bigplatcool

This was not the most pleasant of motorcycling days. Not for any reason other than the excessive traffic the whole way from Minneapolis to Milwaukee.
It is a Sunday and most of the people appear to be returning from vacation judging by the bicycles, gear on the roof and children in the vehicles. They would have been to the lakes in Minnesota or Wisconsin. The route I am, on not only goes to Milwaukee, but it also takes traffic for Chicago and the whole of Illinois. So it is busy. I mean really busy.
The adaptation I am having to make from riding in Alaska, the Yukon and Alberta where there is unlimited space and no traffic to this, is enormous. I have to be very alert.

This is very tiring and I am already tired. In bed early last night, there was continual noise in the hotel as there were two sports team staying over for the evening. It was a bit like the night in PE after our daughter Nikkis’s 21st. Rather than having the children drive back to Grahamstown , we put all 30 up in the Holiday Inn at the beach front. At about 03h00 in the morningDD and I were woken up by the telephone. It was the duty manager. Mr. Friedman? Yes arse hole you know you have called my room, who do you expect it to be? Your children are running amok on the second floor!

I get up go down. Find chaos. Nude bodies everywhere. These are Rhodes Students don’t forget. My younger nephew Simon dancing around. His brother Justin passed out. Simon ducks for cover. Nikki appears, some clothes on thankfully. I go into one of the rooms. There are a couple of Nikki’s girl friends. They have younger son Dane, who is still at school and out for the weekend, nude and with them. They are hugely impressed and playing with him. He nearly dies. Crosses his hands to hide it and blurts out ” Dad they made me do it, they made me do it”! I have not yet discovered what, but notice that they stick to him for the rest of the weekend.

I get everyone squared away and return to our bedroom where DD is waiting for me. So what happened she asks? I reply: “you will be pleased to hear that the Friedman Family were well represented in the chaos below”. They are my mother in laws grandchildren for sure!
Last night I had no influence and eventually put ear plugs in but the adrenaline is flowing and the time changes happening too quickly. Sleep is difficult so I am a bit short of it when I start the day.

There are numerous potential assassins on the road. Women drivers, smokes in hand, texting on the go. These are the KGB’s hired motorbike killers. The A team!

In Sturgis, North Dakota, the annual rally that I wrote about, is in progress this weekend. The attendance figures for the weekend including the few days before and after are expected to be more than 800,000 people. There have already been 8 deaths. Not that many considering the numbers and the fact that a large percentage of the bikers and their partners will be drinking continuously, smoking dope and living it up. Of the eight, only two involve motor cars mainly because cars are banned from Sturgis and the access roads for the two weeks. However the reports are that both crashes were rear enders, that is the bikes were hit from the back and both involved female drivers who were texting at the time. In the USA that is a go to jail for manslaughter offense with high minimum jail times in many states.

However the recession has hammered everyone, with the average households net worth down more than 35 % on six years ago. So holidays are shorter and nearer to home. This makes the roads busier than normal. There are also a lot of people in this country.My trip has shown me it is a big country with a very big population.

Some very interesting figures have just been released debunking the myth that President Obama has been spreading, namely that the rich pay less tax. The election race is heating up. Romney has announced his Vice Presidential nominee, a conservative senator Paul Ryan. He is highly respected and the battle lines for the forthcoming election are being clearly drawn. From the Republican perspective it is going to be all about the economy (Stupid). Obama will run a negative campaign highlighting Romney’s time at Bain Capital and the so called destruction of American jobs and low taxes paid by Romney.

What gets me is that not even Warren Buffet who is advocating higher taxes for the super rich, pays one cent more than he has to. So why should Romney have been expected to do so?

So I have to be extremely careful and alert on the whole route. This is a bit over 360 miles with a detour into Madison to the Whole Food for lunch. There Ben, one of the shop assistants, asks to talk to me. He sees my gear and that I ride a BMW. He has just bought a F650GS, like DD’s and is in love with it. He sits with me while I am eating and we talk bikes. Another couple arrives. Older than Ben, about my age, so old. The man asks if they can join us. They have overheard my conversation. He also loves motorbikes and has just bought his wife a 250 cc scooter to encourage her to get into motorbiking. She tells me she is scared and that it is dangerous.

I go through my usual routine. Do you own a pedal bike? Yes. Do you wear leather or reinforced protective kit when you ride your pedal bike? No. What do you wear? Riding shorts and a shirt. Do you ride your pedal bike in the traffic? Yes. Do you go faster than 30 mph? Sometimes especially when going down hill. Do you know that any accident at over 15 mph is potentially fatal and one involving a head injury invariably so? Wow!

Look at me, I am wearing all the gear, so the rule is “All of the Gear all of the Time” and you increase your safety chances exponentially. I still maintain racing pedal bikes are more dangerous and the statistics of fatal accidents involving cyclists and pedal bikes bear me out. Yet we are happy to let our children ride pedal bikes anywhere any time!

They are off to the motorcycle shop this afternoon to upgrade her from a scooter to an F650GS. If DD can ride it so can she! He loves me. I am not sure about her.

So I am in Milwaukee, back where I had my first night at the start of the trip. I now have over 10,800 miles or 17,000 km under the tires. Tomorrow my ferry across Lake Michigan leaves at 06h00 sharp. I have to be there by 05h30n and will leave the hotel at 05h00. The trip is 2h30 and there is a one hour time change. At that point I will have crossed five time zones and done close on 3600 miles since leaving Valdez on Saturday last week. Not too bad for a retiree.
I intend popping in at my old office to see the guys before I go to the condo. Most of them are mad keen bikers but ride moffie bikes, Ducatis, so I want them to see Bonnie fully loaded and in her glory. I will need to concentrate very hard tomorrow. I need to stay focused as the trip is only over when Bonnie is safe inside our garage and I have unpacked her and am in one piece.

I am not sure that I will write anything tomorrow evening, but there is lots of action on the blog. I have released an edited and toned down comment from Dinah T.  Steekoog and I are in discussions about what he can and cannot write. I do not want to temper their enthusiasm as I feel they have given the whole blog a shot – in the – you know what.

So from the Iron Horse Hotel in Milwaukee, Good Night and Good Luck.

Copyright 2012

Not going to repeat the error of the previous morning, I am up early, washed, shaved and powdered waiting for breakfast as it started and on the road at 08h00 sharp.

This is a big distance day, the last such day of the trip. It is onto the US 2 East and the good conditions continue. I make great time and am soon on the US 94 East, a highway I will remain on for the next 335 miles all the way to Minneapolis. My total for the day will be 450 miles.

The farmers are still busy along the US 2 making hay and the bumble bees continue to attack Bonnie. We have had an ongoing war with these Kamikazes, who continue to throw themselves in our way. Bonnie slowly turns yellow for the umpteenth time, I clean her at every gas stop (Poppie, gas is the US word for Petrol) and then again every evening before I cover her up for the night. Every few minute one of these buggers takes me on directly with an attack on the face. It is a war they cannot win and they do not. They are dying in the thousands in this attempt to stop our inexorable movement East.

Then it stops. Maybe the bees have recognised the futility of trying to stop Biker Pilot. More probably it is a function of what is grown along the route, I deduce. The crops have changed from Wheat, Teff, Barley and Sun Flowers to Corn. (Poppie; this is American for Mielies). There may be a drought in the lower states with a huge failure in the US corn crop looming, but in North Dakota and Northern Minnesota, the corn stands proud. I can see that the Corn and Wheat is GM (Genetically Modified) as it no longer stands as tall as the stuff that my father had grown at his farms. All the energy that used to go into growing tall now goes into the kernel and water is saved.

In some areas the crop is off and ploughing is already taking place. The smells of the fresh earth being turned are incredible. Fresh and very earthy. I want some of this in our wines. They plant here in late autumn and then leave the seeds dormant under the frozen earth, only to start germinating in the spring and growing as the earth thaws.

I have been waiting for a Five Guys burger since I left Michigan. I saw none in South Dakota on my way outbound, nor elsewhere in the west, but they appear to have sprung up in my absence. I want to go to Fargo, have done ever since the movie. So I Google Five Guys and plug the address into my Garmin. A few minutes later I am at the Alter of Fast Burgers. People – this is the best there is. This can be confirmed with DD, jealous mother, baby bear daughter, Joss and another connoisseur of burgers, Charles Tasker aka Chuck!

So I gorge on the peanuts as I wait and then my kosher bacon cheese burger with fried onions and mayo arrives. The onions cancel out the bacon and the mayo the cheese so it is definitely kosher! On this basis I have been kosher for years. It is like being in a different area code, it does not count!

