True story: we stopped at the Safeway in Homer for breakfast, and an elderly woman stopped by to vent.

“Those eagles, I hate them!”
“Oh?”
“They took my cat.”
“What?”
“They took my cat for lunch!”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“I’m going to shoot them.”
“Um…isn’t that illegal?”
“I don’t care. I’m going to get them!”

We skedaddled out of Homer back up to Anchorage onto the Glen Highway, pausing for pix at the Matanuska Glacier.

Rode late into the day onto the Tok Cutoff Highway, where we could see the broad landscape at the foot of the Wrangell Mountains, although it was too dark for pictures. Eagle Trail State Park was home for the night.

Here’s a short video clip of road highlights from Homer and just past Tok…

We were back on the ALCAN the next day, forging through 2 significant storm cells, one of which caused water to sneak into my previously impenetrable 5 year old Darien pants. Nothing like sitting with a wet butt, fortunately it dried in a couple of hours.

We hit Haines Junction in late afternoon, attended to food and fuel, and were mindful of the 8pm cutoff time when the border closes getting down to Haines. And lucky for us, the setting sun drenched a glowing light across the mountains and road most of the way down the Haines Highway.

Truly spectacular and quite majestic, it was a real treat. We rolled into Haines just as it was getting dark. It would be our first dark sky night since we started the trip.

We established camp at the Homer Spit campground, where we caught up with showers and laundry amid view of the beautiful Kachemak Bay. Wonderfully scenic.

We paid homage to the Salty Dawg, admiring the dollar bill decorations on the ceilings, and getting a decent playlist out of the jukebox (U2, Journey, Guns and Roses, must have been an early 90s moment).

By sheer luck of geography, and perhaps a little bit of fate, we noticed that the campground was close to a ferry terminal. We had considered taking a ferry during the trip planning, and couldn’t quite get the timing right, so we were planning on riding back to Seattle. We looked at the schedule at the terminal, and didn’t recognize any of the destinations on the list, except for Dutch Harbor because of the TV show. Then we realized that ferry terminal serviced the western part of Alaska, out to the Aleutians. So we looked across the street, noticed a ferry travel agent office. 45 minutes later we were booked on the Columbia going down the Inside Passage as long as we could get to Haines in a couple of days.

About a thousand miles over two days? No problem.

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We were warned about Glennallen, just down the road from the eastern side of the Denali Highway. Be extra careful about speed traps. The area is close to Alaska State Trooper training ground, where speed enforcement training is in regular operation. On this run, however, the only thing we had to worry about was the rain. A few drops had turned into a steady drizzle which turned into a steady downpour, and the temperatures were dropping into the low 50s. Although I had planned for temps down into the 30s for the trip, I had yet to toss on the long johns, and the prospect of taking off the suit and pants to get an underlayer on seemed too much.

We continued to forge west on the Glen Highway, hand warmers on full blast, and then little patches of blue appeared in the sky. Matanuska Glacier appeared on the side of the road, the pavement began to dry and turn a few twistys, and we found ourselves staring at Anchorage and Wasilla road signs. That wet and cold combo was one of the most uncomfortable weather segments of the trip, yet when I compare with other road trips this summer, seems we should be thankful it wasn’t worse. Anchorage was then under our tires, and we made our way to the Harley dealership for a tent spot and shower for the night.

Let me give HD Anchorage a shout out for the free campground and nice shower facilities. And free wifi. Most appreciated.

After taking care of supplies and bikes, we headed south the next day, embracing the scenic Route 1 around Turnagain Arm and down into Sterling as we made a beeline for Homer. But first, we had an important stop to make – perhaps this is common knowledge to all the local Alaska folks, it never occurred to us to hunt down the point of the most western highway on the continent. We had to stop at Anchor Point. It’s a couple of miles off the main highway on Anchor Point Road, there is no signage to indicate the way. (But the Chamber of Commerce folks are happy to give you directions.)

And for an extra surprise, we were lucky to enjoy the Anchor Point version of docking a boat. No piers or boat slips here, they just run a tractor out into the surf, the boat races in with the waves, a deck hand ties up to the trailer, and the tractor emerges from the water and up to the parking lot. Fun to watch on a calm day, and I’m thinking this takes on turbulent proportions in serious weather. Here’s a short photo sequence of a pick-up while we were there.

We chatted with the staff after the above extraction, apparently they have more videos on YouTube. The manager didn’t want to talk much about the maintenance costs on the tractors with the salt water, upkeep is a bit pricey, even by Alaska standards.

Let’s just get this out of the way right up front: Denali Highway became an immediate nominee on my top ten list of most scenic highways in the US. Immediate nominee. I’ve been on Going to the Sun Road, Coastal Highway 1 in Big Sur, Trail Ridge in Colorado, Broadway in Manhattan (don’t dismiss it until you’ve tried it!), Windy Ridge to Mount St Helens, and now the Dalton on this trip. Denali Highway is spectacularly beautiful, and I ran out of superlatives to describe it.

We entered on the western side from Cantwell, which apparently is the wrong way to go, as Denali Mountain is then at your back as you travel eastward. It didn’t matter on this day, as the mountain wasn’t out during our passage. We danced with some rain clouds and more slippery construction zones, and even caught a rainbow.

We took our time going across, and eventually settled down at the BLM campground at Tangle Lakes. Half of the campground was closed to construction, looks like they’re putting in new sites and tables, and the construction trucks continued deep into evening with an incessant beep-beep-beep signal of reverse drive. The wind had kicked up too. It was the kind of wind that puts whitecaps on the lake and makes your tent flap all night. It also kept the bugs away.

TIP: The town of Healy appears to be the tourist capital of visitors heading into Denali National Park. It’s an insane juggle between RVs, tour buses, and cars looking for places to stay and grab some food. But tucked in between the buildings and RV camp are two food trucks, one for Chinese food, the other for Thai. Both had delicious entrees with heaping portions, although a little overpriced. Recommended.

Upon landing in Fairbanks, we immediately gas’d up and headed over to Adventure CycleWorks to clean up the bikes and attend to oil changes. It’s important to get the calcium chloride off the bike as soon as possible, as it will harden and do a vulcan-merge meld thing with the bike metals. Dan and Shawn run a nice shop there, highly recommended. Check out their site for more info.

We used the following day as ‘McGuyver’ Day to attend to Brady’s bike and catch up with shopping. We scored a $5 replacement fender (!) from the spare parts bin at the Trail’s End dealership, and picked up a left blinker and left mirror. I also needed a new blinker cover which was taken out by a flying rock from a truck passing on the Dalton. As we camped in the Trail’s End parking lot with our tool kits spread out, we had some wonderful exchanges with passing folks. One elderly gentleman stopped by, said he was one of the first truckers up the Dalton, had awesome stories of being stuck on the ice, helicopter coming in with food, he had to stand on top of the cab with waters rising around him, great stuff.

Another biker stopped by, mid-30s, on a 1200GSA, this was going to be his last season in Fairbanks, he was done with it. He performs MRIs for a living, been up here for seven years, it’s too cold in the winter, the local vendors are too expensive, and heating months are 7-8 months of the year. He’s single, moving back to the lower 48 next year. Okay then. (If he’s reading this, didn’t catch his name, definitely a longer riding season here in Seattle.)

TIP: always carry safety wire. We used it to keep the fender on the bike for the rest of the trip. It rocks.

Also worth a mention of two of Fairbanks finer dining establishments…

And dinner at Geraldo’s on College Ave, excellent pizza and beer, and just 10 minutes down the street from the college.