A Journey of a Thousand Miles - The Food

One of the fun things about traveling on a motorcycle as opposed to a camper, trailer or motor home is that you are forced to eat meals "out" somewhere.  It doesn't always mean that you go to a restaurant which often happens but many serendipitous things happen regarding food.  The restaurants you go to are also varied, especially in Alaska where we have many communities without a single "chain" restaurant present.  Exploring some of those homey places that miss the message about marketing to the masses is kind of fun - for two reasons.  Sometimes you discover a great place, good food, friendly owners and sometimes it's a disaster which makes for good story telling later.  We end up eating at a lot of places we might avoid when we are at home but when they are the only game in town, you man up and sit at the table.

On the road on a bike just makes eating a lot of fun.  I am six feet, six inches tall.  When I ride, I usually wear the typical riding chaps and leather riding jacket.  I look pretty intimidating I am sure to a lot of people when I stride up to their front door.  But what it does is prompt a lot of conversations.  Since you can't help but notice me, lots of people want to know where you are from and where you are going.  They want to tell you about their bike and where they have been.  Usually it makes the wait for your food pretty short filling up the time with conversation with strangers.

The other thing is meeting up with friends in distant communities.  Whenever Christian people want to visit, food is usually involved.  Since we generally don't go out drinking and dancing, food is the next best thing to do.  On this particular trip, we had contacted a couple of friends at the far end of our trip to see if we could....go get a bite to eat or something.  Well, the word was out and other people we know heard and wanted to see us and others heard as well and before you know it, we had a genuine potluck going.  Someone offered to host as a place to meet and bingo, soon you have chicken on the grill and Mexican dip and the latest fresh fruit to arrive at the grocery store.  Awesome.  

There are the necessary meals that offer good meeting times, breakfast is especially good for this.  Since you may want to avoid the morning chill, it is a good excuse to linger over an omelet and visit with friends.  Our first morning out on the road found us in Wasilla for breakfast.  Our friends had some of their best friends who live in that community.  We agreed on a place to eat which was a ways out of town but had lots of seating for a group like us.  It ended up being a great place because they offered an all-you-can-eat brunch which in my understanding means you get to eat bacon like it is going out of style.  Wow, all of that salty, fatty goodness goes great with conversation with friends.  

The biker rally is also a good example of getting lots of good food on the road.  The motorcycle-food connection isn't really talked about much, but there is a definite connection.  It is easy to call up a friend who lives 100 miles away and say, "hey, how about we meet in the middle at that restaurant?"  An hour later both bike riders arrive at the same place and there is soon food in front of you.  

Since you are eating at different place than you do when you are home, you get to do some adventure eating, ordering things you have never ordered before.  I don't know about you, but when I find something I particularly like at a local restaurant, it is very difficult to not order it.  You want to avoid disappointment when it comes to paying for food.  So, when you are poring over the menu at a greasy spoon in that distant town, you can throw caution to the wind and get something you hope will be satisfying.  Just a note here:  If you ever are driving through Tok, Alaska, eat at Fast Eddy's.  Great food.  Order the "deep fried mushrooms" for an appetizer.  A platter big enough to feed a dozen people will arrive heaped with golden morsels of goodness.

Food really is part of the adventure.  I admit, I love food, it is my vice.  But we all got to eat and at least when you are riding your bike putting many miles underneath you, you can't be standing at the refrigerator door reaching in for a "snack".  So when you are riding you are visualizing your next meal and how good it is going to taste and who you will be visiting with.  I think I will take a ride tonight.

A Journey of a Thousand Miles - The Biker Rally

The whole excuse for taking this ride was to attend a biker rally.  I didn't know what to think when I was invited to tag along on this ride a year ago and attend my first biker rally.  I was as much attracted to the idea as I was intimidated.  Isn't there a little "wildness" in us all?  At least enough to find out what you don't know.  What on earth does a biker rally consist of?  What do they do?  Will  it end up with me getting arrested?  "Honestly officer, I was only an innocent bystander!"  

Rumors of hard drinking, fist fights and bad behavior are all I have ever heard about bikers when they get together.  At church we have "fellowships".  With friends we have "get-togethers".  Bikers have "rallies".  Essentially it's all the same, people gather together around a common interest and talk about their common interest, the biker rally including a little more alcohol and tobacco (mostly) smoke than I am used to in my "fellowships".  

