And the Adventures Continue

Hello again!

I forgot to talk about a few things in the last blog. The most important one is...... Yay we made it to Alaska!!! :) We have gone 10,000 miles so far! We took the long way to Alaska haha.

Lets see... from Copper Center campground we drove all the way up to Anchorage. Our bikes needed oil changes again and a few other parts and pieces. I had to buy a new chain and sprocket already and a new air filter, so I just let the mechanics at The Motorcycle Shop do all the work for me. The emulsion stuff they spray on the dirt roads in Canada and Alaska to keep dust down really takes a toll on motorcycles. We have probably gone to the car wash 5 times already just to wash that stuff off. It is solid once it dries. Overall our bikes have been running well (knock on wood). We’ve only had a couple minor issues. For awhile whenever I would accelerate in 4^th and 5^th hear it sounded very airy (like it had an exhaust leak). Well I finally found the problem. I was on my hands and knees inspecting my bike before we arrived at The Motorcycle Shop and there on the very bottom side of the exhaust above a metal protector plate was a huge stress crack. There was no impact point or dents. Just a fine line about a couple inches long. The guys at the shop sent a picture of it to BMW headquarters in Germany because they had never seen that before. Thankfully BMW mailed a new exhaust rather quickly so she’s good as new. Jason put a new chain on his bike but is still trying to find new sprockets. We are hoping the moto shop in Fairbanks can get them. He also needs a new speedometer cable. It randomly stopped working a couple days ago. We are hoping the connection at the back of his dashboard just jiggled loose from too many bumpy potholes.

With all the maintenance we had to do on the bikes after riding so far, we ended up staying in Anchorage for 2 days. It’s a pretty city. Mountains everywhere with the ocean right there too. We had fresh yummy sushi for the first time since we left Maui. We had the hardest time getting a hotel room though. We stopped at 4 different hotels to see if they had rooms available before we finally started just calling them. We thought maybe they were turning us down because we were dirty bikers haha. We finally found one at a place called the Inlet. It was nice to be able to do some laundry and shower. 

We tried to get one more night there but they were sold out, so we packed up and stayed at a Super 8 motel. We got all our parts and pieces put together and were ready to go again.

Two of our Maui friends (Shaun and Natalie) were flying into Alaska for vacation, so we planned to meet up with them in Seward. The drive from Anchorage down the Kenai Peninsula is so beautiful. We took a detour to drive through the Whittier Tunnel.

It is a 2.5 mile railroad tunnel that they allow vehicles to drive through too. It’s the only way by land to get to Whittier. There are scheduled times when they allow vehicles to be in the tunnel. The rest of the time is for trains to go through. It was a crazy experience! Motorcycles used to be allowed to go first before cars and buses, but now they have to go last. Supposedly some guy crashed his bike in the tunnel and got ran over by a bus so that is why we go last. It’s $13 per vehicle round trip to go through the tunnel. Once the scheduled time for vehicles rolls around, cars are allowed to start going through the tunnel (they are spaced out by red and green traffic lights). The tricky part for motorcycles is that you have to cross into the railroad track at the beginning of the tunnel and stay on the striped pavement between the two rails for the whole 2.5 miles. It doesn’t seem like it would be that hard; but it’s kinda like when you are in an MRI machine and they tell you not to move the entire time... all you think about is moving! It’s hard not to gravitate towards the rails haha. Once we got out the other side, there was a train waiting to use the tunnel. It was pretty cool.

The town of Whittier is tiny but worth seeing. A lot of people chose to take a ferry from Valdez to Whittier to see glaciers in the ocean and then drive through the tunnel (which we might have done if we knew about it before we got there). This tiny ocean side mountain town has beautiful blue water, big glaciers, and beautiful waterfalls.

 
We had an hour to kill before our scheduled return trip through the tunnel, so we grabbed a coffee and watched some local kids fish. Whittier is a huge hub for seafood processing so I’m sure it’s a great place to eat it. Unfortunately we weren’t there over lunch or dinner time. We safely cruised back through the tunnel and went down to Seward. Our friends were out on a fishing charter, so we cruised around every part of town to find a good fishing spot. We were unsuccessful at finding a spot. Seward is extremely busy with tourists. Even the campgrounds were over packed with people. We decided to explore Exit Glacier Road and found a tent only, free campground just down the road from a huge glacier.
 
