The wheel on the bike goes up and down...

but it isn't supposed to fall off!

It is now 4 p.m. The mechanic finally got my bike up on the lift (it was supposed to be done by noon), pulled the front wheel off and one of the two front forks fell off!

Now some of you may not know much about motorcycles so let me put it this way - that ain't good!

Thinking all along that the problem was a seal leak, when they pulled the chrome cover off around the top of the forks they found that the pinch bolt that was intended to hold the right fork stationary at the top had broken. This allowed the fork tube to vibrate around and unthread itself, thereby creating a gap that allowed the oil to leak out. Had both done the same thing the front wheel would have fallen off. When you only have two wheels to begin with... I'll repeat, that ain't good!

They promised me they could get a bolt and have it done before quitting time so I thanked them and came back to my room again.

I had already cancelled my reservation that I had made earlier in the day (the one I had foolishly thought I would reach by this evening, the one with a no refund cancellation policy) so, if indeed I get my bike tonight I'll roll southeast in the morning. There would have been no good to come of starting out on a 200 mile leg at 6 p.m. I could have been mad, or at least upset, that I've been waiting all day but I've been on the other side of these situations too many times over the last 40 years to not know and appreciate their efforts.

When I was a young man coming out of the Navy my expertise was in electric motors. When I moved my career forward after another 4 years at a motor shop I became the service manager at a shop that shared a building with another company that sold submersible sewage pumps. Out of necessity we became the unofficial experts in the repair of submersible pumps, not a pleasant job but a critical one for Waste Water Treatment Plants and sewage lift stations. 

People often talk about when that stuff hits the fan, but for us it was usually when it hits the parking lot. Most sewage is collected in underground sumps, then pumped to a city line where it travels to a treatment facility. When the pump fails, the stuff gets deeper, and when you have raw sewage flowing across the parking lot, at an apartment building for example, people tend to get excited (people like the fine folks at the EPA). So, like I said, I was disappointed my bike wasn't ready at noon, but able to keep things in perspective. I suspect I would have been much more disappointed if my wheel had come off at highway speeds! Besides, when I went over to H-D I ran into 4 of my shipmates from the ferry, the Pennsylvania contingent if I recall. They too had mechanical issues but were just then getting back on the road, headed to Tok, where I'll be headed in the morning.

When I had departed on this adventure I had wondered out loud if I was setting myself up for disappointment. Things had gone remarkably well on my P48 trip and to think that this trip would run as smoothly would have been farcical. With the challenges I faced, shipboard berthing, weather, temperature, and now mechanical troubles, I am happy to be safe and able to continue in good time. I guess an advantage of not planning ahead is that you're always on schedule!

Two of my motel mates pulled out of here about an hour ago. Mark and Ted had ridden up from Mississippi in ten days. Mark had mechanical trouble in South Dakota, then further trouble here. They had been working on his bike all day and finally ended up replacing the same part that was replaced in S. Dakota!

Mark explained that he had just met Ted before they decided to ride to Alaska together, and they are finding out that they ride for different reasons. Ted rides to get there, to say he's been there, done that.

Mark has logged well over 100,000 miles on his bikes and says he rides because he loves the journey.

When they left here at 3 p.m. Ted was wanting to ride to Anchorage before they stopped (360 miles). I told Mark about Talkeetna and suggested they might want to stay there.

I forgot to mention the other day, when I picked up the rental car, I was telling the lady at the counter about my Arctic Circle trip and mentioned that I had helped drag a dead moose off the Dalton Highway. "I almost feel like a native Alaskan after that experience" I told her.

With a sly smile she quickly replied "You're not a native until you hit the moose."

Saw these two pictures at the H-D dealer and thought they'd look good hanging next to the "My Grandpa rides a HARLEY" T-shirts that my Grandkids got for Christmas.

Then there was a bunch of these things in the parking lot at the Fred Meyer store down the block:

My first thought was that they had taken out parking meters and just left the bases. Then it dawned on me that all of the cars with local Alaskan plates had one of these:

Fairbanks is in the Alaskan Interior which extends from the Alaska Mountain range in the south to the Brooks range in the north, from the White Mountains in the east to the Bering Sea on the west coast (where you can step out your front door and see Russia, if you live waaaaay up in the air). It is considered sub-Arctic desert, an oxymoron if ever there was one. The temperature extremes have been 100 degrees in summer and -80 degrees in winter, although typical is only -60 to 80 degrees. School is only cancelled if it drops below -50 F and you seldom will see kids involved in a snowball fight (because of the consistently cold temperatures the snow is dry and will not pack into a snowball). The Chena River runs through town and is a major form of transportation by boat in the summer and by car in the winter! All five types of Salmon swim up from the Bering Sea via the Yukon, then Tanana river, then the Chena River. The native tribes are the Athabasca people.

When the big oil companies decided to build the TAP (Trans Alaskan Pipeline) they made a number of financial concessions among which was an agreement to pay for crossing land that was of traditional use by the native people. One family staked a claim to a piece of property that was a hundred miles from where they lived, saying their family had travelled there each year to pick blue-berries. They were paid handsomely for the property although no one could confirm anyone had ever picked berries there. It is a point of interest along the Dalton Highway.

The oil money is a sore subject apparently with many Alaska residents. There are very strict requirements in the application process, then after all was said and done, in 2016 the Alaska governor decided that the state deficit was the debt of the people, "buy" the people and for the people and the amount of money paid out to them was reduced when the governor vetoed funding allocations by 50%, dropping the debt from $4B to $3.99B. (Figures are approximate, your mileage may vary depending on your driving habits and political clout. Financial ruin may be closer than it appears in your rear view mirror). Every qualified man, woman, child and Droid received a check for $1022, about half of the record amount paid out in 2015.

I returned to the H-D dealer about 5:30 and within 45 minutes was able to actually take my bike with me. It's sitting outside, no engine heater needed as the temperature has been in the mid-eighties and, with the exception of a few light sprits of rain during the bus tour, dry. So I'm headed out in the morning (like Rocky used to tell Bullwinkle "This time for SURE") to see how long it will remain warm and dry when I'm riding. I have about a thousand miles of AlCan before me. The scenery may not be real exciting, but I bet it won't be dull!