On the bottom is a live update from two bikers (Jerry and Lou) .... they are planning on heading home sooner than expected so with the additional departure of Dan, we are down to ten bikers. We wish all three of them a safe and enjoyable trip home with great memories of our group ride to Alaska.
This is a rest day for me. I am already dreaming up a lovely bed and breakfast tour for 2010 where we can stay at romantic bed and breakfasts with each day's segment being just 350 miles.
If you want to get your spouse to become enthused with your love of long distance biking and Alaska, you got less two years to get ready! Wha you see to your left is the Laurel Oaks Inn in Gainesville, FL as an example of what I would like to line up for 2010. By the way, if you are ever in Gainesville, FL you will love this place! Tell them Mike Tuccelli suggested you!http://www.laureloakinn.com/
Received rom Jerry Brehany and Lou Friedman today: On Sunday we headed South towards the Denali National Forest. Unfortunately by the time we got there it was to late to take one of the tours, so we decided to take a chance and cross over to Paxson using the Old Denali Highway. It's 112 miles of dirt and gravel with the occasional more difficult section, it was the perfect road for my XR650L, and surprisingly Lou's Gold wing made it through without incident he just slowed down over the rougher parts and averaged about 30 miles an hour.
We had a great dinner at a small place 1/2 way across the road, it's been there over 35 years and this is the last year, the owners are retiring and are not going to open next year. We made to Paxson by about 9pm, got a room and a relatively good night sleep (accommodations were clean but sparse).
We headed toward Tok in the morning from there and were going to split off and I was going to head to Dawson City over "Top of the World Highway" which is about 90 miles of pretty much the same road as Denali Highway but it has lots of twists and turns and elevation changes frequently with rather severe grades, Lou was going to go down Alaska Highway and meet in Whitehorse.
At the last minute Lou decided to take a look at the road since he'd had pretty good luck with the Denali road. Anyhow did the first 77 miles of Highway 5 to Chicken, Alaska which was a real nice road with lots of twists and turns. It was raining a little but nothing to stop our progress. When we got to Chicken Mining Camp we looked at the road and Lou decided to take a chance. We headed toward the border crossing at top of the world with about 2 and 1/2 hours before it closed at 8pm (it's only open 8am to 8pm unlike the Alcan Highway station which is a 24 hour crossing).
Anyhow it turned out to be a much more challenging road for Lou;s Gold Wing, but my bike just loved it. Bottom line, the views were spectacular as you ride over the top of the mountain range on a dirt/gravel road. About 1/2 way to Dawson City it started to rain which made the road a little scary for Lou. Fortunately we hit the border at 7:40 pm and were able to cross.
The good news is we made it to Dawson City with no incidents or injuries and found a hotel room a the Dawson City Downtown Hotel, nice room and it had a JACUZZI!! The jacuzzi was closed for the evening so we planned on getting up early for a well deserved soak.
Today we woke up the sun was up it's 70 - 75 degrees here and beautiful so we decided to spend the day in Dawson City and take a day off from riding. We are just relaxing, sunning ourselves, eating what is supposed to be fresh wild salmon, taking the occasional jacuzzi to get rid of the knots we've developed, and taking this opportunity to wash a few things (pretty much everything needs washed after the roads we were on). Tomorrow we are heading toward Whitehorse. We'll figure out our next move once we're there. (As of 8:30 p.m. Alaska time, they decided to go on home)
Take care, hope your travels are safe and enjoyable as well.
If you want to get your spouse to become enthused with your love of long distance biking and Alaska, you got less two years to get ready! Wha you see to your left is the 