It looked like it could rain again so we quickly set up camp and cooked some backpacker meals. Shaun and Natalie stopped by to say hello! It was so great to see them. We talked story for a little bit and made plans of where to meet in the morning to head to Homer.

It was kinda rainy in the morning; but we packed up, met up with Shaun and Natalie, and hit the road.
 
The plan was to camp at a super secret amazing camp spot that night in Ninilchik and then go into Homer to catch a water taxi (aka an awesome boat) to a secluded cabin for fishing and relaxation. It rained most of our drive to Ninilchik, but it wasn’t freezing cold at least. We arrived at the turn off for our super secret camp spot and it was a muddy, rutty, gigantic potholes full of water mess.
 
I was determined to sail through the mess gracefully. The first section was great and then we turned the corner again. No matter which line you chose you were just gonna have to hang on and go for it. I decided to stop and let Jason get further ahead, so I wouldn’t have to stop in a bad spot; however, when I put my foot down, it just kept sliding outward in the mud. I couldn’t stop it so my bike took a nap in the mud haha. I was so pissed.
 
I did fine in the gnarly terrain; but when it came to standing still, I fell over. The camp spot was amazing though. We were on top of a bluff, so we had an ocean view with mountainous volcanoes across the ocean and a waterfall to the right of us. We cooked up a great meal of fresh salmon (Shaun and Natalie had caught it the day before), rice pilaf, and pasta salad. It was a fun evening catching up on things. We hadn’t seen them since we all left Maui.

The next morning we had to rush to catch the water taxi by 10am. As we packed up our gear, I came up with my game plan for riding out of that gnarly road again. All I could think of was to pick a line and keep the throttle on.... and it was successful! The whole process of repacking our gear at the docks for a night out in the woods before the boat left was a blur but we all made it.
 
The boat ride out had amazing scenery.
 
 
They dropped us right at the front steps of the cabin with our kayaks and fishing poles. The only way to access this cabin was by boat (amazing)!
 
Natalie and Shaun kayaked away to go hike a glacier while Jason and I kayaked close to the cabin to try and break our fishing poles by fighting a big salmon (we have tiny break apart poles with 8 lb line). We had such a great time!
 
 
While we were fishing, we saw a bald eagle swoop down and catch a fish and then a black bear came out of the woods and caught a fish in the same spot. (It's hard to see in the picture unless you zoom in but Jason got a picture of the bald eagle with a fish in his claws sitting on the mossy rocks!)

We decided that was the perfect spot to catch a fish haha. Not too long after we paddled over there, Jason’s line took off! We thought this was the end of his little fishing pole. The line was just zinging out of the reel and the fish was going nuts!
 
It eventually tired out and Jason brought him over toward me. It was my job to flop him on shore and try to bop him on the head somehow. We finally saw what it was and it was a huge salmon!! Yay our first salmon! After the huge fight, Jason’s pole survived to fish another day.

The night in the cabin was wonderful. There was a wood burning stove that stayed lite long enough to warm up the cabin and then it rained early morning, so it was perfect weather for sleeping in. The sun eventually came out and we went back out to kayak fish again. Shaun said it was my job to catch dinner, so that’s what I did.
 
I caught a juvenile silver salmon! The meat was so red and perfect when we filleted it, we wanted to eat it raw haha (sushi style).
 
Around 4pm, the water taxi was back to pick us up. It was such a great trip. Thanks to Natalie for planning it!!

 
We were starving after we arrived back on the Homer Spit, so we grabbed a drink at the Salty Dog (a famous fisherman’s’ bar). The whole bar is covered ceiling to floor with dollar bills that people have written on. The Mommer name will forever be on the ceiling of the Salty Dog! :) 

 
 
 
We grabbed pizza at a restaurant that I can’t remember its name and experienced quite an earthquake. At first we all thought someone had heavy feet while they were walking but then the whole place started swaying haha! It was insane. We just sat there starring at each and then it stopped. I guess it was a 6.2 quake caused by one of the volcanoes not too far from us.