Bonnie does Five Guys in Fargo.

It is too delicious to describe. I savour every mouthful. They only serve burgers and fries ( Poppie; dis skyfies of chips in Kroonstad!). Once again I am amazed at the poor physical shape most Americans in the northern areas are in. They may be in better shape in Florida and California, but not here nor in Canada for that matter. At least here they do not appear to be mutilating themselves in the same way the Canadians are.

A really fat chick comes in. She does not disappoint me. The double patty burger with the full house on it is ordered. Big Fries and the largest size soda (Koolie). To give you some idea of how much food this is, DD, Dane and I can only manage a small fries between us. The portions are immense and I only have the single patty burger.

She sits down and demolishes the whole shebang in two ticks. Then goes out, probably to the Dairy Queen for a double thick. Remember those diet shakes?
Later I pull off at Rothsay to adjust something in my gear, you cannot successfully rearrange your underwear when sitting on the bike while riding without entailing great risks. There on my right hand side is the oddest statue I have seen in ages. I rdie around to look at it. It seems that Rothsay is the Prairie Chicken Capital of the World. A prairie chicken is the US version of a cross between a guinea fowl and pheasant. It is known for “booming”. This is what it does to mate and entails puffing up the yellow glands on the side of its neck.

Prairie Chicken Statue at Rothsay, Prairie Chicken Capital of the world

You can read all about “booming”

Nearer to Minneapolis I am feeling very hungry again. I see a sign for the Grand Depot, a gourmet store. I figure that if this is anything like a Whole Foods it will be perfect. I also need a coffee.

When I get there it is a fantastic store but it sells no food to be consumed on site and serves no coffee. As I am entering, two men come over to me and want to know where I have been and where Bonnie and I are going. They are enthralled and want to know more. I have had this interest throughout the trip.

The one insists on taking a photo of Bonnie and I together and then one, with me and his wife, whom he has gone inside to fetch to meet me.

I give him my Môreson card so that he can e-mail the photos to me. He looks in amazement and tells me he is in the wine business. He is an importer and is setting up a wine business in China as well. He has already contacted me via e-mail. Another unreal co-incidence, along the lines of my Walla Walla experience. There must be a message in this for me. I have to continue riding my Bonnie in the US and sell wine for the jealous mother of the twins.

I am now in Minnetonka, a suburb of Minneapolis. Originally I had hoped to have dinner at a Whole Foods, which is a few miles away. However I have cleaned Bonnie, the weather is threatening and as soon as I have posted this I will eat at a nearby joint. Soup and a salad will do.

Some very interesting facts about Minnesota’s watersheds. It has three that feed into different oceans, the only state in the USA to do this.

Before I go I will censor Steekoog’s latest missive and release it. There are definitely some bits that will need to come out.

Tomorrow I have about 320 miles to Milwaukee. I will have lunch at Whole Foods in Madison, the same place at which I stopped on the way up. I sleep at the same hotel in Milwakee, The Iron Horse, mainly because it is only a few minutes from the ferry terminal. My ferry leaves at 06h00 on Monday morning so the shorter the ride the better.
If I get there early enough I may commit the worst of sacrileges and go to the Harley Museum as it is only a few blocks from the hotel.

From Minnetonka Good Night and Good Luck

Copyright 2012

It was a perfect late afternoon / early evening on the US 2 Eastbound from Minot (Pronounced over here as My Note) to Devils Lake where I am spending the night.

One of those evenings out of the book of Perfect Evenings. The temperature had dropped from 88 F to around 72 F, a cool but not cold air surrounding us. The storm clouds that had formed earlier on, were moving off but allowing the sun to sparkle through them. The light was an unbelievable hue and the scenery surrounding us magnificent.

This area is the wildfowl paradise of the USA and it is not difficult to see why.

Firstly: it is the acknowledged geographic center of the Continental USA and therefore lies directly in the flight path of the migrating birds.

Secondly: there is an unlimited amount of fresh water in the form of lakes and wetland areas. Wildfowl love the cover it provides them in their living areas.

Thirdly: the entire area is under cultivation to Wheat, Corn, Eragrostis (Or a similar grass) and other food sources for them. This means they can sleep in the cover at the edge of the water and then only fly a short distance to collect their food.

The net result is a picture of incredible beauty. This is also a very good farming area, this part of North Dakota. You can see it in the standard of the farms, the houses and buildings on the farms and the way the machinery is kept and worked. It is Hay Harvest season and the entire area is littered with the huge round bales waiting to be picked up and stored for use in the winter. In a few areas the wheat is also in the process of being taken off and the smells are fantastic as I ride along.

This area was obviously selected by the early British settlers. As with Nottingham Road, Balgowan, The Dargyl, Westminster and Douglas in South Africa, they certainly knew how to stake out the best areas while the Boers were rushing off to fight another holy war. The same applies in Southern Canada and this area. Any place that has a French name, is generally not as good an agricultural area.

Here, the names are Surrey, Rugby, Norwich, Granville, Denbigh, Berwick, Knox, York and Leeds. It is my view that the UK battles so much today because the best and brightest have been leaving its shores for the past three hundred and fifty years and many of the rest were killed in the wars of 1914 and 1939.

South Africa is rapidly loosing its best and brightest and our talent pool was marginal to begin with. Our second and third tiers are hardly comparable to those in the UK.

For the first time in what has turned out to be a very long, hot and tiring day Bonnie and I are enjoying the ride. We have a smooth surfaced double carriage way all to ourselves with perfect riding condition. We also have a tail wind for the first and only time today. Bonnie wants her head and I let the reins out. We shoot along at 85 mph and we need to. It is getting dark and we still have too many miles to go and the time is almost 20h00. We were meant to be in bed by no later than this time for tomorrow is a long day. The last long day of the trip.

What had gone astray? As Mike Tyson said: Every plan goes out of the door as soon as you get hit! We were hit by a combination of poor roads, heat, a very strong head and quartering crosswind so hated by Bonnie and myself and then inordinate delays at the US border. Here they made me offload a bunch of my stuff so that they could look in my one Pannier. (For animal heads I was told!).

So you will remember that I was having an easy day, or so the plan said. I got to the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) Academy and Museum on time as it opened. It turned out to be on the wrong side of town for my later departure from Regina.

The RCMP Museum Building. More impressive on the outside than what is to show inside

Surge, A bench at the museum sponsored by your Russian Friends

Canada split into the territories policed by the RCMP

The museum building and the academy facilities are superb, but that is all! A bit like the rest of Canada actually, the scenery is magnificent but the people and attitudes are very average! The staff is hopeless and not really interested. Some of them are mutilated with rings and other odd things sticking out of everywhere they can make a hole. This is in the Mounties Museum, I ask you. The exhibits are very one-dimensional and make little of this force’s exceptional past and history. Frankly it is a waste of time. The only winners are my Grand Children who will have to wait and see what is coming their way.

I stopped for lunch in Weyburn. It was so hot and dusty and miserable I needed a rest and Bonnie needed a break as well. I could not even find any shade for her so she received a quick face wash and cool down. As surprisingly good as my Schnitzel was a few days previously in a dive, so bad was the meal today. Hungry as I was, I could not even get halfway through it.

A short stop along the way is made to take photo’s of the dinosaur oil pumps. There are thousands of them in the Southern part of Saskatchewan and northern North Dakota as opposed to Alberta where all the pumps were of the newer variety. Every time I pass an oil pumps and the wind is blowing  on to me, I get a strong blast of the smell which is not unlike creosote.

Bonnie faces off T Rex

It is a simple but effective design. The small blue motor drives a huge pump using the lever effect of the fly wheels

Now the good and very interesting news is that Dinah Taute now Dinah Hitchcock has been traced and has made contact with me, see the comments at the bottom of yesterday’s blog. She is almost 80 years old and seems to be on top of things. She is promising to bare her “little black book” of old airline “Skandaal” as she puts it. Lets see what comes out.

I also owe you the full list of “strike outs” but this will have to wait until I am back in Michigan, which in turn looks like being on Monday. I will be taking this day off to wash Bonnie, myself and my clothes etc. and probably Tuesday as well before I hit the keyboard again.

Two days ago I took a huge plunge and decided to take the lining of my helmet out and launder this as the rancid smell was becoming intolerable. Why had I waited so long? Because, once before I did this and then I could never get it all back together again properly. It is a BMW helmet and anyone who knows my German friends, will know they make the best, but not the simplest.

