Rained most of the night and still raining as I am ready to head out. I did breakfast in my room with my travel rations and coffee. The road is beautiful and every thing is clean. About 30 miles out of Palmer the rain stopped. I don't trust the weather enough to take off the rain jacket, and 100 miles later I get a little more rain. The ride is beautiful and it is new road for me to Tok, about 20 miles of construction and gravel but with the rain it is not dusty and most of the gravel is packed so easy to ride. Well easy to ride if you can go about 20 mph or a bit more, but sometimes the pilot car goes slow when it is waiting for some equipment to get out of the way or just to keep every one together if there is a slow truck in the line and then the riding is a lot of work. Often times I find that if I stand up I can see the pot holes better and have better control. One spot on this section where the pilot car was going slow and the blade had just spread the gravel so it was still soft, made me work to keep every thing going in the right direction (forward). Refueled in Tok and headed out for my afternoon ride, my goal was to spend the night in Destruction Bay, we had stopped there on the way north and they had a good restaurant, clean rooms with wifi and a laundry facility. That would give me 510 miles for the day and I knew that the 140 miles from the Canadian border to Destruction Bay would be the worst roads of the whole trip. Only a little rain to the border, nice road and lots of green. When I get to the border I am expecting a quick look at the passport and a wave through, not so. He was a smaller version of Eddie Murphy with a big diamond stud in one ear and he must have been new as he kept having to leave the window and go check on stuff. How come my passport was beat up a little? Well sir when I travel I don't always take my purse so I put it in my back pocket and then it gets set on. Where did I get the picture taken? It looks sub standard, did I get it taken in Wyoming? No sir, I was born in Wyoming but left there on a freight train when I was two years old. Why did I go to Alaska? Because it was there sir. Who did I meet there? No one sir, I rode up with a friend and he fell in love with an Eskimo and decided to stay there. After another trip to talk to some one or look in his question book he let me go. I don't know if he had run out of questions or if it was the 6 motor homes and travel trailers behind me the gave me my release. So the white donkey and I are off and running for Destruction Bay 140 miles away. The road is every bit a poor as I remembered. Lots of dips and bumps and long stretches of gravel. I got behind a pickup truck after one of the early stretches of construction when the pilot car turned us loose and gave me something to follow. I could tell when the bumps were the worst as he swerved around them and by the bounce of the truck so I could miss some of them and stand up for the others. Standing in the bumps you are able to take some of the shock with your legs and the suspension doesn't bottom out near as often. The pickup didn't slow down for the gravel so I just stood up and stayed just far enough behind him to miss any flying rock. The ride went faster than I had expected but when I got off the bike in Destruction Bay my legs very tired and I am sure I will be sore tomorrow. 510 miles down today, when I don't have anyone to talk to the rest stops are shorter and I have a couple of less gas stops so spend a little more time in the saddle. Two rooms left so I take a room and am done for the day.
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