Despite how exhausted I was the day before, I got up early and was fairly well rested. I had learned my lesson. Earplugs. Unfortunately for those in the other rooms, I didn't hear the alarm for some time because the earplugs I use are so good.

I got up, grabbed a shower and put on my gear. I wanted to get to Fairbanks early and grab a motel with WIFI so I could get to writing about this section of the trip. I knew it would take me some time to say everything I wanted to.

I checked out and grabbed breakfast at the breakfast buffet. Breakfast consisted of too many eggs, some bacon and sausages. They did have fresh fruit. I don't want to think about what my blood work will look like after this trip. Chloresterol of 1000, at least.

I sat quietly outside for quite some time. A couple hours I think. It was cool, not cold. There was a slight breeze. There was some commotion inside. I couldn't hear exactly what was going on but a pilot was having some trouble finding a way to approach the camp. I heard rumor of a forest fire not far away.

I pulled my bike around to get gas. Travelling the previous day across all that muck had certainly taken a toll on my bikes good looks. "I'll need to get it power washed before the salt starts corroding everything.", I thought as I surveyed the muck.

I went back to the cafe for another cup of coffee. It didn't feel like time to leave yet.

"I like this place.", I thought as I sipped bad trucker cafe coffee which was served from an endless pot. I could hear something that I thought was coming from inside the cafe, sounds from some kind of nature show.

But somethihng didn't sound right about it. The sound of diesel trucks ceased for a moment and I could tell the sound was coming from distant hills ... I pondered what it could be when I heard that distinctive howl.

WOLVES!!

A pack of wolves was not far off. I could hear them howling to one another. I have never heard wolves in the wild. My sum total experience with wolves was with one that a friend of Gesa's was keeping as a pet. She had visited Fort Lamers and brought the wolf. She said I was the only man the wolf ever liked. Strange critter.

I tried to get the camera in movie mode to capture the sound but a diesel van rolled up making too much noise. By the time all the senior citizens got out to go to the bathroom and stopped making noise, the wolves had gone quiet.

There's something about wolves, about forest covered trees, about this landscape that invokes the shadow of a memory; a memory I've never had. But there was something strangely familiar about it. It's just a feeling, but it was a very powerful one.

In the parking lot you could see a trucker trying to get his rig started. It sounds like starter motor trouble. Overall it was a quiet morning, with little going on.

I like it here. It's got kind of a spaceport feel to it. People are always travelling through. Some come and go, others just pass through once not to return. There are stories. Reports of goings on. Tales of things that went wrong. People come up and talk to you to tell you what has happened or to ask you about your experiences.

"How's the road", is a frequent question.

I went into the cafe to get yet another cup of coffee. At this point I had had Too Much but kept going.

In the bar, they had a little souvenier stand, but nothing that I really liked. I had wanted a little Camp Coldfoot metal pin to attach to my bike, but they had no such thing. They did have cheesy thermometers listing Coldfoot as the coldest recorded spot in North America or some such. So I got one to hang up in my house somewhere.

There was a collage of photos on the wall which seemed to capture more realistically the kinds of mishaps that can happen up here.

I didn't want to post it too much larger. Some of that really invokes "ouch".

The "motel" I spent the night in .. strangely I'm going to miss this place.

I enjoyed hanging out and listening to the truckers stories and seeing into the lives of people who did Real Work.

I passed one of the rigs. The previous night one of the truckers mentioned the hazards of gravel that gets stuck in truck tires. "It can be a problem", one said. "Not really, I've got a full faced helmet and good leathers.", I replied. "Yea, but for these guys riding up here without a face shield or leather they can be lethal.". That I can see.

Clouds were still pervasive and hung low over the cafe.

I sat there, outside on the porch, for quite some time hoping I would hear the wolves again. I think they had moved off further away. Every now and again I could just barely hear them, but the ambient noise from diesel engines and the goings on in the cafe prevented me from hearing clearly.