So I carefully took it apart, making mental notes of which strap went where. Of course when it was all back again it no longer fitted comfortably. So now it smells great and hurts my right ear all the time. So today, at my wits end, I finally pulled off the road and dismantled it, found the problem and voila, my ear is whole again. So much better this way. I will wash it all again on Monday in Northville. This is going to be a huge undertaking over a few days so please do not all hang around, tongues drooping waiting for the Strike outs.

Bonnie has company for the night. They are all clean. she has been down and dirty.

The riders are not in the best of shape. Trying to find out where they can get Ice Cream Sundays! They need them.

I am hoping to wrap up the blogs with a summary by the end of the following weekend.

Tomorrow I am in Minneapolis or there about.

Till then, from Devils Lake North Dakota

Good Night and Good Luck.

Copyright 2012

Riding across the vast expanse of Alberta one is immediately struck by the number of oil wells everywhere. These are no longer the prehistoric dinosaur like oil derricks one used to see in the US and which one still sees in Canada from time to time. The old pumps used to resemble an animals head moving up and down.

The flat prairie lands of Alberta are dotted with black tanks and an array of pipes leading to a wellhead. Eventually I could take it no longer, so Bonnie and I turned off the highway, onto a side road, dirt of course and made our way to one of the installations. The photo’s are below.

Alberta’s fields are floating on a sea of oil

A typical tank next to the well head

These tanks appear to hold about 150k liters of crude. The label read light (sweet) crude. This is the very best type of oil as it has the lowest Sulphur content. The oil in these black tanks is then fed to a central depot along the railway line, from where the oil-bearing wagons are filled and it is transported to the refineries.

This is “Sweet” Oil

Into the trains

There are literally thousands of the wells as far as one can see. Each, pumping a couple of thousand liters a day. Black Gold. Alberta really is floating on a sea of oil. “Welcome to Black Gold County”  the sign at Marshall AB proclaims. Signs of the wealth being generated are everywhere in Alberta, which is rapidly becoming Canada’s wealthiest Province. Add this to a booming agricultural sector and the good times are rolling along.

Bonnie takes stock of the well head (On the left of her)

Hence the hundreds of thousands of transplants from the most populous nation on earth. No one can ever accuse them of being slow to latch onto a good thing!

My route today is long. My second biggest day of the trip so far, at 485 miles or close on 780 km. The new tires make a huge difference. The roads are excellent and we make good progress. I had debated as to whether I should stay in Saskatoon, this would have been about 250 km shorter or to go through to Regina, the capital of Saskatchewan.

I am pleased that I have come all the way. Saskatoon, I passed through it on my way here, is not a particularly nice looking town. I would have booked at the Best Western. As I went past it I thought I had moved from Punjab to Rajasthan. These buggers are everywhere.

As one of my taxi drivers the previous day in Edmonton told me. The opportunities here are endless. Low population density, poor work ethics from the locals. Bad education system and poorly disciplined children. When you come from India you know what the word competition means. He has told his children to shape up or it is back to boarding school in India for a solid dose of discipline ensured with healthy amounts of corporal punishment and hard work. They have been back to visit their numerous cousins so they have got the message.

He has also told them no self-inflicted body mutilations. I had meant to comment earlier on young Canadians seemingly endless fetish to mutilate themselves. Almost everyone under the age of 40 has hideous tattoos, nose rings, eye rings, lip rings, silver arrows through their eyebrows and more. I wonder what is in their nether regions. Foreskin studs and vaginal clamps? I have to say that I find these debasements to be unappealing.

Saskatchewan is much flatter and less interesting than BC and Alberta. The prairie goes on forever. The Free State on Steroids. Not as many oil wells as Alberta  but it does have the largest Potash reserves in the world. This is a key ingredient in making fertilizer. I find it interesting that the Canadian government vetoed the takeover of the largest Potash producer in Canada, based here, by BHP Billiton. Now they are facing a quandary because a Chinese firm has made a multi Billion Dollar takeover bid for Alberta’s largest oil company. This and the Olympics are the biggest news here.

Once again many people stop to talk to me wherever I am. Bonnie is loaded and this creates interest. Once again everyone tells me their Doctor is South African. I wonder if there are any good doctors left in South Africa because the Canadians think that those who have come are the very best.
On arrival at my hotel in Regina, the first person who greets me is a taxi driver. One guess where he comes from? Hey man and all that stuff. Cool Bike, how much it cost?

I have decide to slow the trip down by a day. I am in danger of getting the “Horse is heading for home” syndrome and pushing myself too far ,too fast. Since leaving Valdez last Saturday I have ridden 2400 miles, nearly 3650 km, in six days for an average of aver 400 miles or 600 km a day. This is a lot of motorbike time.

So tomorrow, Friday 10 August that is, I am going to go to the RCMP, the Mounties Museum and Training Base, as it is a few blocks from the hotel I am staying at. It only opens at 10h00 and I plan to leave there at around 12h00.

This gives me a welcome sleep in. Not that I will be able to, as I am getting back to my normal early morning routine. The early morning is my time. Particularly in summer when I enjoy the cool air and stillness. Today I left at 08h00 and the temperature was cool and perfect until late morning, whereafter it started rising and peaked at about 85 F.

My route tomorrow takes me due South to the US border and from their through Minot to Devils Lake in North Dakota. Today was a 9-hour saddle day. Tomorrow will be more like 6 hours, so all going well, I will be there at around 18h00.

Because this is peak holiday season in the US, I have had to get a bit more organised. So I am booked tomorrow evening and on Sunday in Milwaukee, near the Ferry terminal. This is important as I am on the 06h00 ferry on Monday morning from Milwaukee to Muskegon in Michigan. There is a one-hour time change. The trip takes two and a half hours at high speed across Lake Michigan as opposed to a 350-mile ride around the bottom of the lake and through Chicago. This would be a twelve-hour day for me. By taking the ferry I will be home by 13h00 as opposed to about 20h00 if I rode the whole way. Also I will sit back across the lake and relax, coffee and a bagel for breakfast. I will sort out Saturday night on the road, probably in or near Minneapolis.

For those of you who are following the blog closely you should have noticed that my friend and mentor “Steekoog” is really getting into the swing of things. He has upped the ante in terms of the content of the responses and his stuff makes some great reading. Either I tell the Pinocchio story or he will, so here goes.

I am still a bit hamstrung by the “no names no pack drill” rule that DD has insisted on, but Steekoog has mentioned the individuals name. I will call him MB for short. MB was in fact short and not the most pleasant of characters. He was always very polite to me and I never had any problems with him. However he was well known for a couple of behavioral quirks, one of which was that he liked to appear to pick up the bill for dinner when the girls were around. Airline practice was to divide the bill by the number of people at the meal and for each participant to pay accordingly. His party trick was to tell everyone he would pay, mainly to impress the girls. Then as soon as it was cockpit crew only around, he would tell us that he was dividing the cost by the number of us and we would have to chip in. Needless to say this never went down well.

Any how this individual really fancied himself as a very natty dresser. Debonair would be an apt description. He regarded himself as the epitome of Pretoria male circa 1975 chic. One thing he could not cover up was his enormous and bulbous nose derived from his Dutch heritage.

So these two young and very new Boy Pilots were in London on one of their  first trips overseas. They were pretty overawed with everything. The cockpit crew stayed in the Holiday Inn in Edgeware Road, near Hyde Park Corner. They were in the lift in the way down when it stopped and the doors opened.

In stepped this individual, dressed in a Lime Green suit, light tan leather shoes, a light pink shirt, a bright pink tie and a Green British racing cap on his head. The ones with the very small peak in the front, like the toffs ( ISG) wear. It was not enough to obscure the  enormous nose that preceded him into the elevator. These two kids, wet behind the ears, looked at him in amasement. They could not believe their eyes. They did not have any idea that this was a very senior SAA captain.

Believing it to be safe to talk to each other in Afrikaans, the one said to the other, “Wie die fok dink hierdie doos dat hy is? Fokken Pinocchio!”

Loosely translated this means “ Who does this prick think he is, Pinocchio?”.

With this, the green clad man rose to his full height of about 5’8” and announced to them “ Ek Menere,  is Senior Kaptein MB!”. I gentlemen, am Senior Captain MB!

He told them to report to his room for a real shitting out. But the damage was done. The airline gossip mill went into overdrive. The story was back in Johannesburg within hours  and he shall forevermore be known as “Pinocchio”.