Shaun arranged with his cousin to let us all camp on his property in Soldotna that night. Huge thank you to Shaun’s cousin! They are big time fishermen, so they took us to their favorite river fishing spot to get in on the action of the red salmon run. It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. People were shoulder to shoulder throwing their hooks around to “catch” a salmon. When the salmon are spawning, they don’t feed on anything which means they won’t bite your hook; so you have to snag them through the mouth. It’s quite interesting but lots of fun. I think we are addicted now. The morning we went out to fish the DLNR raised the catch limit from 3 to 6 per person, so there were a lot of fish caught that day. Jason and I grabbed our tiny collapsible rods and joined the madness. We didn’t have waders, so we found a spot off the boardwalk to throw our lines in. It was kind of a combination of fly fishing and dragging your line quickly through the water. One of the locals next to us was leaving and asked us if we liked salmon. We said “Of course!” and he gave us one of his salmon! That was super nice of him. He even filleted it for us. He didn’t think we would catch anything on our tiny poles, so he felt bad for us haha. Little did he know... Jason caught a fish shortly after that guy left haha! We didn’t have a net to grab the fish before it broke loose, so we dragged it into the weeds and threw a rock at its head to knock it out and pull it up onto the boardwalk. It was a nice sized sockeye salmon! Unfortunately we forgot the camera in the tent so we don't have pictures of this event on our SmugMug page, but we took a few with our cellphones which I'll post in the near future. Since we already had a cooler full of salmon, we gave the fish Jason caught to Shaun and Natalie to take back home with them. They had a bunch of halibut and salmon filleted and frozen to ship back to the East coast.
 
That night for supper we cooked up some of the fresh salmon with cornbread stuffing and mixed veggies. It was delicious!

Jason and I absolutely needed to start heading North again to make it to Deadhorse before the weather gets too cold. We had an amazing time hanging out with Shaun and Natalie! We all said our goodbyes and hit the road for Anchorage again. We had to stop by The Motorcycle Shop again to see what the Germany BMW people had to say about my cracked exhaust pipe. On our way up there, a mama moose and her baby ran out in the road in front of us. Thankfully we saw them coming and were able to stop in time. The rest of the ride was smooth sailing. We rolled into the moto shop and before they even talked with me I saw my brand new shiny exhaust laying on the counter. BMW decided to completely replace that section of exhaust for me for free (warranty stuff). The Motorcycle Shop boys were super helpful and got my bike in right away to put the pipe on. My bike is back to a quiet purr. :)

We camped that night for free at the Anchorage Harley Davidson store. We didn’t actually camp in the store but they have a hidden grassy lawn right in town where they let moto travelers camp a night for free. They even have a restroom with a shower available for us. All the campers that night were adventure dualsport riders. One couple had my exact bike. He was the only other Sertao I’ve seen on the road so far. They were from Canada and heading down to Homer for a little vacation. Another guy there was riding a BMW 1200. We didn’t say much besides “hello” because he didn’t speak English. The last guy had been camping there quite awhile. In the morning before we left, he told us his story. He is from Brazil. He started his trip in Argentina on a Harley and drove the Pan American Highway all the way up to Deadhorse, Alaska. On his way down from Deadhorse his Harley engine imploded on him. It was going to cost him $7,000 to get a new engine; so he decided to sell the bike to Harley Davidson cheap and fly back to Brazil. That must have been quite a trip.

Our plan for todays ride was to get to Talkeetna from Anchorage through Hatcher’s Pass. Hatcher’s pass was interesting. I didn’t know what to expect at first. It ended up being a beautiful gravel road. It was very well traveled and amazing mountain views.
 
Jason’s plan was to take one of the side roads off Hatcher’s Pass to come out closer to Talkeetna area instead of going down the touristy highway. Well... we took a right turn where we thought this side road should be and didn’t get very far. There were gigantic potholes filled with water (almost could be considered small ponds) which soon turned into a very rocky path (softball sized rolling rocks).
 
If we would have had lighter weight dirt bikes, we would have been all for it; but our fully loaded heavy bikes weren’t going to make it in one piece if we kept going. We turned around and the road was still fun with lots of curves. Almost forgot to mention... Jason woke up with a bad cold this morning. He was so stuffed up with runny nose and headache I asked him if we just wanted to stay and sleep all day but he wanted to push on. He road all day today barely able to see through his snot and then went to bed early once we reached Talkeetna. One interesting encounter on the way to Talkeetna was the road being closed right in front of us for a helicopter to land. Someone in an ambulance needed to get to a hospital quickly; so the fire chiefs closed off a section of road to transfer the guy from the ambulance to a medical helicopter.
 
Prayers to that family! Hopefully all went well for them.

Well we have to hit the road again but I have a lot more stories and pictures to catch up on. Will hopefully have internet available in the next major town we come across.

Link to our pictures:  https://mommer.smugmug.com/Motorcycles/Alaska-2015/49948984_NtmPzL#!i=4257366414&k=db6hF8G