If you read my blog from a year ago about this same trip, same rally, same excuse to ride, you know that this rally is an annual event between the Christian biker club, the "Black Sheep" and the "HOGs" or the "Harley Owners Group."  The idea is that the Black Sheep want to forge strong ties between the two groups with the goal of evangelizing a HOG now and then.  So it's an invitational from the Black Sheep to the HOGs and the Black Sheep put on a spread to entice everyone to come.  Last year they slow cooked a real hog with lots of side dishes to boot.  They charged us $20 each and since it was for a good cause, I didn't mind.  This year it was a full Thanksgiving style dinner with turkey and ham, cranberry salads, and beans and it was $30 bucks each.  That was a little steep for me, good cause or not.  But we paid it, by far the most expensive meal of the trip.

I digress.  The "rally" is really interesting.  Many of these people obviously know each other from years and events past.  There is loud, boisterous talking, lots of laughing while everyone is waiting for the call to dinner.  Once the dinner is ready, there is short blessing over the meal and a long line forms while people wait for their turn at some food.  My wife and I were served up and we headed for a table with some open seating.  We met some great people, most of them sporting facial hair, one biker lady in a pink tutu and all sporting leather somewhere on their person.  We chat about our bikes, the weather, and riding in general.  Little bits and pieces of personal life are woven into the conversation.  I am amazed that no one asks me what I do for a living.  That is usually a conversation killer once they find out I pastor a local church.  I don't ask what they do for a living either and it never comes up.  There doesn't seem to be any real point to the rally, except renewing friendships and getting out on the bikes.

At the rally are some personalities that I particularly remember from the year before.  The most notable, Peppermint Patty.  She is legendary among the HOG riders.  

She is fierce, spunky and most of all, dedicated to riding her Harley Davidson.  The most often asked question directed to Patty is, "how many miles have you racked up by now?"  The reason they ask is because Patty has almost 550,000 documented miles.  Those are verified miles.  She lives to ride, rides to live.  At the drop of a hat, she will head out with someone, anyone, and ride until they are done.  Sometimes that means riding from Alaska to somewhere in the lower 48 and back.  "I do what I want to do", she told me.  Then there is a very tall woman whose name I can't recall but has a resemblance to Gomer Pyle when she smiles.  She is Patty's most often riding companion.  She is tall and slender, kind of the other end of the spectrum from Patty.  She is quieter than Patty and likes her Jack Daniels.  Si shows up in his Harley "TriGlide" or trike.  He is a gentle man with a long white beard kind of looks like ZZ Top and wears a well-worn leather vest with many patches.  He is cheered at his arrival.  

Speaking of vests, the leather vest is something every biker seems to own.  On their vest is their "patch" signifying their biker club and many other pins and patches denoting something important about their club.  Many have documented mileage patches showing how many miles they have ridden their bikes.  Then there are the "chains."  My theory about the vest chains is this.  Whenever a person gets inducted into their biker club, they are  presented with a vest that is "patched".  The vest probably fit them at the point it was given to them.  Most motorcycle vests have "expansion lacing" on each side under the arm which can be let out over time to accommodate their owners, ah, growth over the years.  When you let out as much lacing as you have, you get some "chains".  Chains are about 4" long and have a snap on each end.  As you continue to grow, you snap in a chain on each side of your vest where the buttons are and the chains hang in between connecting the two sides, holding the two sides together but allowing you to continue to wear the vest.  This way, you never have to discard your vest after all of your patches and pins have been attached to it.  Kind of genius and stylish in a biker sort of way.

In between my own conversations, I catch snippets of other conversations.  One person is explaining to another that the Black Sheep and the HOGs are almost the same except that the Black Sheep are the "religious arm of the HOGs."  Religious?  Interesting.  Another tells of a unexpected skid down the highway in which her Harley was totaled.  Others talk of trips taken and those that will be taken.  I listen to some of it amused and some of it causing me to ponder.  

