Friday morning I opened the blackout shades in the room to a clear blue sky day. I think we are owed this after getting rained on all day yesterday. It had also obviously continued to rain hard the night before as the dirt lot was flooded with huge puddles not present when we parked the. night before. This is the first day in a while I didn’t gear up with the heated jacket liner. It was a cool 50 degrees but the sun was shining so didn’t feel so cold.
The ride to the Alaska border station was short and the gruff agent was trying to scare us with word of the haul road to Deadhorse in the worst shape in years due to the large amounts of rain they have received this summer. She asked us if we have more tires. No. Oh, those are going to be destroyed. Do we know not to screw with the truckers, she asked? They will radio ahead to let each other know of “ass hole” bikers. Yes, of course we don’t plan to screw with the truckers. Didn’t seem necessary pile on even more fear then I already had about riding the haul road.
We rode another hour after the border to Tok where we stopped for breakfast/lunch at Fast Eddy’s. I chose the spot just due to the name and it actually turned out to be an excellent restaurant. I had the Alaskan Omelet that had reindeer sausage, mushrooms, onions and jack cheese – gigantic and excellent. They let you choose your side car so I added the biscuits and gravy – a nice light breakfast. There would be no need for lunch today! After gassing up I check my oil and it was down again. I finally finished off the liter I had started out with. I’ve leaked/burned a liter of oil in about 3000 miles so not too horrible. With the help of Joe, I also was able to identify the horrible rattle I’ve lived with for the duration. I couldn’t identify by the sound exactly where it was coming from. I rode past Joe a few times and he saw it was coming from the chain guard. Sure enough the bolts had worn a ring around the attachment holes and it was rattling around inside. Now that I know what it is I can’t wait to get to the hardware store in Fairbanks to purchase some washers to fix it – was driving me crazy to have to listen to the racket all day.
After a quick trip to the Santa Clause store in North Pole just south of Fairbanks we arrived at the University of Alaska dorm rooms that would be our sleep for the night. They lease out the dorm for overnight guests in the summer months – only $35 per night! Much cheaper than the overpriced Fairbanks hotels – Super 8 goes for $180 per night!
Hardware store, dinner, some quick repairs then to bed. Saturday we will make the run up to Wiseman to stage for the final approach to Deadhorse. The weather is calling for rain so we may wait it out a few days in Wiseman. The haul road turns into a skating rink when it rains due to the Calcium Chloride they thrown down on the dirt and gravel as a hardener. We are hoping to find a weather window to get up and back so looking for two days of dry – hopefully we will get it.
At the North Pole…