Steekoog also tells me that he has been in contact with the dauntless Dinah Taute of “Girls, if he calls you darling in the morning” fame. She is nearly 80 now but still full of the joys of spring. Expect some comments from her as well shortly.

So from Regina in Saskatchewan Canada, Good night and Good Luck

Copyright 2012

Edmonton is home to one of the largest Indian populations in North America and most of them are Punjabi’s. Having dropped Bonnie at the BMW dealer shortly after 14h00 I am picked up by a taxi to get to my hotel, a nearby Best Western.

I briefly considered spoiling myself and staying at the Westin, which is in the center of town, but the hotel I have settled for is near to the dealer.  I have found the Best Westerns to be a good value deal. Great rooms that are reasonably priced.

The taxi driver is a Sikh. His accent is so thick and his English so abysmal that I battle to follow him. Normally I have an excellent ear for “Hindian Hingleesh”, but this is different. When we get to the hotel the entire front desk staff are Indian. We talk and I practice my “Hindian” on them and they are suitably impressed. Whenever I do this, I tell them that we learn Indian English at school in SA because of the large Indian population and they always swallow it hook, line and sinker!

Later on, I get a taxi back to the dealer and this driver is also Indian. Then this evening I figure a good curry must be available. So a third Indian driver takes me to the best Indian Restaurant in town, owned and run by his cousin (of course). Mention Ravi’s name and I am assured I will get a discount. In the restaurant they have never heard of him.

Bonnie is now back in my arms and the old tires will go along for the ride as spares, until I get home.

Before going any further I have received a comment from Steekoog, and I owe him an apology. His comment can be read on the last of my posts. The acronym is APAPOP and not APOPOP! Apologies Skipper!

The ride from Grand Prairie to Edmonton holds no real challenges. It is a good freeway most of the way. The speed limit is 110 and most Canadians are religious in their observance of it. I ride at about 125 km/h. Unlike the Canooks I do not have all day to dawdle around.

Along the way I pass the most amazing wooden bridge. I am in a hurry to get to Edmonton for Bonnie. I think about another wooden bridge, in fact three more wooden bridges in my life and realise that I need a photograph. There is only a rush in my mind. So I find a turn around and retrace my route. In order to get a decent photo, I cannot stop on the highway, so I duck off on a very poor dirt road which runs parallel to the bridge. This is why I ride Bonnie. We are easily up to this road and we get a great picture.

The wooden bridge in great shape

The Zambian Equivalent

So what are the other wooden bridges? About three years ago, Scope, his then Darling Dearest, my current and one and only Darling Dearest and I went on an extended bush trip through Namibia and Zambia. The aim of the trip was to get up to the Barotse Flood plains and the Liuwa Valley in Northwest Zambia. This is, like the trip I am on, also a big trip.

We entered Zambia at Kasane on the South Eastern corner of the Caprivi Strip. This Strip spans the top of Botswana and at its Eastern point, four African countries meet. Namibia, Zambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe. Once we had completed Zambian customs formalities, another story in itself as dealing with officials at African customs posts are not Scope’s strongest point, we set off on the main road.

The state of the sign at Kasane  says it all about the state of the state

This soon disintegrated and we were left making our way at an average speed of not much greater than 20 km/h. Both in similar vehicles, Toyota Land Cruisers. Scope always tells me he has the real deal, being the GX version. Mine is the VX version. This is a bit smarter inside with leather seats and an automatic gearbox. Scope is convinced that his is the superior bush vehicle. Time was shortly to tell.

Main Road Kasane to Sioma. In the US they will not believe this is a main road

On the way, in the middle of nowhere we are stopped by two individuals in thread bare Khakis, however one carries an AK 47. This means instant respect. The other hands me a letter. They are from the Shesheke City Council. We see no city but do not argue with an AK 47) and we have to pay a Carbon Tax in USD’s. We had already paid a Carbon Tax at the border so this is clearly a fleecing. Good thing I am leading our small convoy because, given Scope’s record in these situations, there could easily have been an armed conflict.

Eventually we get to our first nights camping destination at Sioma Falls. The next morning Scope takes me to one side. He tells me that I am driving too slowly and that we will never get to the ferry at Mongu and hence the Liuwa at this rate. He wants to go ahead and crack the whip. We are both towing heavy trailers and I cannot see anyway in which we can go faster.  I decide not to argue and to let him and his said then DD go ahead.

About 50 miles ahead we pass this old wooden bridge. I hope that Scope, in his hurry, has not tried to go over it, as the road, not instantly apparent, bypasses the bridge and goes through the river. Fortunately he has not but this does not change the waiting disaster. Less than two kms on, a very forlorn Scope is standing next to his vehicle. The trailer is lying nose down on the road. The tow bar has been pulled clean out of the chassis. This is the end of the Liuwa trip, as we now have to return to Namibia to have his vehicle repaired. Another story for another time.

However today’s bridge reminds me of the bridge in Zambia and I chuckle to myself.

Then the two other wooden bridges of significance, both have to do with Môreson.

When my parents acquired Môreson in 1986, my sister Susan and her then DD, John lived there for a while during the period in which they were getting LQF up and running. One evening on the way from work, John driving my parents Mercedes 230E missed the wooden bridge over the Franschhoek River and ended up in the river itself. In those days no one could criticize John to my parents, who were desperately covering up for the obvious deficiencies in their marriage. Had this been me, all hell would have broken loose. But then I probably would not have been in a rush to get home after whipping the hotel staff into late night shape. John always believed in the personal touch in dealing with these tricky situations. No wonder he was so tired that he fell asleep on the first 100 meters of rough corrugated dirt road. I wonder if this was nearly a Mary Jo moment?

This same bridge was washed away in the floods of 1994, shortly after we had moved to Môreson. At that time I owned a Porsche Turbo. We constructed a temporary road through the adjacent forest and neighbours property, for which one needed a 4 x 4. Unfortunately this meant the end of the Porsche, as I could not bring myself to do this to that magnificent vehicle.

At the same time, the main bridge over the Berg River on the R45 road, this is adjacent to where Bridge House School is now, was also a wooden bridge and it too was washed away. This meant that our children and all other Franschhoek children who went to school in Stellenbosch had to route to school via Paarl and back that way every day. In many ways this lead to the decision by Susan and myself to look into starting our own school in the Franschhoek area. In turn this lead to Bridge House School, about which I talked earlier on.

On this line of thought and thinking about Scope, who should have been on this trip with me, my thinking moved to his putting and the fact that he, D and Rontgen all use long putters. I think that this has something to do with their manhood and something lacking in that department. Everyone knows that in life it is the short strokes that are important. “Drive for show and put for Dough” the saying goes. Just ask the girls.

The short strokes are the gland finale in everything. The nail is not in the wood until its head cannot be seen. The last few shots are always the most important. In golf putting is the ultimate skill. It requires nerve and absolute control over the shaft and the head – of the putter. The putter has to become an extension of your arms and body. These woesses have putters that they dig in under their chins and then swing like a pendulum. This is not caressing the ball into the hole; this is like putting with your tongue and not with your assegai! No wonder their women are out of control.

This also applied to the best aircraft ever made, the Boeing 727. What made its performance so exceptional was its speed brake and wing. I was discussing this with Dianne, the US Airways captain and biker pilot chick. Imagine and aircraft approaching the airfield, on the glide slope heading for the runway. Flat out. Most other aircraft at this point would have to be in what is known as landing configuration. This means flaps down, gear down and power up. Speed at about 180 knots max. Not the 727. Clean and going like a Boeing. 350 knots. Power off. Speed brake out. Start running the flaps at their extension speed limit. Gear down and then power up and in the slot (Ready to land) all within 4 miles. Men these are the attributes you need to be a great lover. At the point you are going flat out, full power, you need to be able to slow down, change the tempo and get her into landing mode slowly and then just slide it on! NO 727 PILOT EVER NEEDED A LONG PUTTER!

So I have chuckled to myself and am actually thankful that I have such good mates. It will be good to see them all again.

I have now had the cousin’s best curry, which was very good and I will definitely be supercharged in the morning. The scenery en route shows Canada’s great plains at their very best. Miles and miles of cultivated lands, but more importantly Alberta is situated on a sea of energy resources. Oil, oil shale and natural gas everywhere. Construction of new roads and infrastructure to support this economic boom are driving this economy to a record performance and drawing in new inhabitants every day. Almost everyone has a South African doctor or dentist here and they love them, almost as much as they hate the local doctors.