As the food is consumed conversations continue as there really isn't much else to do at the campground.  Some cigars come out and I discover it doesn't take many cigars to make a LOT of smoke that seems to drift everywhere, even against the light breeze.  Suddenly a couple men in a side by side 4 wheeler pull up and shout louder than the conversations that they LOVE AND APPRECIATE THE HOGs AND BLACK SHEEP.  They are the owners of the Grizzly Bear campground and they have been hosting the "Meet in the Middle" biker rally for 12 years running.  They show their appreciation by gifting the group a case of Alaskan Beer and a box of wine of some kind.  Cheers!  Hugs!  The passenger in the side by side gets out, an older man who is wearing enormous bear paw slippers.  

He is obviously Mr. Grizzly Bear of the campground.  Lots of the bikers seem to know him.  On their way over to pick up a beer, they stop and shake hands and the women hug him.  

After being incredibly warm all afternoon, the sun finally dips behind the ridge behind the camp and things start to cool.  The laughing gets louder as the alcohol turns up the volume.  A song begins to be sung out loud to guffaws and approval.   Some drift off to their cabins.  The cigar smoke remains heavy.  Others like us decide it would be good to take a walk after spending so much of the day sitting.  We wander down all the little lanes of the camp which is quite large even if you don't realize it all at first.  From tent campers, to cabin rentals to motorhomes large and small, they have a place for you.   There are numerous Harley Davidsons parked everywhere.  I am finally beginning to recognize what seems like an infinite number of models the company makes.  We study many of them looking for cool mods and accessories dreaming of the bike we will ride someday when we grow up.

The hour of the day approaches 10:00 pm and I am ready to lay down on my hard as the earth bed in our hotel room.  I'll take a hot shower first and perhaps that set me up for a good snooze for the night.  As I get ready to turn in, the room is too warm so I open the sliding glass door to the balcony.  The swift rushing Nenana River is right below us and the sound of it is soothing.  Along about 2 am in the morning someone fires up their very LOUD piped bike and revs it up for our benefit.  Must be the alcohol talking I think to myself.

As it turns out, the bed was the hardest thing I have slept on in many years.  I tossed and turned all night.  It might have worked out if one side of me was perfectly flat like the mattress.  I've got too many curves and lumps and bumps to be sleeping on an apparent sheet of plywood.  I get up somewhat relieved to be off the bed and shower again.  I want to go down to the "church service" that is going to begin at 8:30 am.  I get there just a minute or two early for church but by the same margin too late for the coffee.  It's gone.  I was hoping to recoup some of my $60 I paid for dinner by getting some coffee since I am eating "low carb" and all they offer are Costco muffins. There is also a few of the beers and the box of wine left.  I pass.  I take a seat near where the speaker is going to speak.  

It's the first church service I have attended where stogie smoke waifs through the air.  

I wonder how long do those cigars last?  The speaker is actually very good.  Well spoken, good illustrations and he keeps it moving.  I think a couple of HOGs are actually in attendance which is the goal of the whole event.  20 minutes max and it's done.  No singing this year which with this crowd is maybe an improvement.  We say our good byes and begin to load the car with the heavy stuff then we don our gear as it looks as if it could rain on our way to Fairbanks.

It's kind of ironic that the rally takes place so early in the trip.  In a way it is the reason we are even here or at least that is how this trip got started.  Now it is over and I find myself looking forward to what is ahead, especially if we can avoid what looks like threatening rain.  

A Journey of a Thousand Miles - The Open Road

"Because it is there".  Probably the most often repeated phrase people use to explain why they do what they do when they can't articulate the reason they do what they do.  I know a lot of reasons why I like to ride my motorcycle yet there are still some elusive reasons I haven't fully pinned down yet.  Somehow to me there is the lure of the open road and more than other types of vehicles, the Harley Davidson helps me access that.

Especially after a long hiatus from riding there is a kind of excitement and joy that goes long with rumbling down the road on a big machine, wind in the hair (so to speak) and the adventures to be had doing it.  The joke is that motorcycle riders need ride with their mouths closed to avoid getting bugs stuck between their teeth.  The reason riders get bugs in their teeth is because they are smiling, sometimes laughing as they power on.  It is stress relief therapy for people who ride.  If we didn't wear full-face helmets you might see more of this.  

