Tok to Anchorage
I woke up early to make the 6 hour drive into Anchorage. Waiting a bit longer to let the day warm up would have been nice, but it looked like rain would be rolling in as the day progressed and I would rather be chilly than wet on the motorcycle. I made a “free” pile of all the camping supplies I couldn’t fly home with (bear spray, isobutane, lighters, bug spray, etc) while packing up and offered it to the other motorcyclists before heading off around 8am.
The beginning of the road was pretty similar to the road from Chicken into Tok. The views were pretty much limited to the trees at the side of the road and the road itself was a three-dimensional obstacle course of twists, potholes, and frost heaves that produced some of the only paved whoops I’ve ever had the fun of riding. It wasn’t the easiest road, but definitely helped me wake up. Eventually the views opened up to gorgeous, rugged mountain peaks for a dozen or so miles before descending into Glennallen.
My Connecticut dealership called me around this time to confirm the issues I was having with the bike so they could get the ball rolling on warranty approval, but they didn’t have any easy field fixes for me. I topped off the gas, did my mystery handshake with the bike to get it going, and got back on the road to Anchorage. After Glennallen the views did start to get more magnificent — there were snow capped peaks with huge glaciers in the distance, massive river valleys, and some incredible riding. I was feeling pretty apprehensive about stopping the bike for pictures, so I kept the 360 camera rolling and hoped I would catch the views to snapshot later. Unfortunately, the rain started rolling in and a lot of the pictures were a bit ruined by rain drops on the lenses (the videos should still be ok, but as stills it’s hard to work around).
The rain continued as I approached Anchorage and entered the proper city traffic. Anchorage is spread out and most of the city is a grid of multi-lane traffic with long lights, at least what I saw of it. It’d been a while since I’d been around so many drivers, and I was especially on guard with the wet whether. I made it to my hotel with no drama and wandered across the parking lot to buy a suitcase to get my gear home after crating up the bike tomorrow. Most of the dinner options were national chains — another sign I was back in civilization — but I managed to find a Korean/Mexican fusion place just a few minutes’ walk from the hotel.
Anchorage
After a pretty decent hotel breakfast I took a short ride to a nearby car wash to spray as much dirt & mud as I could then used the last of my WD-40 to blow the water off the chain and applied a fresh coating of lube. While I couldn’t get the bike totally clean, the main goal was to not have it arrive in CT rusted or corroded to hell after being in a shipping crate for a few weeks.
The Motorcycle Shop opened up at 10am and I headed there early to try to strap my riding gear to the bike in a reasonable way. The FAQ pages for the service mention no loose items like gear are allowed in the crate, but the shipping agent I was dealing with told me it was up to their discretion and if everything was strapped well enough to not come loose in transit it should be fine. Either way the dealership accepted it and I was in and out in 15 minutes. Sadly it didn’t get crated right away so I didn’t get a chance to take any photos.
I’d arranged for a late checkout from the hotel, so I went back and finalized packing my luggage for the flight home after popping back into Walmart for a cheap luggage scale. My flight home is at 8:15, so I’ll probably head to the airport around 5pm to get through security with all the electronics I’m flying with. Other than that the afternoon will be getting a late lunch and reading my book in the hotel lobby or the airport terminal.