South Africa must be the only country in the world that is exporting its world-class doctors and importing Cuban doctors to replace them. What am I missing? What do the imbeciles running South Africa not get?

The evening Highveld thunder storms have arrived and the lightening is flashing everywhere a la Johannesburg or the Free State. I am going to bed early tonight and want to get going early tomorrow. The mornings are cool and magnificent. I am hoping to make Regina in Saskatchewan tomorrow evening. From there I will drop down into North Dakota on Friday. This brings me back into the USA and I am expecting to be in Michigan on Sunday or Monday morning.

Tiarra jumps out to meet me at service station

She poses when she hears about Miss Molly. Take me with you please she pleads.
I would also like a wine named after me.

Bonnie is tucked up for the evening and also much cleaner.

Good Night, from Edmonton Alberta and good luck

Copyright 2012

So the Alaska Highway is officially behind me.

The start of the Alaska Highway for some. The end of it for Bonnie and myself.

Bison on the highway yesterday

Classic example of a valley formed by Glacial Action

At about 13h00 today I went through Dawson Creek, the town in British Columbia that marks the beginning or the end of the Alaska Highway, depending on whether you are starting or finishing it.

Permanent damage caused to mountain by old and now non existent glacier.
en route of the Alaskan Highway

Built in 1942 by the US Government which had realised that the Japanese might well attack Alaska given the very close proximity of the Aleutian Islands which form the south western part of Alaska, this road stretches 2400 miles. It was constructed in little over twelve months in an effort that can only be achieved in a wartime environment.

In fact Japan invaded and occupied the Aleutians for over a year, a little known fact. Until about 30 years ago the road was primarily gravel and the accident rate at record highs. Now it is tarred the whole way except where roadworks are taking place.

Riding it on a motorbike is a serious undertaking. This I can tell you. My body feels like it has gone the whole night in the WWF. I have ridden 1600 miles in the last 4 days and a little over 9200 in total since leaving Michigan.

Typical Albertan Silos in Dawson Creek

Tomorrow I am stopping in Edmonton to have Bonnie’s tires changed. The surface of the roads I have been on have hammered the set I had fitted in Vancouver. I forget this was over  6000 miles ago. or nearly 10000 km. Given a heavy load and rough terrain this is good going on a set of tires. Although there is some tread left I can feel the vibrations and it is this ongoing battering that is hammering me.

So I should have an afternoon in Edmonton to rest up and catch up on some admin and writing. I have received a comment from Captain Steek Oog and I will have to decide as to whether I permit it to be on the wall! He has not changed at all. He has also sent the link to my blog to the famous Dinah Taute. I did not even know that they were friends. I am expecting to hear from her as well.

So good night and good luck from Grand Prairie

Copyright 2012

Once again it was pouring with rain when I left Whitehorse, again vindicating the call that I had made a day before not to ride the Road over the Top of the World.

It is now nearly eight weeks on the road. I have been living out of a small waterproof bag and hotel rooms and my tent for too many nights now. I want to get back to our home in Michigan for a start. To be in one place (of my own) for a few nights and to be able to relax, log on to my own high speed internet without a different password every evening. So I decide to start doing some real miles today.

The normal midway break between Whitehorse and Dawson City, this in turn marks the end of the Alaskan Highway, is Watson Lake. I have been there before, remember. The honeymoon suite, without the honey. Not again I have promised myself. Watson Lake is, to put it mildly, a bad smelling shithouse. A town, with a bad vibe and people with bad attitude. When I finish the trip I will rate all the places I have stayed in on Trip Advisor and Watson Lake is in for a pounding.

This is reaffirmed when I stop for breakfast at Dawson Peaks. This is where I stayed for two nights on the way up. I promised Dave and Carolyn, the owners, that I would pop in on the way back and I keep this promise. Making the effort to keep in contact with friends is always worth the extra effort. When I arrive there, two hours after leaving Whitehorse I am starving. It has been cold and I have left at 08h00, which means I have been up since about 06h30.

At Dawson Peaks were two other couples having breakfast. We start talking. You all know me. Shy to start and then I get into it. They have spent the previous evening at Watson Lake. I ask them how they enjoyed it. They tell me that had they known yesterday what was waiting for them at Andrea’s Motel next to the Big Horn Hotel, they would have driven the extra three hours to get to Dawson Peaks, even though this was very late at night.

We all agree that Watson Lake is the very worst place we have ever been to. It reminds me of Springfontein in the Free State. Neither town has even one redeeming feature other than the fact that you can get through them quickly. This is reconfirmed to me a few hours later when I pass through Watson Lake and have to refuel. The service station is appalling. Dirty and run down. The staff is tardy and they are particularly slow in dealing with everyone. They also sell liquor at the garage and they are shoveling out no name gin and whiskey to a never-ending line of local First Nations members. No doubt drinking off the weekend’s hangover, as it is only Monday lunchtime.

I cannot get out of here fast enough. The only other viable over-night stops before Fort Nelson are the Northern Rockies Lodge and Toad Lake according to the Milepost Guide. These are too close to Fort Nelson and I may as well push on. Passing the Northern Rockies Lodge it looks very nice but I am pleased that I have given Toad Lake a miss. However I like the name and more postcards are sent to the mug wumps c/o of their sulking mother. Worry not Noodle, you are still my favourite oldest daughter.

This morning, I ride for the first two and a half hours on an empty stomach. I find this makes me perform better. A few hunger pangs definitely sharpen the senses. I know this when I am on short rations for most things. When I have been away for a while, DD always keeps me at bay for a few hours, knowing that this will sharpen my attention dramatically. The same applies to when I play golf or ride Bonnie and the other girls. Often, after a meal, I am a bit sluggish.

I find when I play golf, the meal or a large snack at the half way house always destroys a looking to be great round of golf. This is one of the many devious tactics used by one of my more regular golf opponents. Not that I have had the time to play much golf over the past few years.

However the individual concerned, a doctor and a very talented sportsman is extremely competitive. I have decided to adopt the “no names no pack drill” approach for all future posts. Everyone will have a pseudonym that will make it impossible for you to work out who the individual concerned is. Other than Lesley that is, because she sadly is no longer, an early victim to breast cancer some time ago and I do not know her family, nor they me.

This is necessary after the severe shitting out I received from DD after my post about her sisters. In future they will be known as The Panzer, Apricot Jam and Half Quart. I will not tell you who is who!

Anyway back to my good Doctor friend who shall be known as Doctor D (for Doos), his party trick is to organise the game at his home course. He gives you the wrong tee off time and then just as you arrive at the club concerned, you find out that the actual time is in less than five minutes. So you have to get changed and rush up a huge hill to make the allotted time. As you arrive there out of breath, he saunters over, cool as a cucumber having spent 30 minutes on the practice tee and then he hitches a ride up in someone’s golf cart.

In our last game I played against him with my usual partner, also a doctor who shall be known as Doctor Scope. D’s partner was another doctor who shall be known as Doctor Rontgen. Dr. Rontgen is equally as competitive, the difference between him and his partner is that D has a great swing which he practices at every opportunity, even pre coital, or at least so his wife tells me. They have a driver and a putter in the bedroom; Bill Clinton only needed a cigar! Rontgen however holds the club as if it is a prehistoric weapon and launches into the ball as if it is a deadly snake. Nothing smooth or subtle about his swing. He could never handle my girls properly. They need finesse not just brute power. The effect is worryingly good. The ball dies in the fairway, miles down and in the middle with great regularity.

My partner Dr. Scope always allows D to get into his head and to screw with his mind. This is never good I think as I ride along. In fact at the moment Scope is letting too much shit get into his head as he has been thinking with the wrong one. Maybe we should play golf now as there cannot be much more room in his head for D to find sufficient place to get into. Maybe what he is thinking of will solve his putting yips, smooth strokes and all

He should have listened to the wise words of advice I was given by a Senior Training Captain in the airline. This sage shall be called Captain Steek Oog. In the same way as Dinah Taute spoke to the new hostesses and warned them to beware of pilots, Steek Oog took it upon himself to school me in the ways of the world. He was very dismissive about the intentions of the girls who hunted down the men and his advice was summed up in an acronym. APOPOP, he kept on telling me. The only thing that was faster than Steek Oog’s sense of humour was the speed with which he could light up a Texan plain after take off. This was in the days when smoking in the cockpit was still allowed. His other motto was “Gear up, light up”.

