"If I Could Only See..."

We stayed in our favorite place is Chistochina, the Red Eagle. We have been stopping off here for almost 10 years, staying in the little cabin called the Hermits Roost. It is just the right distance from Anchorage to work for the day, then hop on the bike and get on the road. Plus it is beyond Glennallen, the city of god. We had breakfast, said goodbye to Bob and Sharon, and hit the road.

We knew this day was going to be a raining day, so we left Rasta’s convertible top on the side car. While she is riding with the top on, there is no need for her to wear her RexSpec googles. Without her googles on, she generally curls up and goes to sleep.

Today was Michael’s birthday. We decided to celebrate when we got back from this trip. It is much easier than trying to celebrate on the road, especially when there aren’t any services around. Which reminds me; if you stay at the Red Eagle, make sure you take your own dinner or food to cook.

No sooner did we hit the road when it started raining. It rained all day. The mantra for the day ended up being “If I could just see…” on account of limited visibility. Rain on the visor of the helmets, rain inside the visor on the helmet, rain on the sunglasses, fogged up helmet visor, fogged up sunglasses.

We made it to Tok in no time and had hot chocolate, and a large cinnamon roll to share that made you shudder from the sugar content. We topped off our gas tanks and hit the Taylor highway.  The road just before Tok was more knarly than usual; the state really needs to repave that. The Taylor was okay, but there were definitely some spots to watch out for. The road is paved just outside of Chicken and runs through the end of town on the other side. The shiniest newest blacktop you have ever seen. Too bad it is only for a couple of miles.

Once in Chicken we stopped at the old gold camp and had chicken soup. This is our routine in these parts. The rain started coming down so hard just before we got to chicken, Rasta even got soaked going from the sidecar to go pee, then to the café. For the most part, Rasta was the driest of the three of us. And then it really started to rain. We sat looking at each other. We both knew the road was only going to get worse from there on out. We reluctantly packed up and left in the rain.

Driving a side car is way different than driving a motorcycle, driving a sidecar in the mud and gravel very different than pavement. It was definitely a challenge. I practices going from 30 mph to 0 in mud, in gravel, on dirt with ABS off. I learned that as long as the gravel was not that marble gravel we all hate, I was going to be fine.

We stopped a couple of times when the rain was less and let Rasta romp by the river or have carrot snacks. Soon we were at the border. No issues there. Then we were on the Canadian side and no sooner did we hit the road, when the marble gravel started.

For those of you that have never driven the “Top of the World” highway, it’s called that because you are basically driving on top of a ridge. The road winds up and down and there are some wonderful views (if it’s not raining). Let me also mention, if you haven’t driven a lot in the more remote provinces of Canada, the Canadians do not believe in guardrails.

So here we were, on this road covered in marbles, not really being able to see, with drop offs on both sides (the kind that will kill you if you go off the road) and no guardrails. Then we hit fog or low cloud cover. Let me say again, I wish I could just see. This is when Michael said “I’m going to die.” This is something he does not say often (at least not out loud).

So went the miles between the boarder and Dawson. Most of the time, I could only tell where I was going because the road was a silver glistening river of mud, and everything else was dark. At some point Michael started having clutch problems. We pulled over adjusted, and stood in the rain. Rasta sniffed a lot of flowers and rocks.

It stopped raining just before Dawson. The sky got partly cloudy, we caught the ferry across the Yukon River and parked at the Dawson Hotel. It was a 12 hour day in the rain. We have travelled 503 miles.

This morning, we are off to Eagle Plain, 240 miles up the Dempster.