Well, with some regret I re-entered the United States. The border agent was very friendly. That helped. But there was the faint sense of an ending.

I disciplined my emotions around this emergence of regret. While I loved my oldest brother, he had a couple of related shortcomings on trips.

In an effort to get the absolute most from a vacation, he was insistently pressing to ‘get going.’ Towards the ski slope in the morning to beat the gondola crowds, or to start a hike. This forced forward motion diminished the experience for me. My memories of those days led me to my rule to stay at every place for at least two nights.

Subtly related to this first shortcoming was his need to foreshadow the end of a vacation several days ahead of its termination date.

“Well,” he would observe, “only three days left.”

Sad emotions in me often keep glowing, like embers of a fire that for others extinguishes quickly. Maybe my brother rushed through such emotions as he rushed through the wait time for the gondola. Igniting the flame of sadness over the vacation’s end entailed just short term cost for him. The cost lingered for me.

And this observation about my brother is what I told my emotions at the Alaska border crossing.

“Remember Peter?”, I scold them, “don’t ruin days of riding by anticipating the trip’s end. You are wasting pleasure, ruining it for me. So crawl back into the subconscious where all you guys hide.”

To a point, they listen. Every once in a while, though, during this stay in Tok, they stick their tongue out at me from down there.

Roads

My efforts to stomp on the spark of sadness were supported by the dream quality of the road, commencing instantly after the crossing. What a road.

I was prepared for an improvement, because that very morning, in Beaver Creek, I asked the shop keepers in the store underneath my funky digs about road problems. They stumbled, saying it had to do with permafrost.

Upon that word a guy in his seventies, who had been fuzzing with the ATM machined stepped up to us.

“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help overhearing. I worked on these roads for thirty years. It’s an interesting story.”

How much better does travel get for you? We talked for quite a while. The road indeed sits atop more than 800 feet of permafrost. In Winter it’s -40 degrees (Celsius/Fahrenheit are nearly the same at that point). So the frost persists. However, heat does seep in under the road layer. From moisture, or from the sides. The top layer of ice locally melts, withdrawing support from the road surface.

Spots of road collapse into gaping holes over night. New construction attempts to mitigate the effect by extending the embankment out the side.

“I was working as a flag man one day, and a guy, 94 years old was at the front. He worked on the original construction in 1942. He was mentally perfectly acute, and had great memory. I held up the line for an extra 15 minutes to talk to him.“

During the original construction—remember,eight months for 1,680 miles through dense forest—they had no time to retrieve broken equipment or materials. They just built on top. Lots of broken equipment, and trash is still down there.

My road work friend continues:

“What they are doing on the other side [of the border, in Alaska] is beautiful. They have heavy equipment. A lot more money. Here, it’s a guy with tar, and a shovel.”

Riding Towards Tok

The Teslin Preserve is a wide valley that serves as corridor every Spring and Fall for some hundreds of thousands of migratory birds, including trumpeter swans, The valley is one of few such routes through the mountains.

The house on stilts was common for Indians, and trappers. They stocked it with emergency supplies, away from rodents. The etiquette was that you could use the stash in an emergency, as long as you replenished it.

The visitor center was staffed by two older Indian women. I asked one of them about language. She speaks Athabaskan, and can communicate with villagers in the area. Different dialects, but understandable. I asked whether her language was tonal, illustrating the meaning of the term with my hand:

“Nah! If you’re excited, your voice goes up. Makes no difference.”

Which begs the question: what do Chinese do when they talk while excited? Incidentally, languages in the Yukon are in fact tonal.

I asked the woman about tribes across the border in Canada. I feel that I detected a sense of dismissal when she waved her hand in the Canadian direction:

“That’s First Nations. They are totally different.”

Landscape summary:

Even Alaska has Road Construction

Of course, getting a road that smooth means construction. Nine miles behind a pilot truck, who intermittently got distracted, and picked up speed across the gravel. Me right behind him. In between, encouraging signs just for motorcyclists (right hand photo).

But I am quite skilled at this point with gravel. Just two rules:

• Do all your braking before you reach the gravel. If you can’t, minimize your speed’s rate of change.
• Speak calming words to your bike if you want to change direction. The bike does not like change on gravel. Let your bike know that you trust its ability to make that small adjustment. Pat it on its tank if it does adjust heading without crashing.

I’m a traveling 960lb

Along the way I stopped at a truck weigh station. The officer told me to go on ahead with my bike. The scale is accurate to 20 lbs.

I rode us across the sensors, and it gave me our combined weight: 960 lb. Tank about half full.

Tok, Alaska

This town truly does not offer much… But accommodations are good, and the cabin owners keep two caribou:

Moving Target

I know, I know! I’ve barraged you about enigmatic shower plumbing water and temperature control hardware. You notice that I kept my promise not to introduce any more of these flummoxing operational challenges. That’s because I have mastered all the designs!

My first shower in a new place, I climb into the tub, and fix the hardware with my gaze. And I hiss:

“I know you!”

I’ve got that water dancing in no time.

Imagine my deflation when I encountered this entirely different water comfort related challenge:

The sink doesn’t drain. The seal is in fact effective enough to hold the soapy hand washing water for hours. No lever to lift the stopper. I reach in, and can easily lift the black circle manually. The water drains.

But then I have to rinse my hand from reaching in. Now that water sits there in the basin.

I know! You lift the stopper, and rotate to lock it into a pulled-up position. I pull, the water drains, I rotate, let go. The stopper resumes its stopping position. That’s not it.

The answer must lie underneath (image on the right). Maybe I can prop something in an upward position.

Nope. Nothing. I am too lazy to walk to the office and ask how to operate their sink. OK, I’m also too proud to do that.

So, when I spit toothpasty water, I do it while holding the stopper in the upright position.

I’m thinking:

“Is this gross?”

My emotions say:

“Yes Andreas! This is gross.”

My rational mind argues that it’s all part of my body already. So how can it be gross? I do what I practiced all my life. I repress the emotions, and memories of their risings.

But there is another aspect: the challenge. This sink and its hardware look new. Nothing seems broken. It’s clearly laughing at me.

As I make the bed after my first night it hits me! Anything one pulls up can also be pushed down. I race to that bathroom sink, and push that stopper down towards being even more water tight. I let go, and the damn thing pops into the open position. It’s spring loaded.

Ironic that I was thinking of a more recent motorcycle model. How would I even have gotten it started, given my track record with plumbing?

Off to Glenallen.