I chuckle to myself as I ride along, stomach gnawing but my concentration good. I am looking forward to more golf with these reprobates and maybe a beer with Steek Oog. The miles tick by. I notice Marsh Lake and cannot remember it on the way up. Then I recall that I took the by route via Carcross and hence did not pass it. Soon I am at the start of Lake Teslin. I ride along it for over 70 miles.

Dave and Carolyn are very pleased to see me. They tell me that they have had numerous problems with bears in the period since I was there. In fact one bear virtually climbed onto the veranda of the cabin I stayed in to join some fishermen and their dinner, which they were cooking there. They only managed to get rid of it when in desperation one of the men hit it on the head with the frying pan. It then peered in the window of their dinning room as all the guest were eating dinner. Eventually their lady next-door neighbour shot it as it approached her grandchildren while they were playing in her garden.

Their year has not been busy. Traffic is dramatically down on the highway. We discuss the reasons. The poor economic situation is a major reason but demographics also play a major role. Young people do not do road trips anymore it seems. They prefer to take a low cost flight and then get involved in action vacations. Also people do not have the time to take a drive to Alaska as this takes a minimum of ten days each way from almost anywhere in the USA. I have seen that numerous stop over points have closed along the entire route.

These are people who have spent their lives trying to build up businesses and now find that these are worthless due to circumstances beyond their control. I fear that the real effects of the economic meltdown are only now starting to be felt as they play out over time. Americans in the middle classes have lost nearly 50% of their net worth over the past five years as the values of their investments in the stock market and their homes have tanked. The problems are far from over and more are on the way. Given the poor caliber of political leadership in the world at present, a proper way forward is unlikely to be found soon.

After Watson Lake the outlook improves. The weather is clearing and it is getting much warmer. For the past week the temperature as barely peeked above 50 F, now it is getting into the 80’s. It will be like this all the way to Michigan. My warm gear is being packed away as I write.

With about 200 kms to go to Fort Nelson I knew I had the Alaskan Highway licked. I would be in Fort Nelson by 20h00 and the days are still long. The total distance for the day is 597 miles or close on 950 kms. This is a huge day and I have managed it well. My back has held up. I phone ahead to reserve a room using my Sat Phone.

I will have been in the saddle for over 11 hours today. This is an epic session for Bonnie and me. Longer than even my best performance with either Spot or Jayne. Once I know that I will make it, I tap off and enjoy the ride at slower pace. It is as if I know that I have satisfied Bonnie and I now can enjoy the post coital glow with her. Moving together becomes something which lacks the pace and urgency of the earlier parts of the day. Old lovers, we know we have the end of the day in sight and a well deserved rest. This is actually a good thing because we pass an enormous herd of Bison grazing on the side of the road and then a stunning 100 km long valley in which I am able to clearly identify the glacial damage to the mountains and the glacial and riverine formation in the valleys using my new found knowledge gained a few days ago at the Worthington Glacier.

This whole area is part of the Muskwa Kechiika Wilderness Reserve declared by the Canadian Government in 1995. It is 6.5 million acres in size and operates a very successful public private partnership with the First Nations people of the area. In true style I think this means that everyone else does the work an they reap the rewards.

Tomorrow, Tuesday I will try and get as close to Edmonton as possible. Then all going to plan it should be possible to be back in Michigan by Sunday or Monday, nearly a week ahead of schedule.

On arrival a guy approaches me. He tells me he has also ridden here from Alaska. His name is Kevin. We meet in the bar after I have had a shower and have dinner together. He is a software developer for Amazon and runs a small team of eight people who manage all the various state and city sales tax models for the Internet commerce behemoth. As he explains, these are massively complex and often two identical items that differ in colour only, will attract different rates of tax when they are supplied from one state into another.

We discuss the scale of what Amazon does and what it entails. All their computing is done using distributed small computers. No main frames. His small team has direct access to over 8500 computers. The company employs more than 10,000 developers. The scale of the customer data to which he has access, is frightening.

The Hotel in which I am staying, the Woodlands, is fairly new and the rooms are very good. It has one significant drawback. No Wi-Fi in the rooms. I find this hard to believe. In this day and age you cannot expect guests to have to sit in either the restaurant which only opens at 17h00 and closes at 20h00 or the bar area in order to use their internet.

I will go down early in the morning to upload this but without the pictures as this is what takes the time.

From Fort Williams. Good Night and Good Luck

Copyright 2012

They have power failures in Canada as well. I am in Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon. Dinner completed and ready to type up my day and then have an early night. I have just settled down on my bed and turned on the TV to watch the Olympics when bham!. All the lights and power are off.

It appears to be all over town and no one is too concerned. so I assume it is a frequent event. These are hardy people here; one just gets the sense of it. A winter of -40C and below makes you resilient. In this part of the world, if your car breaks down you are in survival mode. It is summer here and I need a warm top. The locals are walking around in shorts, sandals and T-shirts. On the road today the temperature never went above 11C and one of the local bikers whom I passed. was not even wearing gloves.

They idolise the tough prospectors of past and present. They opened up the Yukon and its mining wealth. The statue honours “All those who follow their dreams”

Another view. It says it all about this part of Canada and the people who make it work. And the dog also carrying a part of the load. No room for any passengers in this environment,

So why am I in Whitehorse and not Dawson City as planned you may ask? If you remember I told you in a previous blog that most of the road to Dawson is unmaintained gravel. I decided last night, that given my sore back and Bonnie’s less than ideal setup at present, she is going for some surgery when I get back to Michigan to get a upper torso extension, that if it was raining when I woke up, this would constitute the grounds for a diversion and change of flight plans. So at 06h00, as I arose ,it was bucketing down.

There and then I cancelled my hotel in Dawson and rearranged my Whitehorse booking for this evening, that being Sunday night so as to get our days right. As I set off I met another biker in reception, Mike from Arkansas. He also rides a BMW and so we agree to ride together. I told him I did not want to dawdle and so I led.

As we left I thought that maybe I had made the wrong decision in not going to Dawson City. Will I ever have the chance to go there again?  Is this possible that I could err? Once I even thought that I had made a mistake, but I was wrong!

The weather was improving rapidly. However within an hour I was vindicated. Why did I doubt myself? Two thousand years of pain and suffering in my gene pool should have given me more self-confidence and self-belief. It started raining, bucketing in fact. Cats and dogs and even a few grizzlies! In fact this morning I saw my second Grizzly, on the side of the road. Mooning me the bugger was!

They are seriously big animals. No wonder that they attract the same level of excitement that a lion sighting does in the Kalahari or Kruger. They are the big Cohunes of North America. Weighing in at over 1400 lbs when fully grown, they are the top dogs and ferocious to boot. Paws that can behead an adult moose with one swipe, they are not to be trifled with.

So back on the road previously travelled. The border, where a Canadian customs official with an African attitude, jerks me around for a while. Then we really twist the wrist big time. Soon we pass Burwash Landing, scene of my triumph over Eskimo Bill. I wonder if he has sorted out Eskimo Pie and fixed his broken chariot. Has he told Eskimo Pie of his drubbing at the hands of the ferocious African Assegai bearer?

Then Destruction Bay, which is still there. On to Haines Junction. There we stop for lunch. There is a mile queue at the hamburger hut. It is a Sunday and nothing else is open, reminiscent of Kroonstad or Koster on a Sunday. Only the Greasy Greek knows that this is best day for business. There are three other BMW GS’s parked there. Two 1200 GSA’s like Bonnie and an F800 GS.

One of the riders is mad Don from Nenima the other day. The other two are a father and his 18-year-old daughter who is on the F800. John ( On a 1200 GSA) and Kelly from Phoenix Arizona. They have ridden up all the way together. She has just finished high school and is following in the footsteps of her elder brother who did the trip with their father two years ago. Now wait for this. They have been to Anchorage and then Fairbanks and then all the way on the Dalton Highway past the Arctic Circle to Prudhoe Bay. This is on the Arctic Sea. Men, this is a real man’s trip and this tiny girl has managed it on an F800. Hasn’t dropped the bike or her pose once. She is going to Yale this fall to study Politics. I give her a card with my Cousin Ian Shapiro’s name on it. He is the head of the School of Political Science at Yale.

Proud father John, Kelly and Biker Pilot. She manages an F800GS on her own! Just done the Dalton Highway. Marry her if you can boys.

On her way. She really rides it! There is hope for all you old girls who want to come with Biker Pilot on an adventure motorbike trip

Darling Dearest, I now know that you too can do it. Charley you need to get that licence asap as well. This is a family bike trip in the making. Nikki and Andrew we can organise one of those little carts you see behind the Harley’s for the twins. I love the idea. This will show Eskimo Bill what the loins of an African warrior can spawn!

