Around the world on a GS850G for a cause

[shirazdrum]

 

[kerrfunk]

Thanks for sharing your journey with us. This'll be a long thread, huh?

Your idea reminded me of Herman & Candelaria Zapp, a couple from Argentina who drove from the southern tip of South America to somewhere in Alaska (not taking a direct route, either) in their 1928 Graham-Paige.

I believe their story can be found here at http://www.argentinaalaska.com/

 

[ALB80-850]

Fantastic!

How long do you expect to be gone?

Andy

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[shirazdrum]

Aug, 23rd. The Festival City

The city of Edmonton is built on the North Saskatchewan River with a population of over a million. Although I’m not a big fan of large metropolitan areas, I have to admit that Edmonton is a great place to spend some time in. With its wall to wall night clubs, restaurants and never ending shows and festivals, it truly is a hub for tourists and city lovers.
I rolled into town around 5pm on Thursday and met Sabina, my Couch Surfing host shortly after. Sabina Butorac is a 26 year old Croatian-Canadian whom I met on Couchsurfing.com, the website for couch surfing travelers. The couch surfing concept was introduced to me not long ago and I figured I give it a try. My sweat wasn’t dry yet that we were off to a party. Her circle of friends are from different walks of life and the world as I met people from Germany, Switzerland, Australia, Iran, India, Croatia, Russia, Spain, Canada and the United States all in one night and one place. It was just as she likes to put it, the United Nation Council.
The next morning was rainy so I decided to spend a portion of it at home working on the computer. When the rain finally let up, I geared up for the sponsor hunt. Since it was Friday, I had a hard time catching the owners or general managers in stores but managed to add two more sponsors to my list. The remote switch for my inverter was acting up so I stopped at the Home Depot and bought a heavy duty switch and installed it in the parking lot. It’s amazing how many people ask me where I’m heading, everywhere I stop. It must be the gunship look of the bike!
That night Sabina made a lovely dinner and we went to the “Edmonton Fringe Festival”. There were a lot of musicians and amusing plays from everywhere all in one place lubricated by Canadian beers. One of the shows that I really liked was performed by two American girls, 5 feet off the ground named Aerial Angels. These girls held the crowd together with their funny and masterful show for a good 45 minutes. (There’s a clip of the show under Video Journal page)
I was anxious to leave Edmonton but the weather didn’t co-operate so I stayed yet another night. Partying as usual with the international crowd caped off the night.
Throughout my stay, Sabina and her Russian friend, Tatiana showed me much of the city and together we enjoyed some great food and treats. Our last excursion was to the University of Alberta Devonian Botanic gardens. This magnificent garden is 190 acre and is filled with exotic plants from much of the world. Rows and rows of vegetable, herbs, flowers, cactuses and trees including an indoor tropical garden and butterfly house that made you feel like walking in Amazon rainforest. It’s defiantly worth seeing if you’re out and about.
I’ve been studying the weather and my maps and will start early tomorrow morning, heading for top of the world. Weather forecast is still not in favor but I’m pushing through based on my acceptable risk factor. If the conditions stay the same, the Dempster highway will be impassable after all these rains and I’m forced to go with the plan B. The plan B is riding to Alaska and getting to the Arctic Circle via Dalton highway. The Dalton highway is just as bad as the Dempster but it is shorter and more accessible.
Winter is closing in quickly at these latitudes and you can already feel the chill of the upcoming months. I have no time to waste if I want to get out of the north without getting snowed in. my cold weather gear is already out of my panniers. Next stop, Santa’s front yard…

 

[shirazdrum]

 

[almarconi]

Someone looks like they are having a good time :-\\\

 

[shirazdrum]