I saw a couple of tourists walk off into the woods in the direction of the wolves. "I don't know if that's such a good idea.", I found myself wondering. But I would have really liked to see a pack of wolves, from a distance, a very safe distance.

The time came when I got that sense of "Goodbye". It was time to leave. I was making time. The road was wet. It was raining in places. I was going faster than I had at any time before on this road. And I was leaving a wide margin for error. I had gotten comfortable with how the bike felt on the dirt, over the ruts, the gravel and the other conditions.

I was even catching a little lean in corners, on gravel, a thing I would never have imagined possible.

The rumor of a forest fire turned out to be true. I started to smell smoke and saw a haze hanging down over the tree shrub things.

The excess coffee that I consumed made itself known as I had to stop and take a leak several times on the way down. I really did have way too much coffee.

In the little access roads that lead to the pipeline every so and so many miles, you see these kinds of security signs.

I tried to capture some of the hills and the steep grades you encounter on the road. I was thinking of Rick, the bicyclist, when I took this photo.

It doesn't do it justice. The far side is wicked steep. Doing down this road on the wet muck was a bit unnerving, but too bad.

I was still on my dream-catcher quest. I saw a sign for a gift shop and stopped in. No native art, but they did have coffee. I continued my efforts to over-caffeinate myself to death.

It was a funky improvisational camp style little outpost. A generator could be heard running in the back. And this is what I enjoy about having requests. It causes me, like my arbitrary destinations, to see things I would not have seen. Had it not been for the request, I would not have stopped here and seen this.

"Cool.", I thought. I talked to the proprietor for a while. She had this an array of "no bitching, no moaning, no complaining" signs pasted up everywhere while she complained about the weather and how cold and rainy it's been. She said the previous day had winds so strong it blew all of her stuff around.

I continued on down the road to Yukon River Camp to get gas. Since I had no reason to see it before, I failed to notice the little "Local Crafts" stand out in front of the camp. A rough outdoorsy looking woman, missing a few teeth, ran the stand. Unfortunately for my quest, everything she sold she made herself. She trapped furs of various critters such as wolverine, muskrat, lynx, etc. She had a disturbing wolverine purse, where the skin of the head of the thing made the flap that closed the purse.

She also made little canoes about of bark and other items.

She started showing me photos of her house, which she and her family had built off in the woods. I did not know you could mill your own lumber, to pretty exacting standards, using a chain saw. She showed me how her stand had been made using the trees they felled on their property.

She had photos of a forest fire, of clearing the lot and how they built the support stand to raise the structure off the ground. They built the entire thing in just a few months bringing in little more than tools. Aside from electricals and some modest plumbing, if I understood her correctly they manufactured everything right there to build the house.

I listened to her for a good 30 minutes and suggested she make a little book with her photos. "That's a story I think people would be willing to buy.", I suggested to her.

It was cool. Another life, very different from my own, all because of a quest. Cool.

I got gas at the Yukon River Camp and picked up a post card and an arctic circle pin for the bike. I was off again.

I happened upon this long sloping hill that turned into a right hander that I recognized. I slammed on the brakes just beofre I hit the deep irregular gravel. This was the spot that that tractor trailer had slid into my lane on the way up. I had asked James if that happens and he said it happened all the time, so I guess I wasn't imagining things.

It was in worse condition than the last time I was here. The photo doesn't do it justice, but this 100 yards was the only "bad" part of the Dalton I experience. It's a 15mph section.

(The phone just rang. I got called by a friend I haven't talked to in nearly 10 years. It's crazy how life and obligations gets in the way ... but now I have a new task. After coming back from Valdez I've been instructed, rather forcefully, that I should go see an Ice Castle at a hot springs resort ... hmmm, but checking google I'm not seeing it immediately. I'll have to look again later. There are a few other friends I haven't seen in 10 years I would like to hear from.)

This was just a 100 yard section. The gravel was several inches deep and confused. Hitting this in the condition it was in at too high a speed will likely result in a crash. It was around 30 mile or so.