I have lived on the Kenai Peninsula for 27 years.  There is essentially three roads, the Seward, Sterling and Spurr highways.  I have traveled over these same roads with their spectacular views so many times I couldn't even estimate the number of trips taken on these roads.  Not to sound jaded to the sights that people come the world over to see, I have seen those mountains and that water more than a few times, from a car.  Get on a bike and it's like starting all over again.  It's a new road, new sights and new adventures nestled in the trappings of old ones.  The motorcycle kind of puts you in touch with all of that in a new way.

So it is with this journey of a thousand miles.  I have been on these roads lots of times.  Some I haven't been on for a long time, like 30 years or so.  But I have never been down some of them on a motorcycle.  It is like seeing those sights for the first time and getting all of the "wows!" and wonder all over again.  It's thrilling.

As we near departure time, we double check our bikes to expend nervous energy and then put on our riding gear.  It's late morning yet there is still a little bit of cool to the air.  The car is loaded and we start our bikes.  It's road time.  I am chosen to lead because I have cruise control on my bike.  It keeps the group together when the leader rides at a constant speed.  We work our way through town and to the next place and then we feel like we are on the road for real.  We open things up a bit and set the cruise.  The bike sounds great thrumming consistently and strong underneath me.  The sun is out in full force.  I begin to sweat.  I open up my "vents" on my riding jacket.  These are nothing but illusions as no air gets through those things.  Pretty soon I am unzipping and thinking I've got to shed some layers.

We get on the north side of Cooper Landing when we have to pull off on the side of the road beside Kenai Lake.  We dump our heavy coats in the car and don just our leather vests with long sleeve shirts.  It's still the month of May and it's the warmest riding I have ever had.  Things are much better now and we up our speed a little.  There is virtually no traffic in our lane.  Everyone seems to be heading in the direction we are coming from and few seem to be going where we are headed.  Perfect.  

We make it to Anchorage after a stop in Girdwood for someone to fill up their tiny gas tank.  Then we power on.  The girls go ahead to take the car into the dealer for some work.  We will meet up with them then.  The road to Anchorage is great and we arrive in a short time.  The temps are still rising and in the city traffic the heat from our engines are poaching the backside of our legs.  I hate riding in traffic waiting for lights.  This is everything riding is NOT about.  I can't wait to get on the road again.

Our goal for the day is a modest one.  We just have to get to Eagle River to stay at the house of some friends who are loaning their house to us for the night while they are away.  After dinner on the far side Anchorage, it is only a few minutes later we arrive at the home of our friends and get ready for the evening.  Greg and I take a short ride about town before we call it quits for the night.  

The next morning the trip for me begins in earnest.  We get to Wasilla to meet friends for breakfast, join up with another rider and his wife and son and get on the road for real.  I love it.  We pull out heading north on the Parks highway with the goal of Cantwell for the night.  The morning air is cool and the dark foreboding clouds up ahead promise rain.  Whatever, I am ready to ride.  

We power up and flow with the Memorial Day traffic until Trapper Creek.  For some reason past this point the traffic always seems to disappear.  The road is open, the pavement is dry and the sun comes out again.  The rain never makes an appearance.  We shed heavy layers once again and are riding in vest and long sleeves.  The curves and hills stretch out before us and the miles go underneath our bikes easily.  It is good to be riding again, this is the real deal and it is great.

A Journey of a Thousand Miles - Lodging

One of the things you have to figure out on any trip longer than a day is "where are we going to stay?"  Lodging is one of the fun and interesting parts of any trip.  When I travel by myself or in this case with another friend, I am up for keeping it affordable, cheap, spartan, and when I can, free.  It is my minimalist tendencies kicking in again.

Perhaps it comes from the road trip adventures my dad took us on early on in my life.  We usually didn't stay at motel/hotels until we were older.  When we were really small, we would sleep in the back seat of the VW Beetle while dad drove through the night.  The back seat actually folded down into a flat surface big enough for my sister and I to fully stretch out.  Usually a sleeping bag was spread out to cover the itchy wool material that covered the area behind the seat and a blanket to cover us made it down right cozy.  One memorable adventure was when Dad and I took a box van truck from Fairbanks to Haines, Alaska.  It was full of mattresses bound for a youth camp in Southeast Alaska. There was other equipment in there too, like a washer and dryer, but it was all covered up with mattresses in different levels.  We had to pull off on the side of the road somewhere between the two towns for a couple nights and I rolled out my sleeping bag on a little loft of mattresses stacked up high.  It was fun sleeping in the back of that truck.  