Aug, 24. Camp Wal-Mart

No surprise here, I woke up late again. 4 days of warm bed and good company has spoiled me pretty bad. The light was on in the room so I figured that Sabina tried to wake me up but to no avail. I started packing my stuff right away and got on the road.
Highway 16 goes out of Edmonton for about 70km before adapting with highway 43 which leads to the famous Alaska Highway. It took about 2 hours to get to highway 43 because of all the constructions but finally made it. Alaska Highway is a giant and well maintained road (well mostly) which starts in Dawson Creek, BC and runs across the Canada to Alaska. It is eye bothering green everywhere you look and at times I thought I was in Ireland. Towns are getting father apart and gas prices are soaring by the mile.
Because of my late start, my goal was to get to Grande Prairie, about 400km north. I stopped for lunch at a gravel turnout next to an impenetrable forest of aspen. I had my usual tuna in olive oil and a wheat English muffin. English muffin tastes just like bread but lasts much longer. The tuna in olive oil is my staple diet and can be prepared a million different ways. (Which all taste the same by the way) it also is a good source of protein and fat. I didn?t take my eyes off of the forest edge which was 15 feet away for fear of a grizzly charging at my tuna can. I need to get some bear spray.
After riding on a construction zone before Grande Prairie on a 20km grooved road, I made into town. These grooved surfaces are not dangerous per se but novice riders seem to have a heart attack when they encounter one because the grooves on the road take the bike in their path and it feels like that the bike has a mind of its own. 80 km/h on groovies was a treat after a long stretch of a flat highway.
I stopped at Wal-Mart and got a tire repair kit (which I had but forgot to bring with me), bottle of sunscreen and stocked up on stew and fish for the next few days. I was ready to head out of town and look for a camping spot but then I decided to pitch the tent right here at Wal-Mart and call it good. Italian wedding soup and two English muffin for dinner, cup of hot chocolate and a cookie for dessert. Camp Wal-Mart is quite and cozy. Let?s see if I can wake up early tomorrow.

 

[shirazdrum]

Aug, 25th to 28th. Alaska Highway

I’ve combined three days of writing into one. I will be out of contact for next 6 days so stay tuned and pray for good weather or I might not come back at all. Dempster is not a road to take lightly.
The 25th started rather cold and cloudy. I woke up around 8 am and left Wal-Mart, dressed up in my winter gear. I had no luck locating a bear spray in Grande Prairie so I made it my mission to find one before I get eaten alive.
Storms up here tend to come from the north unlike the United States that’s normally from east or west. When something is coming down, I’m riding right into it and there is no way around it. It felt so cold that I thought it was going to snow at any moment but it never happened. When I got to Dawson Creek, I finally found a bear spray and officially started my journey on the Alaska Highway.
The Alaska Highway is the most magnificent highway I’ve ever seen. With its twist and turns, sky high spruces, thick alders, high mountain lakes and the mesmerizing sceneries, it is something out of a dream. The country up here is so wide and so wild that one can’t help admiring this beautiful land of plenty. Deer, caribou, buffalo and bears all roaming wild. Babbling brooks and raging rivers at every bend, puts this highway in the league of its own. It’s awfully gorgeous.
At one of my pit stops, I met an older gentleman on a brand new Kawasaki Vulcan who was also headed north. Jean-Luc Darcy is in his sixties and is a Vietnam veteran who’s going to Whitehorse for the Canadian legion ceremony. Born in Belgium and schooled in Canada he has traveled the10K miles round trip from his home in Colorado to Alaska 3 times on a motorcycle and is under way to rack his 4th one.
After sharing a smoke, we got back on the road and since we were heading the same route, we stopped at the same turnouts and became friends in no time. We stopped at a remote (everything is remote here) restaurant near Pink Mountain called Mel & Mags. I had the most amazing meat casserole I ever had in my life along with a giant plate of five different salads from the salad-bar. The place was clean and staff so friendly that we ended up staying there for almost 2 hours. This place is highly recommended and if you don’t know me well, I am the most anal person in the world when it comes to food.
I was planning on camping out but Jean-Luc offered to get a room for both us which I didn’t argue with too much. We stopped at Fort Nelson for the night. At the Bluebell Inn, the internet was non-existent so no update could be done that night but after a couple of beers, I found out Jean-Luc is not going to Alaska after all. He’s heading with me to the Arctic Circle (I might have had something to do with it but I blame it on beers). We studied the maps and made assault plans for the duet late into the night. Two is always better that one I suppose.
The next morning I re-arranged my stuff on the bike; I moved the gas cans to the side and put the tent and sleeping bag inside my backpack. Now the pack sits about 10 inches lower and what a huge difference that made. No more getting blown over with every gust. Now I can actually ride as fast as I want without holding on to the O-****-Bar for dear life.
Fort Nelson to Watson Lake was only a 6 hour ride but we were wrong again. The road turned into a demon and I had one of the most nerve wrecking rides of my life. The highway construction Ninjas had dumped loose gravel for 300 kilometers and left for China I suppose. If caribous popping out of every corner, crazy truck drivers going 90mh and bombarding us with rocks and the bike fish-tailing and sliding on the ice-like surface of the road weren’t enough, we had to watch out for buffalos crossing the road like it was a parade of some sort. We stopped every 30 minutes to rest and bitch at the road and after 9 hours of tackling this death-trap we decided we had enough. We stopped at a provincial park and camped out. Soup and English muffin was my complement and camping fee was Jean’s. We cleaned the bikes and setup our tents and before we knew it, the sun was coming up.
We left the Liard campground at 9am and we hoped to get to Whitehorse by nightfall. Whitehorse was 422 miles away and the construction had ended right after the park so we rode out in style. At one point I thought I saw a monkey then I figured I was hallucinating from starving to death so I picked up some speed and found a restaurant. We had eggs, bacon, potatoes and toast for breakfast and I checked my emails while we were there. The whitefish pilot published an article about me that I thought was interesting. Matt Baldwin, thank you if you are reading this.
We walked out of the caf? to black skies and cold wind from the north. The weather up here is like a woman; one minute it’s all nice and lovely and a minute later it starts throwing tantrum. It started raining shortly after and it got colder by the minute and time stood still while we got soaked to the bone. Out of my fogged up goggle I saw a loaded bicycle crashed on a road whit what looked like a human body face down next to it. I hit the break hard and turned around for the scene of the crash and started running while taking my helmet and trying to take my goggles off at the same time. When I got there the body was moving and found a guy lifting his head up and trying to tell me something but I couldn’t hear anything. I took out my ear plugs and asked the guy what happened again. He was just drunk and there was no accident. He said he was trying to get out of the rain and take a nap. I was furious. This ******* almost got me killed by breaking that hard on a wet road and there was nothing wrong with him. I told him to get his **** off the highway and move to the shoulder before he really gets run over and walked back to my bike. Now my head the only part of my body that wasn’t wet was soaking too. I told Jean-Luc that we should ride all the way to Whitehorse no matter what and we can dry off in Wal-Mart or something but his hip was hurting him pretty bad and he wasn’t about to ride another 2 hours in the rain. He wanted to get a hotel room and stay in the next town so I told him I’m on a budget and can’t afford that kind of luxury. He offered his room and I didn’t argue either. We stopped at Teslin Lake in the Yukon Territory and got a lake-front cabin for the night. It’s a beautiful lake and a very nice cabin that I’m sure costs quite a bit. We started spreading everything all over the room to dry and I made more soup and cooked some rice for dinner.
We are heading to Whitehorse tomorrow morning and we’ll leave Whitehorse for Dawson City the next day. Dawson city is the last stop in semi-civilized world up here before we start on the Dempster highway for the Arctic Ocean. The Dempster is a notorious dirt road that is 750 kilometer long that goes all the way to Inuvik. If the rain stops and conditions are half decent, we should be dipping our toes in the ice water of the ocean above. Till then…

