30 Days of Alaska - Part 1

This week begins Pete Springer’s story of his trip to Alaska. Over the
last few issues we heard Bill Warner’s account of the same trip (at
least up until Bill’s Sabre took a fatal hit from a rock.) Pete’s story
is somewhat longer and will appear over the course of the next several
issues.

Pete’s story will be compiled into book form for release in the fall.
If you would like to be notified when the book becomes available,
please send an email to: alaska@northwestcyclenews.com

Because the book is being prepared each part of Pete’s story will only be
available on the web site for a limited time (approximately 2 weeks).

And now, Pete’s story…

My recent trip to Alaska was such a trip, a long one. Having traveled
across Canada last year, my appetite was ripe for more big travels.

I had been invited to do Alaska by my old high school buddy, Doug. I
apparently wore out my other high school buddy, Arnold, last year in
Canada. He wanted no part of camping in the cold and rain. Go figure.

Although Doug invited me, I took it more as a challenge. After all, we
chased the same girls way back when. Although I unsnapped the first
bra, he beat me to ‘the wild thing’ and I have been behind ever since.
So I wasn’t going to get further behind by letting him go to Alaska
without me.

We made plans for at least 8 months. Another friend, Bill Warner, got
wind of the trip and wanted to see Alaska too, so he was in.

The three of us planned in our own ways, and made some e-mail contact.
I was the only connection between Doug and Bill. Doug and I live near
each other in San Diego Ca, and Bill lives in Salinas (some 400 miles
north of San Diego). We attempted to get together on a weekend camp out
at a midpoint to mesh our riding plans, but it didn’t happen because it
rained that weekend. Would you believe rain in California? Scheesh!

I thought much about the trip, and in particular how three people with
the personalities involved would get along. Were we mature enough to
indulge each other’s peculiarities? And if not, how old would we have
to be for that to happen, for heaven’s sake?

I reasoned we would just have to make do. The security that comes with several riders made the risks of going together worth it.

We were all taking our V65 Sabres on this trip. Bill has a knew FJR
1300 and Doug has a newish ST1100, but we agreed that if we are apt to
be throwing our bikes on the ground from time to time our Sabres were
the best choice. In other words, their value was in their
expendability. Also, we knew how to work on these bikes. That counted
for something in our decision.

The time leading up to the trip passed slowly. We changed dates several
times for one reason or another. We took probable climate estimates
into account, and eventually decided to leave on the 9th of June. Our
trip was to last up to 30 days. June is supposed to be more dry than
July, and it hasn’t heated up enough yet for the mosquitos and black
flies to be in full bloom. Whatever. That was our decision.

Bill is in his late fifties and Doug and I are 64 and 65 respectively.
It was cute that Bill worried about being away from his wife for so
long. The longest that he had ever been away before was 4 or 5 days. So
30 days would be a stretch for him, and 30 days would no doubt be all
that Doug or I wanted, as well.

I teased Bill about his neighbor ‘Sancho’ enjoying his absence. It
turns out that Bill’s wife, Sherry, worries about the mythical
‘Yolanda’ sharing Bill’s sleeping bag when Bill is out of town. We had
a good time with that.

So 2 months before our planned departure Doug reached 65 and retired.
Our trip is to celebrate that event. Doug has worked his ass off his
whole life. But it seems that from day one of retirement Doug has a
cold, and then the flu. A couple of weeks later, Doug calls and says
his stomach has been bothering him and his doctor is sending him in for
an MRI. Two days after that I find out that he is having an
appendectomy which turns out to include a piece of his bowels.

Whoa, that’s serious! All went well with the operation, but we decide
to postpone the trip for three weeks. That really screws Bill up as he
has had to give lucrative business away for the June 9 date.

A couple of weeks go by and I asked Doug’s wife Linda, an experienced
nurse, how long it takes to recover from bowel surgery. She says 4 to 6
months. Well, with some pointed inquiry it turns out that Doug isn’t
going to be ready to do Alaska. We set our departure date to June 12th
as the 9th had already passed.

The daily countdown was killing both Bill and I and to do it again for
a date three more weeks away would have been brutal. I scrambled to
pack my bike for departure on the morning of the 12th.

It was sad to be going without Doug, but the sadness was overshadowed
by the joy of finally getting on the road. I thanked my lucky stars
that Bill had signed on so that I wasn’t going alone. Plus, I was
getting a leg up on Doug after he had been ahead of me in that other
category for so many years. Of course, that is a category where you can
never really catch up.

I left home and made a stop in Los Angeles to pick up a freshly
mounted, like new, ribbed front tire. I had arranged for that tire to
be ready the week before on another Sabre rim. I also needed to mount a
new ME880 for the rear. So when I say I left on new tires, I mean it.
They both had zero miles when I left Los Angeles.

Somewhere it says that you shouldn’t work on your bike before you start
a trip. As I was leaving Los Angeles I noticed that my bicycle speedo
wasn’t working. Turned out that I didn’t have a magnet on the new rim.
Well, not new, but you know what I mean.

Sheesh, I damn near forgot that the Deacon came over to Mike D’s place
in LA where I changed the tires, and we all had breakfast at a local
Mexican food place. The last Mexican food for some time. Saying good
bye to good Mexican food was harder than leaving home. At least I have
my priorities in order!

After breakfast, the Deacon rode a couple of hundred miles with me
toward Bill’s home in Salinas. The Deacon found a Radio Shack in Paso
Robles where I could get another magnet for the speedo. We had lunch
and parted ways. Thanks, Deacon. I only had a little over 100 miles to
do to get to Bill’s for the night.

Bill and I spent a quiet night and planned to be on the road by 8:30 in
the morning. We had a 700 mile day planned so I warned Bill about early
morning fooling around. He seemed a little tired that morning on the
road, and he never really told me why.