All the locals tell us winter came early. It was summer just two weeks ago! Well, it's pretty obvious! Rain, snow, cold...August, Winter in Alaska!
We are now in Canada, the Yukon and we are in awe about the free camping facilities provided by the government. There is a roofed sheltered "kitchen" in each with a big, thick walled iron stove in the middle, two big picnic tables and enough space to set up two tents. Firewood provided.
Clean bathrooms, no running water, but there are streams and lakes everywhere.
We spend our first night in one of those with good company from Chile (on a motorcycle) and two RVs with German inhabitants which we have already met a few times on other camp grounds. (Yes, they weren't any faster with their motored wheels....).
We left in the rain in the morning that day. A warning from one of the German guys: don't take the wrong turn, coming out of the campground. The Chilean guy said: I am not leaving in the rain, I am waiting for better weather.
Well, we are kind of in a hurry. We read on the internet in Tok that there is a ferry in Haines going to Bellingham on the 1st of September. Gotta get that one....next one is a week later! We are not made out of sugar, anyways, we are not afraid of rain.
A few hours later we realized we had done 12.5 "bonus miles" ( counting up to 25 miles round trip) when we saw the sign for "Beaver Creek". We were in "Beaver Creek" the day before and thought we would be ahead of the game riding the 12.5 miles to the next campground that night. SHIT!!!! We DID take the wrong turn out of the campground. Neither one of us had noticed that we were riding BACK until we saw the damn town sign!!! Grinding the head wind, James had announced shortly before, that we have had head winds ever since we left Anchorage, every turn we took.....I had stopped to pee in the stupid wind with my cape sticking to my bare bottom in the pouring rain on the side of the road.....highly unpleasant!
OK, turn around ...not funny! We planned on riding close to 100 miles that day, well, not anymore...maybe 100 miles, but not where we wanted to end up that day....shit, shit, shit!
Rain, rain, rain and the temperatures dropped to 42 degrees F.
I tried to ease the pain by telling myself that we have tailwinds now! It helped a little...but by the time we passed the campground again we were pretty soaked, cold and miserable. Ok, no pride, we hitchhike! Few cars, lots of RVs..not much help for us and our filthy bikes.
Finally a utility truck stopped, or had to stop, because I basically placed myself in the middle of the road, waving...
Friendly Dwaine said he is on duty and can't take us now, but is off work at 5:30pm (it was about 2pm) and can take us all the way to Haines Jct (about 120 miles). We could wait in the "White River Lodge" coming up in about 10 miles in our direction. Yes, of course, we have a date!
Only a few miles down the road construction started and - as we waited for the pilot car- we got to sit in the warm ambulance sipping juice. Works for me!
We got to ride in the well heated pilot truck for quite a few miles (same girl had also driven Adela and Kris back a few days ago through this mess, just in the other direction) and when we got to the end of this construction section, the lodge was right in front of us. Good deal! The semi friendly people let us dry our clothes and eat our lunches while we waited for Dwaine, who never came...
It was 6:30pm, when we left dry, but in the rain again and the muddy, muddy, muddy, gravely road just went on and on and on and on. This really isn't my idea of a good day in Alaska, in fact, in the 21 month through Central and South America, I have not been that wet and cold for this long in one stretch. When you cycle in the wind and rain with temperatures like this, you bound to have your equipment fail on you. Just is!
The grinding of my tires and the grinding of my teeth were synchronized .....just keep going....even this shall pass...maybe...
When Dwaine finally and slowly approached from behind it was about 7:30pm and we were still battling the road constructions (but all the workers had gone home there was no pilot car to drive us) along with the weather. Well, yes, Dwaine saved the day! I got cleaned up in the back seat of his truck by his golden retriever CJ, while James got to hear a lot of stories. Dwaine belongs to a very small First Nation tribe from this area. He is on his way to see his Dad in "White Horse". He had already hunted two moose in this hunting season and explained how he prepares the body for consumption. A lot of work, that is what I got out of it (and a piece of dried moose meat for James and me as well). When the day was finally done, we were in Haines Jct splurging on a hotel.
