Made it Home

I arrived home on Monday, Sep 3rd. After 15,000 relatively incident free miles on my motorcycle, my car decided it needed a new alternator. Welcome home.

Here's some footage from Al's combine in Iowa. That was awesome.

Back to work on Monday. Check back though, I'd like to do a gear review from the trip and talk about what worked and didn't, stuff like that.

Carhenge

The day before yesterday, I actually put in some good miles, almost 500, and made it most of the way across Wyoming. The ride was awesome, and took me through the Tetons and the Wind River range. I pulled in to Lusk, WY to spend the night, near the Nebraska border. When I got off the bike though, I found that my back tire had worn completely through.

I knew I wasn't going to get many miles out of this tire (it was a softer rubber, designed for a sport bike, but that's all that was available at the time so I took it), but I never expected this to happen. I was kind of worried about what to do, because Lusk is a very small town with no motorcycle shop, and I didn't know how far I could get on that tire before it failed. The heat at 100 degrees wouldn't help. After a little internet searching, I found a shop in Scottsbluff, NE, that was about 100 miles away, and they had a tire that would fit. Luckily, the tire made the trip, they were able to replace it that day, and a minor crisis was averted.

After the tire was fixed, I headed north to Alliance, NE and stopped at the famous Carhenge. Then, headed east on Rt 2 through some amazing scenery and wound up in Broken Bow, where I am now.

Rest stop in a small NE town.

Atoms for Peace

Yesterday I stopped in Arco, ID. It was the first town to ever be powered by a nuclear reactor.

Down the road about 20 miles is the actual reactor, which has been preserved and is a National Historic Landmark. EBR-1 stands for Experimental Breeder Reactor. In the parking lot were 2 atomic jet engines, designed to power strategic bombers. But this program was dropped once ballistic missiles came online. Yay missiles!

Atomic engine

Arco was a very interesting and quirky town. There was a science park with a real conning tower from a nuclear submarine. I was given an excellent tour by a nuclear veteran, Richard. He'd worked at Rocky Flats and the Idaho National Laboratory.

Richard, proudly telling me about the virtues and history of nuclear power.

Richard, describing a deactivated cask used to transport radioactive waste.

A cask with a door cut in it.

Warnings. Another reactor is buried beyond the fence.

I didn't get all that far yesterday, only about 300 miles. Today I'm headed through the Tetons and Wyoming, and will hopefully put in some good miles.

Route Home

This is my planned route home. Not sure exactly how long it'll take, but I need to be back around Sep 4.



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Eastern Oregon

Just spent the last 2 days with Bryan and his friends riding amazing roads in eastern Oregon. I'm in Boise now, getting ready to hit the road. One planned stop along the way is to see the world's first atomic power plant.

Here's a video with a sample of one of the many awesome roads in Oregon--it was tough keeping up with those guys:

Sanitarium

The 5-day ferry ride from Whittier to Bellingham, WA turned out to be a freakin' blast. I had thought twice about even taking the ferry, as I imagined 5 days cooped up on a boat with no internet, reading a book and bored as hell. The fun started when I met Mike early in the day at the ferry terminal. He's 52, from Alabama and had ridden his Triumph. Mike had met Al, a 57 year old Iowa corn farmer, the previous day and he joined us as we boarded the ferry--he'd ridden his Harley from Iowa. Once on board we met Sandy from FL, and Bryan, and Deb--a 33 year old speech therapist. For 5 days we just goofed off, laughed and played hearts. It was a really strange fun time that's hard to explain. Kind of slap happy the whole time.

You could camp out on the boat! It was a strange sensation to be in the tent while the boat was moving.

Mike, Bryan, and Deb at a stop in Juneau

Bryan during lunch at the Red Dog in Juneau

Sandy and Mike in the bar on board

Mike, me, Bryan, Deb, Al, Sandy at stop in Ketchican

Sandy, Bryan, Deb

Deb, Al, Mike

Al, Deb, Mike

Al, Deb

Crazy Ferry Ride

Man I've had a great week since leaving Alaska. I'm currently in Bellingham, WA with a new friend I met on the ferry, Bryan. He's really into motorcycles and helped me clean my radiator along with Mike, another friend from the ferry. Mike is from Alabama and is riding a Triumph.

Me and Mike

A ton of mud was still in my radiator from the trip to Prudhoe Bay, and the bike had been running hot. We first soaked it in hot water which got a lot of the mud out, but in the end we resorted to soaking it in gasoline. That did the trick.

Bryan's garage.

Bryan trying to get the goo out of my radiator

Radiator removed

Mud on the inside of the fairing

Bryan Painting the radiator. The gas had eaten away the paint.

Radiator removed.

I boarded the ferry in Whittier, a very small and odd town. Had to kill a day there since the ferry departed at 11:45pm.

Bicycle traveler in Whittier.

Our ferry in Whittier.

Cruise ship docked in Whittier.

80 percent of Whittier's population lives in the apartment building in the distance.

The Kennicott, our ferry.

Cruise ship in Whittier.

Seaplane outside of Juneau.

Crazy friends. More on them later.

Atomic Bomb Veteran I met on the ferry.

I have some catching up to do on the ferry ride, but today I'm riding to Whistler, BC.

Waiting for the Boat

Yesterday I camped just outside Whittier after an amazing ride from Mica.

Campground outside of Whittier

To get to Whittier you have to go through a 2.5 mile long tunnel. The thing is, the tunnel is narrow, so it goes one direction for about 30 minutes, then cars going the other way go through. I've got some video I'll post later.

So I wanted to be in line early at the Alaska Marine Highway System office to increase my odds of getting a spot. I was 2nd in line behind a cool guy named Dan with a truck. He'd been travelling all over Alaska and even did some prospecting. He showed me his vial of gold dust that he had recovered. In any case, I got on the stand by list and they told me I'd find out at 9pm if I got on or not, and the ship sails at 11:45 pm. It's going to be tough killing a day in Whittier. Not much going on here.