Now these two are on the way to Haines where they will spend the night and then tomorrow, they take the Alaskan Ferry to Seattle. This is a four-day trip through some of the most beautiful scenery in the world, anywhere anytime. My next trip also has this on the agenda.

Valdez Harbour yesterday. The whole coast is like this.

Imagine four days of these views on the way to Seattle from Haines

We skip the lunch and set off again. Mike asks me where I am staying. I tell him I have a room booked in Whitehorse. He tells me he is on a tight budget and asks if the room has two beds? If so can he share? He will pay half. I know another Mike and the thought does not fill me with glee. You never know. Possibly I would wake up on the receiving end of a tail gunners strafing attack or all my stuff will be gone in the morning if I sleep well. So I tell him that I prefer not to share. I owe him no reasons and I give none. So we part company as we reach Whitehorse.

On arrival at the hotel, I do something that I very rarely do. I have a bath. Please do not get me wrong. My personal hygiene is of the highest order. My mother would be proud of me. I shower once and on most days twice. I wash my hair daily and also shave. My fingernails are trimmed and clean. I use deodorant and I floss and brush my teeth twice a day. But I do not like bathing, I shower. I have never seen the sense in lying in the water that you have used to wash.

However my back is in a mess and I am in trouble. So I run a hot bath. It is interesting because in North American style, the bath is about half the size of what we are used to. I get in and the water gets out. There is not enough room for both of us. I manage to soak my back in about 6 inches of water.

It helps but it will not get back to fully airworthy before I get can get my exercise routine back to normal. I therefore cannot wait to get back to the farm and my gym. A full stretch in the morning. Back exercises and a sauna normally sees it right. If not there is always Brendan Bailes, my chiropractor as a last resort.

I have an early dinner and take a short crippled walk around Whitehorse. It is an attractive town. You immediately know that winters here are very, very cold. There are plug points at every parking spot for the car engine heaters. This is to ensure that the oil in the engine does not freeze. I stop in at the Starbucks and have a hot chocolate. I walk to the Yukon River. It is huge and flowing very fast. A lot of water for the CoHo Salmon to swim up against. They have to pass this point to get to their spawning grounds at Teslin. I will pass Teslin again tomorrow and also Watson Lake. I will not be staying in Watson Lake. Once bitten twice shy!

Main Rd Whitehorse

Typical Whitehorse building

I will see how far I get. My aim is to do at least 400 to 450 miles. Today was a 425 mile day. This should see me in Dawson Creek, not City, on Tuesday evening and will mark the end of the Alaskan Highway.

It is now 21h31. I am an hour closer in time zones and will have an enforced early night and therefore hope to get going early. If the power is on I will post this from here or else along the route at Dawson Peaks where I have undertaken to stop and have breakfast with Dave and Carolyn.

So from Whitehorse, capital of the Yukon Territory.
The power is back on. I have missed the men’s 100m final and other races. I am waiting for a replay. This post is on the way.

Good Night and Good Luck.

Copyright 2012

Tok is where I spent my first night in Alaska and it is where I am spending my last night here. Not forever as I will be back, as soon as next year I hope. I want to come back here and do my float plane rating and then spend some time exploring this fantastic area from the air. Landing on the remote lakes, fishing  and camping out.

This morning we left Valdez around 10h00 which is an hour later than usual. The primary reason for this is to allow the morning fog, which runs in over the bay to lift, otherwise we will be riding in a cold pea soup. Never much fun and unsafe.

I have a bigger pack than at any time in the past week as I am saying farewell to the Group today. I will do the first bit of the ride back to Glenallen with them, but then will break off to Tok rather than going back to Anchorage and retracing my steps over this route for the fourth time.

On the way to Valdez yesterday we have detoured to a small town called Chitina. This is on the Copper River, which in turn is home to the finest salmon in Alaska, the Copper River CoHo. We have lunch at the Chitina Hotel. The food is excellent but the service appalling. Non existent in fact. It is as if the waitress is in a time warp. we are here today and she is going to become energised tomorrow. After lunch we ride down to the river. Here they catch the Salmon using a fish wheel. This is an ancient design of a machine that has nets attached to a wheel, which in turn is driven by the flow of the water and catches fish that venture into it and then dumps them in an under water cage.

Fish wheel trap in the Copper River

On the way out of Chitina I stop at the post office and post the obligatory post cards to my now favourite grandchildren. I gather their mother is sulking because she has not got any postcards, so I address them c/o her to make her feel more wanted.

Chitina Post Office Alaska. Post card on the way to SA

Then on to Valdez. This is about 120 miles away. On the way we stop at the Worthington Glacier. This is part of the Wrangell St Elias National Park, which in turn is a vast park home to more glaciers than any other place on the planet.

A few quick facts about Glaciers

• Glaciers are formed out of snow, when more snow falls than melts.
• The snow packs layer upon layer.
• The weight of the snow changes the crystalline structure of the lower layers turning it into ice.
• This weight of this ice causes the whole mass to move downward into the valley below.
• The top ice moves faster than the ice close to the ground.
• The mass of ice takes everything with it including large boulders and destroys the vegetation.
• Glaciers grow and shrink over time and in relationship to the earths temperature.
• They play a significant role in the global warming cycle due to their relatively low absorption rate of UV which keeps the area around them cooler than those areas that are covered in rock or vegetation.

We are able to get within meters of the base of the glacier and it is very dirty with fresh water seeping out of every bit of it.

The Bottom of the Glacier

I love the ride in both directions and then also between Glenallen and Tok today after I leave the group. Every 20 to 30 miles there is a patch of gravel. Yesterday this was very tricky riding due to the rain. This has made it very slippery and technique is everything. We are riding fast and hard. My girls like it like this, hard and fast that is. Not always but from time to time to break the routine. It is key critical, as every woman will tell you, to get the angle of attack (In flying terms, for all you heathens this is the entry angle) absolutely right, because if you have a miss entry into the slippery stuff, all hell breaks loose. You have a bucking and very unhappy girl underneath you. Chances are that your ride will come to an end faster than planned. But, get it right and pure pleasure awaits you. Given the speeds involved and the state of the patch, the standing position is essential for a firm footing and a low center of gravity to get the maximum leverage.

Yesterday and today I get it right. However there is a price. The constant action is playing hell on my back and I will have to be very careful for the rest of the trip. I have taken some anti inflammatory tablets for the first time this trip. I also think that the seven weeks of constant riding are getting to my body. Not to my mind, I am up and ready to go every morning. Nothing has changed, the morning is my time of the day.

Just before entering Valdez we turn off for an area called the Fishery. This is a small creek into which salmon swim in trying to get upstream to the place of their birth, to spawn and die. In this creek they die earlier than planned as the bears are here, waiting for them. We watch a mother Brown Bear and her four cubs (this is an unusually large number of cubs for one mother, so their may be another female close by) gorging themselves.

Eat little boy. You need to get big. Its a hard world out there and in your life their are no social support services

This is a scene of epic tragedy which is reinforced when we revisit this morning and watch one of the cubs feeding. The salmon have chosen the wrong stream. Not because  of the bears, but because this stream goes nowhere. About 50 meters off the sea the stream runs out into a huge waterfall that not even these salmon can get up. The water in the stream is also only inches deep and cannot possibly allow them passage. They can hardly swim. These salmon were reared in hatchery up river and were able to swim down. Their instinct drives them back in a fruitless sex driven desire to reach their birth grounds upstream.

The young cub is like a cat. Pouncing on the moving fish. It catches a big salmon and brings it out, flapping in its mouth. It squeezes the roe out of the fishes stomach and then leaves it helpless and flapping around, for the gulls to peck at it. Finally it dies. Then the next fish comes out and then another. It is endless, for now. Shortly the run will stop and winter will be here. The bear and the gulls will go into survival mode.

I cannot help but think that this is natural selection working as it was meant to be. These fish have made a mistake in coming to this creek. Their counterparts have chosen the Copper River or the Yukon and get all the way to Chitina or Teslin, where I will brave the metal bridge again on Monday. They spawn and give birth to the next generation of healthy wild salmon bearing the genes of the toughest and smartest.

I compare this with what we are doing as humans. we continue to support the weak and stupid. This is going to backfire on us. Ultimately these weak and stupid end up with the vote and continue to back the Mugabe’s and Malema’s of the world. I saw the following words on the wall in a hamburger joint , The Alaskan Road Runner, in Anchorage.