Honestly, that little memory kicks in anytime I am traveling light or on my own and I rather delight in the idea of tucking myself away somewhere cozy for the night.  I also like the idea of free lodging.  So, when planning this most recent trip, we planned to take advantage of our many contacts around the road system in Alaska who are connected with a church.  Many churches have little rooms with a bed or a place to roll out a sleeping bag for the night.  I have done that many-a-time in my years in Alaska as a youth pastor on youth choir tours.  I've slept on pews scooted together forming a fairly decent sleeping surface (if you don't mind the high spot in the middle), couches, daycare napping pads, nursery crib mattresses strung together, anything to cushion this aging body from the cold, hard floor.  

In our planning, we would need lodging in the Wasilla area, Denali, Fairbanks and Valdez.  No problem as all of those places have Assembly of God churches with friends as the pastor.

As I wrote the last time, we had invited the wives along on this trip which was not in the original plan.  This requires different thinking when planning the lodging.  Although I am OK with no shower now and then, my wife is not OK with that.  She requires hot water, electricity and coffee with creamer.  We quickly realized that we needed to upgrade our lodging ideas.  Usually that means staying somewhere that is going to cost a little money.  

When you are just a couple, you can sometimes stay with friends.  Lots of people have a "guest room" or at least a room with an extra bed.  But who has two guest rooms?  Not many have the ability to house 4 adults and in my case "full size" adults for the night?  Without going into a long story, we had mutual friends who have a nice house in Eagle River who were going to be gone at the very time we were going to be in their area.  "Would you all like to just stay at our place while we are gone?", Ann the wife offered.  Sure!  

Jack and Ann have a wonderful home, very comfortable and one we have stayed in several times.  They were very generous to allow us to use it when they were not there.   So that took care of our first night.  It was quite nice as usual and I slept very well.  We even were able to park our Harley Davidsons in the garage for the night.  Deluxe accommodations you might say.  The wives were certainly on board for this idea.  Lots of room, hot water, electricity and coffee.  I was feeling a little giddy about being off to a good start.

Our next place we needed to stay was the meeting place for the "Meet in the Middle" biker rally near Denali Park or Cantwell to be a little more accurate.  We had planned to stay at the Grizzly Bear Campground all along for this night.  

Since the rally occurs here each year, it only makes sense to stay right there.  There is an Assembly of God church in the community of Healy which is not very far from this campground, but "when in Rome" as they say.  When I mentioned to my wife we were staying at the Grizzly Bear Campground, she looked very sternly at me and asked, "am I going to have to stay in a sleeping bag?"  I assured her that no, this was not the case.  Even though you could tent camp it if you wanted to, they have nice little rooms with beds, showers and balconies overlooking the Nenana river.  It's quite nice actually.  A night I look forward to.  This did the trick for her and we were back on.  The only trouble with our room was the two double size beds instead of the king size I asked for.  You have to understand that sleeping together on a double size bed is OK when you are first married, I mean you are in love and all of that and we were a lot skinnier then.  You tend to overlook a few things when you are first married.  I generously gave my wife half of the bed even though she is half my size.  I slept diagonally from one corner to the opposite corner and she got the other two corners.  This doesn't fly anymore.  There is also some ridiculous talk about somebody snoring and stealing too much of the covers.  So, we staked out our own beds.  Probably a good thing too, as mine was as hard as a sheet of plywood.  I think I tossed and turned so much that night that I would have tossed my wife out of bed just from the shock waves traveling to the opposite corners of the mattress.

After a somewhat restless night, we enjoyed a long, hot shower which I felt helped me justify some of my $170 for the night.  I think Mr. Grizzly Bear does pretty well with his little campground.  We checked out and headed to our next destination, Fairbanks.