I liked this shot.

This section of the Dalton highway is also built up crazy high. I walked down to the base and tried to capture it.

But it looks too flat. The bike, as you can see in the other photo, is on the edge of the road. So it's uphill from the point of the camera basically to the wheels of the bike.

Not long after the gravel spot I came upon the end of the road. As soon as I hit pavement, contrary to what I would have thought, I missed the dirt almost immediately. "That had been fun.", I thought as I stopped a the Dalton Highway sign.

"I wonder if this bike and I will ever be in this spot again?", I thought.

I kind of doubt it. This is not the kind of place you visit more than once. Maybe I would ride up here if I got some kind of contract to work at the oil field, but as a tourist I don't think it makes sense to come back. There are other places to see.

This road was fun though. I thought it was a lot of fun, but my sense of "fun" may be a little disturbed.

I hit the road down towards Fairbanks. It's a windy albeit frost heaved bouncy road. Coming off the Dalton riding on pavement seemed almost too easy. I was going at a good clip leaning into corners more than I had at any point on the trip before. The bike felt good.

Eventually I came upon another "gift shop" advertising "native art". "Maybe I can find something appropriate there.", I thought as I pulled in.

It was an odd place.

It looked like something you might see at Dancing Rabbit. The inside was clean and well organized though. They did have some dream catchers, but they were too large, made out of elk horn. The smaller ones they had looked like plastic. Ok, that won't work. I asked about bathrooms and they directed me to the outhouses outside.

They looked like something out of Tolkien, a common comment I make. I figured, "No problem. I've gotten used to pit toilets by this point.".

OMG. That was the foulest, vilest, most disgusting outhouse I have ever seen. I still cannot get the memory of that smell to leave my consciousness. I am forever scarred.

Chris, the R1200GS yoga stretching photographer guy I had met at Coldfoot Camp had given me the card for AdvCycleWorks and repeatedly suggested that I go by there to have my bike pressure washed to get all the muck off it. Given how hard it was caked on I was curious how well that was going to work out.

They run the shop out of their house. It's off a dirt road a ways out of the way, but well worth the trip. They specialize in tires for adventure bikes that are in the area to run up and down the Dalton and other "challenging" roads.

I arrived and hung out for a while. I wanted to let the bike cool before putting water on it. The exhaust system on 16valve K100RS's has a propensity for cracking badly. We chatted for a bit. Dan, the proprietor, suggested that I visit Valdez on the coast. There are a number of tour boats that go out to a glacier. He highly recommended the one called Lulubelle. He said it was the Switzerland of Alaska and worth a look-see. A number of other people I've talked to concurred, so I'm going. I'll leave for Valdez tomorrow, assuming I feel better. I'll probably hang out there for a day and then start the return trip. I'll check out this Ice Castle, assuming I can find it, and then travel on to Prince George then Victoria. From there I'll probably just do the top route across the US. I want to go through Glacier, the Badlands and take a look-see at Sturgis, even though I'll be there a week early.

Dan suggested I stay at the University of Alaska. They open up the dorm rooms to travellers in the off-season, but I looked and it appeared to be more trouble than it was worth. I wanted something closer to food.

At this point I was hungry. I was absolutely starving, so riding around town I stopped at a bar and grill and sat down at the bar. The characters there were, how should I say this politely, colorful. Political correctness was nowhere to be found. A friend of mine, Micro, would have felt right at home.

A guy sat down next to me, I think his name was Brian. He worked on oil rigs up on the North Slope and Prudhoe Bay. He was too lit to really have a conversation about it. All he said was he seemed to get assigned all the highest profile drills.

The food in the place was really good. I had ordered a steak with a salad and the salad was monstrous, and good. Guys at the bar were making off color comments about the bartender, as guys at bars seem to do when there's a cute bartender. It's something that I've never liked. She's working. Let her work. If you like her, just give her a good tip and leave it at that.

I guess there in lies the problem. They saw a cute blonde. Just some thing. I saw a person who was trying to work, and was doing a reasonably good job at it.

