Memorial Day Ride - 2017 Part 6

The Longest Day

I sleep without waking all night.  That is pretty rare for me even when I don't have trouble sleeping.  I guess the accumulated sleep loss finally caught up with me.  A quick shower and I pack up my stuff and move it downstairs so we can make a quick exit following the church service this morning.  Our longest day of riding is ahead of us and for now, all we can do is wait.

It is Sunday.  We are in Klukwan, Alaska, a Tlingit Indian village that has been in existence in one location or another in the general area for hundreds of years.  One of the stories that comes out of Klukwan that is fascinating is that of the Whale House.  It is something you don't want to mention in town because it is controversial and divisive to this day.  Google "the Whale House" for an interesting read.  

The Klukwan Assembly is in-between pastors at the moment and we have come along at the right time to supply the pulpit for today.  There are three preachers here and for some reason I have been selected to bring the message.  Pastor Jack is the worship leader for the day.  I tease him about him not having his "skinny jeans" with him.  He is only mildly amused.  He is a great guitar player and he practices a few chords in preparation.  I request "Do Lord" which I think will go over big with the locals this morning.  Jack says he will lead it.  

The service has been set up an hour early to accommodate us travelers as we have to make about 440 miles back to Tok, Alaska today and we won't even get on the road until noon or so.  It will make for a long day.  I am up at the usual 6:00 am and go over my notes.  Since we are now in Alaska and my iWatch has lost connection to my iPhone, I do not realize it is actually 5:00 am since we are back on Alaska time.  Great.  More time to pace and  wait.  

There are no restaurants or gas stations or anything else service wise in Klukwan so I munch a protein bar out of my Tour Pak and drink a Keurig coffee from the machine inside the church.  It will hold me over.  The time drags on as we wait for 10:00 am and the service to begin.  

The building we are in does not actually belong to the Assemblies of God.  Sometime back in time this place was established by the Presbyterian church and they eventually left Klukwan.  An Assembly of God missionary discovered this and an arrangement was made for the Assemblies of God to use the facility and it has been used as an Assembly of God church ever since.

There is a core of mostly elderly folks who continue to gather each Sunday for worship.  One of the features of the church that you won't find in your typical Assembly of God church is a bell tower.  It's actually functional and they use it to summon the faithful each week.  Since Jack is leading worship, I am preaching, Wade is tasked with ringing the bell at 9:45 am.  I tell him he needs to wear a tonsure and a friar's robe to do it right.  He is only mildly amused.  I am getting the idea no one appreciates my wardrobe humor. 

Finally the bell is rung and people begin to show up.  There are over a dozen or so who come.  Valentino opens with prayer and begins to take prayer requests.  After a few minutes, he admits he can't hear the requests being made because of a recent ear surgery.  Johanna takes over.  Prayer for the sick takes place and the service is turned over to Jack, who as promised, leads in "Do Lord".  As I predicted the crowd loves it.  Boisterous singing and hand clapping fill the room through all the verses and choruses.  Jack continues to lead less ancient choruses on his guitar and the singing portion of the services ends.  It is now my turn.  I have chosen the topic "The Providence of God" and use the story of Joseph (Genesis 37-50) to illustrate how God uses even the less pleasant times of our lives "for good."  

It is close to 11:00 am and we are needing to make our departure soon but we close with "Just A Closer Walk With Thee" led by Jack and his guitar.  The people are very friendly and engage us in conversation which I enjoy but nervously watch the clock thinking of the many hours and miles we have to put behind us to get back to Tok.   John, an elder In the village stands in front of me with a furrowed brow and asks, "was that you guys riding your motorcycles and making all the noise last night?  It's usually pretty quiet around here."  I am caught a little off guard and kind of squeak out something like, "probably."  He suddenly smiles and says, "we loved it!"  Ha, ha! I laugh with a little relief and a lot of appreciation for John's sense of humor. I eventually pull away and haul my stuff out to the bike and bungee it on.  My leathers are on and soon all three of us fire our bikes up and ride slowly through the village and onto the Haines Hwy.  The  vegetation is lush, green and dense here, so different from the entire rest of our trip.  Mountains of bear "sign" litter the highway here and there.  They must be finding lots to eat I think to myself.  We are more than ready for lunch and our short term destination is the Mile 33 Roadhouse which has a great reputation for elk and bison burgers (bacon is an option).