Now I was a little nervous about where we were staying in the "golden heart city".  Originally, I was planning to ask the pastor of Fairbanks First Assembly if we could sack out on sleeping bags somewhere in the church.  Knowing I had to upgrade my plan with my wife along, I went to the next best place: Priceline.  I carefully read the descriptions of the many hotels and disregarded all of them and chose the cheapest place listed, a Best Western for $99.  I thought, if the Grizzly Bear had beds like a buck board wagon, what is a $99 Best Western going to have?

As it turns out, this was the most wonderful hotel of the whole trip!  We got to the "golden heart city" a little early for checking in but I wanted to unload our stuff from our friends car and let them go on to stay with their son, his wife and baby granddaughter.  So, first I had to find this place.  There are two Best Western hotels in Fairbanks.  One is right on the main drag and you can spot it easily right away.  Our Best Western is a little more difficult to find.  I had to head down Peger Road, cross the Chena River (on a bridge, I just rode over it) and turn right on an industrial road that headed to the rail yard of the Alaska Rail Road.  It didn't look promising.  Then, a little sign pointed down a very winding and fairly long street with no other businesses, houses or other buildings around, just woods and nothing to see.  I rode down this street thinking, "I hope this place doesn't stink."  I finally arrived to a quite nice place, rather newish looking.  There were almost no cars at all in the parking spaces and I assumed the place might be fairly vacant.  

I parked my Harley and walked in.  Nice so far, clean and the pool even looks inviting.  I went to the counter and "AJ" a young and fairly small lady of what seemed to me Indian (as in India) descent was there to greet me.  I said, "I know I am a little early to check in, but is there any way I can do so?"  Her fingers clicked and clacked across her computer keyboard for a few seconds and then her face brightened and said pleasantly, "yes, we have a room available."  Music to my ears!  I said thank you as she handed me the little key cards to our room and I went up to the third floor and down the hall to the room assigned to me.  I opened the door and peered into the darkness.  What?  This room is big!  I flip on a light.  It is a suite!  Sweet, I say!  The bed?  King.  Soft.  Perfect.  My wife is going to think I am a genius.  I scored a hotel suite on Priceline for $99 bucks.  I am a genius.

Needless to say, it was a wonderful night of sleep.  We had lots of room for all our stuff and it was very comfortable, even the couch was comfortable.  We took our time in the morning and used our fair share of hot water in the shower.  The other cool thing is that the Best Western hotels offer a "free" breakfast.  It actually isn't bad.  We and 5,000 of our best friends (the place was not deserted after all) ate our fill of scrambled eggs and little sausages and JoLynn had a waffle. The coffee wasn't actually coffee, it was Nescafe which I hadn't had for over a year since we were in Israel.  It was kind of a memory trigger of that wonderful trip.

I was feeling a little better about our next destination, Valdez, since I had booked a room there for Greg and I to stay in and split the cost.  The plan was that the ladies would stay in Fairbanks an extra day and return home via the route we arrived.  Greg and I were going to push on to Valdez, about 385 miles away for the next night.  I Pricelined this room as well but the choice wasn't too hard as there were only two hotels to choose from and the review on one complained about the running diesel engine of the 18 wheeler that idled all night just outside their window and the noise from the harbor was just as bad.  The other choice, the Best Western also offered that free breakfast...visions of little sausages were dancing in my head.

It was a long haul from the "golden heart city" to Valdez the next day.  By the time we arrived, our backsides had about all the saddle time they were going to allow us.  We were beat and I was hoping the room was another surprise suite.  No such luck.  It did have two double beds for which I was grateful for this time as I didn't think Greg would go for the opposite corner scheme.  The beds were passable for two weary road warriors.  I conked out after a hot shower.  I think I could have even slept on the buck board bed with an 18 wheeler idling outside our window that night and been OK.  

Yes, lodging is a great part of the adventure.  As it was, it was partly a great trip as we didn't have to sleep on the floor of a church as we would have originally planned which would have necessitated carrying even more stuff like foam pads and sleeping bags.  Staying in a hotel helps keep things light and less complicated although at a little more cost.  I hate to admit it to myself, but even being a minimalist at heart and my training, I kind of like the hotel thing.  At the end of the day this pudgy body likes to rest well and that more and more sounds like a bed worth paying for.