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Dr. King Weaver working at the hospital, with his baby sister,
Renae - both Alaskans! |
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Many large frozen lakes and rivers along the way. |
Wednesday May 17, 2017, by Roger: We left early and “enjoyed” the cold, getting
down to 34 degrees again, but we didn’t break the record! We stopped along the way to cook up a big
breakfast at a rest area with incredible views.
We rolled into Anchorage before noon and tried to catch up on some
things. Roger spent the afternoon trying
to find a place to put new tires on the bike – they are shot and need to be
replaced. He also wants to service the
bike before we leave, and it needs a good clean out and wash. It is pretty crusty. We went through some dirt and mud, and one
place we followed a pilot car through construction, after talking for 15
minutes to the flag lady. There was a
few soft spots, and loose gravel area, and this bike does terrible on loose
gravel and mud – TERRIBLE! I used to
ride dirt bikes in a former life, and this is no dirt bike, I can tell you
that. It was about 6 k’s and we were
glad to get through that. I found a
place that had tires, and bought two and made an appointment to get them mounted
tomorrow morning, and also found a place for the oil I want to service it –
most places were sold out. The tires cost twice as much as the last time I changed them - I guess we're in Alaska! It get dark near midnight and is light before 4:00 AM. We met with
Renae for a while and walked with her and Travis was working at the hospital,
but it was a slow night so we went over to Dr. King Weaver’s lounge and hung
out with him, Alana, Renae and a third year resident – which was fun. We came back in the rain again and hit the
sack at Renae’s place. We drove 313
miles today, and ended up with EXACTLY 6000 miles on the bike since we left our
house in Sarasota, FL! Okay I drove an
extra 2.8 miles around the block when I got back – just to hit the 6000 mile
mark
J. It was 6000 miles in 11 days. We got here much faster than we expected –
partly because when it’s cold and wet we don’t stop as much and keep
going. We didn’t know when we would get
here and what we were going to do when we got here, leave the bike, go part of
the way back. We decided to spend 5 days
here and then head back, taking our time more and seeing where we end up –
maybe Iowa. We thought earlier maybe
Edmonton and then store the bike and come back later in the summer, but Iowa or
even PA or FL look like a possibility at this point.