F & B Conquer the ALCAN – March 7

Dear fellow followers of The Adventure,

Does the term “sea legs” mean anything to you?  That’s what our hardy adventurers are feeling tonight after a grueling ten hour day riding the bucking frost heaves of the Alaska Highway!  Leaving Tok mid-morning they made exceptional time all day, persevering over snowy and sometimes icy roads–but! under clear skies with no wind and warm (read above zero, mostly) temperatures.  The frost heaves were like ocean swells, occasional threatening to launch “Johnny Rocket” (as the Rocket Box has become know) into low orbit!  That’s tiring work but they replenished their energy at Destruction Bay on Kluane Lake; taking a bit of a walk to work off the feeling of being on a ship at sea and feasting on “some kind of meat” at the lodge there.  Fortunately their mighty steed, Goldie by name, felt just fine and shrugged off the challenges.

Now just down the road they came across the siren call of Haines Junction, that doesn’t sound appealing to most but they almost succumbed to the urge to stop at the Hotel Yukon and stay awhile (“You can check out anytime you want; but you can never leave”).  Escaping on down the road hallucinations must have set in for they reported by urgent text that wild horses were seen by the road, all shaggy and without bras (or was that harnesses?), moose and caribou were in evidence too.  It isn’t known how much of this was a tall tale or real.  Nevertheless, they pressed on to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory.  Now doesn’t the very name inspire visions of Robert Service and “The Spell of the Yukon”?  In that charming little town they took up residence in the local Inn where the Arctic Winter Games are hosted right now and Oy! but there was no parking!  F called upon the deep well of Parking Karma that she posses and fast-talked the desk agent into parking Right In Front of the Door in the “Motorcycles Only” space–there not being many of those around this time of year.  They proceeded to nearly clean out the kitchen (burp) and retired to their room where they lasted all of an hour before they decided that partying with the Arctic gamers was less exciting than a good night’s sleep.

We leave our precious adventurers here.  Tomorrow may be a go-for-it to Watson Lake or a “Muffin Day” (named after a practice of giving the boat cat a day at anchor) if the weather worsens as much as forecast.

Catch the continuing saga of F and B Conquer the ALCAN beginning at 10 Pacific time tomorrow.

Your faithful scribe,

RomeoPapaDelta