From Bondage to Bondage. I cannot turn the image so you will have to crane your neck

This is of course where we are going and I have long maintained that in Africa it suits the ruling elite to have a large, poor and uneducated majority as these are the only people who will continue to keep the corrupt elite in power. No one ultimately protects fools from themselves.

Last night in Valdez, dinner took and interesting turn. Larry, the smallest guy in the group, suddenly disappeared as the main course was served. We did not know what had happened to him until Brendan the tour leader returned in stitches of laughter. Larry was apparently unhappy with his main course. I am not surprised. It looked like someone had regurgitated his halibut into a pink fruit bowl. He indicated his displeasure to the restaurant manageress, who in turn looked like the other half of the main course. This interchange became quite heated and the police were called. Before they could arrive, the chef got there. The manageress was his wife and it appeared that Larry had told her she looked like like the food offering. When Brendan arrived the chef, who was big and now like a wild grizzly, ready to defend his wife’s honour, had Larry by the throat and in the air. Larry was not giving up. 68 and feisty, he was kicking and screaming and trying to hit the chef, but being only about 5’4″ he could not make contact.

Anyhow Brendan restored the situation to normal by agreeing to pay Larry’s bill and Larry had to agree not to set foot in the restaurant during his stay. On his way out he recommended that the manageress get a face job which nearly set off the war again. Fortunately the cops were on hand or I suspect Larry would have been in with the pickled halibut he did not like. This morning, when I went out to load my bike, Larry was pacing around outside clearly very unhappy with events.

My food was outstanding. Like the bears I have stuck to Salmon. The salmon here is the best I have ever eaten. By law, no farmed salmon can be grown or served in Alaska. This suits me. I do not eat chicken nor do I eat farmed salmon. There are five major salmon species and the ones to eat are the Kings, the CoHo, the Sockeyes. Here they feed the Pinks and the Springs to their animals. You and I would be delighted to eat them.

This evening on arrival at Young’s Motel in Tok I saw that the special at their restaurant, Fast Eddy, was Copper River Sockeye salmon and salads. I was not hungry having eaten enough over the past few days. A lot of the weight I lost during the past eight weeks will come back after eating every meal with the gang during the past week. But the opportunity to eat this fresh salmon once again was too much to pass up.

Tomorrow, provided it is not pouring with rain, I will ride the Elliot Highway to Chicken and from the their the Road to the Top of the World to Dawson City. This is a very tough ride and Bonnie is heavy, I think we are up to it. I am now the first 300 miles into the 3800 miles it will take me to get back to Michigan.

I want to knock this off in under 12 days so there will not be much time for writing this blog.

Good Night and Good Luck from Tok Alaska.

Copyright 2012.

It is a miserable evening. Raining heavily, cold, very cold actually at less than 40 Degrees Fahrenheit or about 5 Degrees Celsius. The middle of summer, to boot, in the Alaskan bush.

I am at Tangled Lake. This is midway between Delta Junction, the one end of the Alaska Highway, and Valdez. Valdez is the end of the famous Alaska Pipeline. This carries the crude oil from Barrow and Purdue Bay in the far north of Alaska to Prince William Sound. Here it is loaded into tankers and shipped to the US and elsewhere. It is also here where the most notorious oil spill of all time took place. The Exxon Valdez. The Captain was drunk at the time and the ship ran aground. The resultant oils spill killed hundreds of thousands of marine animals and triggered a massive public outcry.

Tangled Lake Welcome

Hotel at Tangled Lake

So we left Fairbanks this morning and next thing I knew we were at North Pole. I could not believe it. I thought our leader, the self same “lost his way” Dom had done it again. It was much simpler. North Pole is a small town near Fairbanks and is famous as a biker stop at the famous Santa Claus House. Here I met the real and genuine Santa and saw his reindeer. My Grand Children are now better off for this visit.

North Pole Welcome

I meet the man

Back to Tangled Lake. This is a magnificent spot. Our hotel is simple to say the least. The rooms are constructed out of the same compressed board that we used to build the first classroom at Bridge House School when we started it in the early 1990’s. I see they still in use at the new school site and whenever I drive past these old buildings, which are now on the main road fence, I am filled with memories of starting the school.

The first day’s assembly under the tree. The early classes at Pierre Simond. Trying to raise money. The  Early Council meetings. Parent meetings and fund raising dinners, especially the one in winter at Delaire with the Three Oakes. I will never forget them for some obscure reason. It must be the name, which is so South African. The weather tonight is almost the same as it was on that evening. I remember that there was a raffle for a Toyota, which at the time, was regarded as a huge prize. It was not the only prize.

But once again back to Tangled Lake. This is a really special place. Anything but smart. It is all about the position. In the middle of nowhere. Isolated but on a perfect lake. What a place to have a summer cabin.

What makes it so special is the simplicity and the people who run it. Sandy here is super special. We are a party of about 16 people. Introduced to her once and she remembers everyone’s names. Her mother started the hotel and did so much good work in the area that a small mountain has been named after her. There are letters and signed photos from numerous Presidents to her.

The dining room is cosy and a great bar. The bedrooms are simple, clean and functional. Next door, is a tent city for a mining company’s staff undertaking exploration work and the mandatory helicopter and pad.

My room at Tangled Inn

We arrived here after a very difficult ride. Relatively easy going for the first 100 miles out of Fairbanks until we stopped for lunch in Delta Junction, which as I mentioned, marks the one end of the Alaska Highway. I will be on this road again in the next few days. Then as we left the weather turned, suddenly and ferociously. Heavy winds and then driving rain. I have excellent waterproof gear and am now used to riding in the rain. But this was tough, really tough and very tiring. It was so wet and the rain so hard, that I even got water dripping inside the visor of my helmet. This is a first for me.

After we arrived there was meant to be a further dirt road ride. I went straight to the pub, where a few of us enjoyed more than a few beers and great laughs. I have found political soul mates for Eveanne. These are Fox News people. They know that the President was not born in the US and even Romney may not be far enough right.

So then it was dinner and afterwards the piece d’ la resistance. Dianne, the Biker Pilot and her husband Reggie, another Biker Pilot and a really laid back good guy, invited me for a scotch in their room. So they had brought the Famous Grouse in an old Listerine Plastic bottle. Easier to pack. The thing was, that try as they may, they could not get the taste of Listerine out of the Scotch. After the first few tastes it was actually quite pleasant. So tonight I do not need to brush my teeth. They are clean and antiseptic. This is a great new business idea.

Tomorrow we ride to Valdez. This rain looks like it has set in. This is not good. This is beer and blonde in bed weather. Bonnie is a bit big for my bed and she needs a great big wash. She has been down and got really dirty. I need one of my other girl friends here. Clean and fresh. But the Biker Pilots mantra holds true at all time. “No muffs too tuff, we dive at five”. So it will be chocks out at 08h55 and wheels spinning at 09h00 whatever the weather.

My time in Alaska is sadly drawing to a close. I have loved being here, this place particularly. The isolation and the physical beauty are remarkable. I love the African bush and smells, but this is far grander and more imposing. The people are wonderful. Friendly, resourceful and not a drag on society. There are no free loaders here. Here you cannot squat outside your hut and watch the mielies grow whilst picking your nose in between making babies. Here the lazy and idle die! They starve and freeze to death.

Mommy Bear and her babies. Valdez. Gorging on Salmon. Getting ready for the winter hibernation

Eat little boy. You need to get big. Its a hard world out there and in your life their are no social support services

Thousands of Salmon trying desperately to swim upstream and breed. They have chosen the wrong stream. Not enough water and the bears are waiting.

Whittaker Glacier on the way into Valdez. A young Glacier

The Glacier up close. It is moving downwards at a rate of 8 ft per month.
It has been retreating in size since 1850.

The big call will have to be made on Sunday morning. This sort of weather will rule out the Road to the Top of the World and Dawson City, at least on my own. I have learnt here that the weather changes quickly and frequently so there is no need to rush the decision.
I have had to wait until getting to Valdez to upload this edition as there was no real connectivity at Tangle Lake. It is not much better here and although I have some awesome pictures, the upload is taking forever. So I have delayed the pictures and this will be nude, so to speak, bare of visuals.

They photos are on my Dropbox folder and there are some must see pictures including a magnificent sighting of a huge Brown Bear Sow with four cubs feeding on fresh Salmon near Valdez and the glacier outside of Valdez.

Tomorrow I start my ride back to Michigan and sleep in Tok, for the second time this trip.

Good Night and Good Luck

Copyright 2012