We had a day off, but I didn't compute or use my camera. I needed
to relax and resupply. I bought some rechargeable batteries and a charger
for the Casio. Nelson replaced a terminally bent wheel. We were all flitting
around town.
I finally managed to get my Oakley sunglasses at the Greyhound station.
I broke my Oakleys in Delta Junction and asked my daughter to send my spare
pair to me at Whitehorse. My daughter mailed them to me at YukonWeb in Whitehorse,
but they didn't get there in time; I'd already left Whitehorse, so, Richard
forwarded them to me via Greyhound in Watson Lake, but the Watson Lake Greyhound
office was closed when I arrived in Watson Lake and closed at noon the following
day (our off day) and, not realizing I needed to rush, I didn't get to the
station until 1:00 PM. The Greyhound office wasn't open the following day
until 4:00 and we left at 8:30, so I had to call Richard and ask him to
have the glasses forwarded again by Greyhound from Watson Lake to Ft. Nelson.
What a hassle!
We pigged out in Ft. Nelson. On Wednesday evening most of us went to Dan's
Pub, drank beer and ate nachos. It was a great party. Thursday lunch we
went to an all-you-can-eat buffet and ate it all (almost literally--they
closed the buffet when we finished eating it all) and then we ate several
more times at various establishments, including stocking up on junk food
and trail mix at the supermarket. I hear that riding as hard as we do, one
consumes 9,000 calories a day. I believe it. It is really wonderful that
Tom is such a fabulous cook. Hooray for Cyclevents.
At our campground, there was a line of several motorhomes waiting
to get to the hose so they could wash the highway grime off their vehicles,
but I decided my bike needed a serious cleaning, so I waited in the line
(about an hour). It took me about as long to wash my bicycle as it took
the motorhomes to wash one tire, but I didn't do much of a job with just
a hose. It took me another couple of hours using 3-M wipes and ArmorAll
to shine up the finish, Bill's chain cleaner to clean my chain, apply Pedro's
lube to the chain and clean the rings, check over everything, etc. When
I was done, the bike looked new.
At the campsite, I got talking to the owner of the motorhome next to us. He was Jim Bell, the publisher of a well known guide to the Alaska Highway: Bell's Mile By Mile Alaska, Yukon & British Columbia Travel Guide [click on the Amazon logo to order] . I was impressed to see him experiencing the Highway first-hand. We had met when I lived in Alaska.
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© Ed Noonan 1996, 1997