 

[shirazdrum]

 

[shirazdrum]

 

[Larry D]

This has got to be the best "road trip" story ever !!!!!

Great read and what an adventure !!!!

 

[Richsuz]

While in Guatemala, should you need parts or service, I know of a place that stocks, some GS parts and another that works all types of old big bikes. I will be following your juornal with much interest. I assume we won't have you in this part of the world before Spring?

 

[russr33]

Simply amazing! From all of us who have ever wanted to do something like this, I say, good luck brother and be safe!

 

[SqDancerLynn1]

It's also amazing to be doing it on a 30 year old motorcycle. A testament to the GS durability

 

[shirazdrum]

Thanks for the kind words. It really help keep me going. I'm in whitehorse, Yukon right now and heading for Dawson city tomorrow morning. it looks like that weather is going to be good on sunday and monday so i will start north for the arctic early saturday. The old gal is running perfect and i'm getting the hang of it. i will be heading south from British Columbia heading for Washington. if you have a garage and a backyard to camp at let me know. i need to change my oil and do some work on the bike after the dempster. My route goes through Washington, Oregon, California and Arizona before crossing into mexico. sign up for a garage day or beer fest.

 

[tkent02]

if you have a garage and a backyard to camp at let me know. i need to change my oil and do some work on the bike after the dempster.

If you navigate poorly and end up coming through Colorado I can hook you up.

 

[madmax4499]

tacoma wa

tacoma wa

if you need a garage or nights stay let me know.

 

[shirazdrum]

Updated Aug, 30th. Here's the link :http://www.motorcyclememoir.com

You can also subscribe to recive the updates automaticly. On the same page under the sponsor logos you'll find that box.( No junk mail, that's a promiss)

 

[bradleymaynar]

What a trip you have started. Can't wait to get your next update.

Good luck and stay safe!

Brad bk

 

[shirazdrum]

Updated: Sep 4th. Here?s the link: http://www.motorcyclememoir.com/
The internet here is so slow that it took 5 hours to update my website. There?s no way to add pictures here so read on my website. Chris