It is really busy when we pull up, probably those beer festival folks who know where to get good food.  There is only one place to park when I pull off the highway, front and center.  As mentioned before, I am prone to nostalgia and I am hit with a huge wave of it as I park.  I have been here before, maybe 50 years ago (hate to admit that) with my dad when he and I drove a box truck down from Fairbanks, Alaska to Haines full of mattresses and washers and dryers for a youth camp being set up at Gustavus, Alaska.  We stopped right here and filled up the truck from this very antique gas pump (it was an antique then).  I remember being curious about how it worked as dad, who knew exactly what to do demonstrated the process.  You first determine how many gallons you want to pump.  The glass top has gallon graduated lines.  There is a little hand pump that you work to pump the right number of gallons up into the glass top.  You then insert the handle/nozzle into the gas tank opening of your vehicle and it all gravity drains into your tank.  

Once inside I ask the waitress how long the gas pump has been there.  She squints her eyes thinking for a moment and says, "at least from the '30's".  Yep, that's the one.  She adds that the original roadhouse burned down in 1984 and this log structure replaced it.  That figures because I have no recollection of the building.  It's day is long past and it is no longer used but makes a great landmark.

We all receive our orders with a little extra wait due to the crowded building.  We were fortunate enough to get the very last table.  There must be 50 people in this place.  Those who arrive after us have to sit on the deck in front.  As I enjoy my meal, I think, "I'm going to have to stop eating like this."  Trips like this are maximized by eating lots of meat, usually in burger form.  We want to linger but the day is half over and we still have to get 400 miles behind us.  The realization of that hangs over our meal as we try not to hurry too much to enjoy the delicious food.

Finally, we pay the nice waitress who has handled the crowd like a pro and scoot our chairs back to make our exit.  I try not to think "400 miles" but limit myself to the next fuel stop and that would be Haines Jct.  From where the ferry made a turn into Haines the previous day, every step takes us closer to home.  If that was one small step, this will be a giant leap.  Our route takes us on the Haines Hwy., up and over a pass through some of the most beautiful scenery.  I look forward to the ride.

We power up and are on our way, for a minute or two.  Customs.  That crowd that was at the restaurant when we arrived?  There is a loooong line waiting to get through Canadian Customs in front of us.  This looks like it will take all day.  I imagine we will not get to Tok until midnight or later.  But it's not too bad, the line keeps moving and in a much shorter time that I feared, we get the questions and we are through.  The traffic stretches out quickly and there are no bunches of slow moving vehicles to get around.  In fact, we are kind of the slow ones as we commit to our 70 mph while large trucks and cars filled to capacity whiz around us like we are standing still.  There are plenty of double lanes as we gain altitude and the traffic flows nicely.  Up ahead our sunny day loses ground to dark, high overcast once again as the vegetation once again loses the lush green and looks dormant as it has most of our trip.

We continue to climb but not as steep and eventually flatten out as we enter the pass itself.  This is probably the best road surface of the entire trip, it is smooth, virtually crack free and without any "Road Damage" signs whatever.  It must be a fairly new paving job as roads don't stay like this for long in the north country.  

We make a 50 mile rest stop.  The overcast rather mutes what might otherwise be fabulous vistas.  It is still beautiful but in an austere way.  There is enough snow to easily navigate on a snowmobile if one was inclined.  It too is still late winter in the pass.  

After a few minutes without discussion, we don our helmets and mount the bikes.  I notice that swinging my leg over the saddle gets harder as the day wears on.  Either the bike seat is getting taller, my legs shorter or maybe the fatigue.  We head on out  and ride hard without much to note other than the beautiful country which keeps rolling and rolling out ahead of us in an unending way.  Eventually we do begin a descent and the buds on the scrub are popping out, the birch trees have tinges of green on their extremities, life is making a reappearance in the lower elevations.  

At long last, Haines Jct.  We have completed the loop from this spot through Whitehorse, Skagway, Haines and back.  Check that one off the bucket list.  We fuel up and my Canadian coin stash is dwindling by now.  I have enough for fuel but probably not enough for the next time which will be Destruction Bay.  I save my last quarters, dimes and nickels for a Gatorade in Destruction Bay.

We are topped off and on our way again.  We see everything in reverse order now.  We enter the fabulous Kluane Wilderness which is bordered by the St. Elias mountain range.  This same range continues into Alaska in the least visited portion of our state that is accessible by road.  McCarthy, Bonny Lake, Copper Center, Chitna, and the Kennicott Mine are the little communities that are relics of days gone by.  The people who live there do so because they WANT to live there.  

With the steady drone of the V-Twin motor below mile after mile, we begin to encounter fierce winds that buffet us gustily.  As we near the south end of Lake Kluane, the clouds of silty dust are seen on the horizon being driven by the winds.  It thankfully has warmed from two days previously when we were headed south.  The tinges of green also make their appearance now and looking up the lake, the ice has disappeared.  I shake my head thinking it feels like we were here much longer ago than just two days.  