Some ages ago I sat at the Outback when Rachel K was working. It was a similar scene, but not nearly as bad as this. Guys at the bar were professing their undying love for Rachel, which happens. "So how often do your customers profess their undying love for you?", I asked. "All the time", she replied. "It gets creepy when it's the really old guys. You know, the ones over 40.". Laugh. Ouch. "Ok, then I'll be the one that never does that.", I promised. So it's become kind of a game. I sit at the bar and she's always takes especially good care of me, especially on those days during the Nightmare when I just wanted someone to look out for me for a change. I would say, "I'm thinking it, but I can't say it.". That always got a smile.

So I asked this bartender the same question. "I've lost count.", she said giggling. Good answer. The guy next to me starts saying rather loudly which body parts of her he liked the most, then turned his attention to the TV and started doing the same about the women he saw there. "Not good.", I thought. Oh well. It's just that I always hate that kind of thing. I just keep thinking about all the horror stories women have told me ... maybe I spend too much time remembering them.

I finished my steak and went to find a motel.

After stopping at some ridiculously overpriced hotels, I happened upon a relatively cheap one, at least for this area, across from a BMW, Harley, etc dealer. As I rode down the street to the motel I saw a clear sign of the forest fire in the distance.

I got a room. I was going to write but was too tired, so I headed out and asked where I could find a local bar. They directed me to the Boatel Bar, a dive down the street in walking distance.

It was serious local scene. You could tell everyone there had known everyone else for years. Customers who were also friends traded gossip with the bartender. She had a persistent uncomfortable laugh. Coincidently after a short while, the guy that sat next to me at the grill from before, came in from outside. He saw me, remembered my name and invited me to join him and his friends outside. The sun was extremely low and bright on the horizon bathing the back of the deck in an erry intensely orange light.

If I understood correctly, his two friends were in from out of town. California somewhere, I think. They mostly ignored me at first just talking about local antics. I hung out for a few hours with them. The one friends name was Nora, but I can't remember her boyfriends name. At some point they asked me why I was out here. So I gave the standard answer, "out here getting my head screwed on straight". After some more indirect questions, I think they concluded I had been through some kind of divorce. Later they asked me directly to tell them what happened. So I gave a quick executive summary of the Nightmare, obligations, lack of choice.

Nora's boyfriend, whose name I forget, suddenly became serious. He was not the serious type, constantly joking, but he was very serious and asked some more questions. After a while he said something interesting that I had not considered, which is the point of telling this part of the story in the first place.

"It sounds like you were playing the martyr.", he said.

That one comment has stuck with me these last couple of days. I've looked back over everything that happened over all these years and I've wondered if I had not stepped up, if I had not tried to do everything I did, how bad would things have gotten? Was all this effort in vain? Did I, through all that I did for everyone else, only make things worse?

I struggle with these questions. I struggled with them while I was going through it all. Could I have walked away? Everyone kept asking me that. "It's only money.", they would say. But it's more than that. It's security. It's about my mom being able to sleep at night.

"Martyr.", I would think. But if I look at it honestly, I just don't know. I don't /think/ so. But maybe it's possible.

If I look at the kinds of problems I get pulled into, they all seem to involve a great deal of self-sacrifice. I seem to be really good at that and am able to do it with ease. I am very rarely the kind of person who puts his foot down to impose my will on someone else.

Hmmm. Martyr. He might be on to something.

It's something that I'll have to think about some more.

I spent the next two days at the hotel. I haven't been feeling well, so I've holed up here. I've had some interesting conversations with one of the women that runs the hotel. She said at one point, about running the Dalton, "Maybe it was so easy for you because you're a better rider. We hear of guys not making it all the time. Many have to turn around. Some crash.".

That's another thing I'll have to think about for a while.

So I've spent the whole day writing. I'm going to go off in search of some food and will try to get some rest. Maybe I'll stop by that dive bar again for a bit.