liquor store where we were able to procure what we needed.

Thus fortified we returned to the lodge to have watermelon with our beer (yes, that was our dinner this night) and visit with Thomas.



The watermelon was great and the company was fun. We met a couple from Houston who stay in Dubois for two to three months every summer (both are retired). They found this place thirty years ago when the husband (you will have to forgive me, I forgot to write their names down) was teaching at the Indian Reservation up the road and they have been coming back ever since to relax, sight see and fly fish.



There was also a German fellow there who had arrived at LAX in July, rented a car and had been driving around the USA seeing the sights. He had no real plans for his journey other than he knew he had to be back at LAX in September for his return flight!

We helped him plan a route to several spots including Mount Rushmore.

All in all, the company made for some great conversation that evening.

We were also treated to the company of a hummingbird and the day was capped off with a spectacular sunset.







It was a good day.

[tshelfer]

I'm in. By the way, you have a good eye for photo composition.

[STScott]

Originally Posted by tshelfer

I'm in. By the way, you have a good eye for photo composition.

Thank you.

[Jeff S]

(Jealously waiting for day 4...)

[Jchefboyardee]

Thanks for posting! Great pics....

[swoody126]

i would like to apologize for stopping in front of you

when the bridal unit, of 43 years says STOP, i stop

we have traveled Colorado for many years & that was her first sheep

she was closer than you & far more dangerous

again, SORRY!!!

NOW, PLEASE GO ON...

sw