Destruction Bay offers us a chance to give our backsides a rest, fuel and stretch our legs.  The Gatorade takes my last $3.50 Canadian and I drink it down.  For some reason I get thirsty in Destruction Bay.  Long miles await us so we once again assault the road and head north.  

Generally we take a break every 50 miles or one hour give or take if we find a suitable place to pull off.  The wind stiffens as we pass Burwash Landing and head up to Beaver Creek our next fuel/rest stop.  The terrain is a little more rolling hills here and we press on.  Up the road we do take a break and encounter two young men on bicycles laden heavily with camping packs and gear.  The wind is contrary to them and making their lives miserable.  One young man has taken shelter from the wind behind the outhouse at the pull out, not my favorite location but the only shelter available.  His  friend, who obviously has lagged behind him, is walking his bike up the road and arrives while we walk our road legs off.  They ask us what lies ahead in terms of places they can camp for the night.  Unfortunately we don't have encouraging news for them.  Maybe 36 km up the road there is a nice campground, but in this wind, this late in the day, that is far, way too far. They look discouraged.  As they talk with us, one of their bikes which is leaning up against one of the outhouses, gets pushed by the wind and rolls down the steep bank spilling some of the bags into the brush.  They quickly retrieve their stuff and we feel awkward not being able to offer them any real help in getting to a suitable location to camp for the night.  We wish them well and power on to Beaver Creek.  I  think to myself, I am thankful William Harley and the Davidson brothers attached that little one horse motor to their bicycle 114 years ago.  

Despite the wind, the weather remains nice and the temperatures have improved some so our finger tips never numb and the midnight sun remains strong.  We are a little concerned as we approach Beaver Creek that we will be able to find some dinner and wonder if the US border remains open all night.  We find the sole gas station that dispenses premium fuel still open which we prefer.  The clerk, an immigrant from Croatia is a very upbeat and energetic young man.  He tells me he has just arrived from Ontario for his summer adventure to make more money for school.  He arrived just the day before.  He directs us up the road to "Buckshot Betty's" for food as it is the only place that is still open in town.  For  the first time in Canada, I pay for my fuel with my credit card.  We thank him and head out the door.

Buckshot Betty's is a nice place.  They have a restaurant, rooms and a campground.  We are ready to sit and eat.  There are several other patrons enjoying their dinner as we enter.  When the waitress arrives to take our drink orders, I ask, "are you Buckshot Betty?"  No, Betty has just left for the day, she is going home to enjoy the fruits of her labors.  I am disappointed, I wonder if "Buckshot" looks the part of a frontier personality.  We order our meals, mine is the club sandwich which arrives on thick homemade bread.  I can't even begin to get my mouth around it. I tell the other two men, "this is part of my fitness plan, I plan on fittin' this all in my mouth."  They are only mildly amused.  The water is self serve and only 5 feet away in a 2 gallon stainless steel dispenser.  Before we are done with our food, we drain the whole thing.  

It is 120 miles to Tok, about 30 to the US border where we will submit our passports one last time in order to get home.  It is about 8:00 pm and Klukwan feels another world away.  Were we really there earlier today?  It seems unreal.  With at least three hours of riding ahead of us, we resolve ourselves to get with it.  

The US border is a welcome sight.  We are less than 100 miles from Tok now.  The lone customs agent lets us through with no hassel.  I notice the very nice accommodations they provide for the agents in this remote place.  It looks like a really nice, modern neighborhood with playgrounds for the kids and all.  The road surface immediately improves to a much  smoother surface but there are the frost heaves to deal with now.  Honest, some sections of the road are so whoopty-doo'ed you can't go faster than 45 mph.  Regardless, we press on and the road eventually flattens out and we are up to speed.  We take a final rest stop at the Northway cutoff.  The warmer temperatures have enabled the mosquito hatch to take place and they don't take long to find us.  The front of our bikes are bespeckled with their bodies which adds to the road warrior grime covering all surfaces of our bikes by now.  

We pull in to Tok Assembly of God around 10:00 pm.  It is still light but the town is quiet and we try to sneak in without waking everyone but it is hard to sneak on a big bike.  We know the drill and go to our rooms seeing the towels for showers have been set out for us again. So nice.  Pastor Jason comes over from next door to greet us.  We are dog weary from the longest day of our trip and look it.  We make plans to meet in the morning for breakfast at Fast Eddies.  Pastor Jason shows us the switch to flip in the morning to make coffee and it is all set up.  What a guy.  This night I sleep without moving.