30th Anniversary Trip - VA to Arctic Circle and beyond

[twodogs]

As always a great report and again congratulation! Thank you for taking the time to share your ride with all of us.

Hope the balance of the summer is not to boring for you and DM

 

[Dirt_Dad]

As always a great report and again congratulation! Thank you for taking the time to share your ride with all of us.

Hope the balance of the summer is not to boring for you and DM

Thanks, I think we'll be fine. Been home 2 weeks now. Finally got out on the DR yesterday. Felt so good to be riding a bike again.

 

[Checkswrecks]

Congratulations on making this dream a reality to both of you, and more so for the 30 years together!


::008::


Hope to see you before too long.

 

[Dirt_Dad]

Congratulations on making this dream a reality to both of you, and more so for the 30 years together!

Hope to see you before too long.

Thanks, Bob. Both do feel like accomplishments in their own way.

I agree about getting together. Sooner rather than later.

 

[VRODE]

Congrats on a great trip! Loved the RR.

 

[Dirt_Dad]

Day 23 - Romney WV to Home (1 month, 5 days after Day 22)

Bikes are finally back in the garage. They took 1 month and 2 days to arrive at Romney Cycles in West Virginia. Romney uncrated them and found them to be in exactly the same condition as when they were left in Anchorage.

Before picking them up DM wanted her bike cleaned. She knew I wouldn't do it, or at least could never do it to the level Romney would do it. For me, I'm just going to get it dirty again, so the request was for them to clean just her bike. I'll rinse mine off when I get home.

DM is in no hurry to take another ride, so we brought a trailer to bring her bike home. When we arrived at Romney we found her sparkling clean on the sales floor near the service desk. My somewhat filthy bike was hidden somewhere in the back. Have to admit I was very happy when I first saw my dirty bike.

Happy to be reunited.

Ready for the ride home

A stop at the gas station to fill the empty tanks.

DM and I took different ways home. She beat me by many hours. Normally when bringing a bike home from a trip I get "Get-home-itis" and just want to get home. It was nice to enjoy the final ride home for once.

Eventually made it home.

They really did a nice job cleaning up DM's bike.

Mine... not so much.

I'm okay with that.

So the bikes which left here on June 23, have finally completed the journey home on August 19th. Good to have them home.

 

[Checkswrecks]

Glad to see them home.
And it's not like you had nothing else to ride in the meantime.
LOL

 

[Dirt_Dad]

Glad to see them home.
And it's not like you had nothing else to ride in the meantime.
LOL

True, but I only took the other two bikes out one time each since getting back from Alaska. They are good bikes, but with the Tenere gone I started thinking I might like a small adventure bike to buzz around on short rides. Once I recover financially from this trip I wouldn't be shocked to add DL650 or some other little street oriented bike to the fleet.

But bottom line, I really missed my Tenere.

 

[EricV]

Thanks for sharing your trip. Wife and I did a similar Alaska trip in '14 covering much of the same routes, but rode back home. "Bridge of Death" made me laugh. The Teslin bridge made my wife uncomfortable as well. We had lunch there and a couple of burgers, some onion rings and two coffees were $56 US. The price for food was one thing we did not budget for correctly. ToTW hwy was wet for us, but we did fine and my wife felt a lot more stable once I dropped the tire pressure for her bike about 10 psi, putting it around 26F/30R. She said it then went where she pointed it, rather than following the ruts.

Glad you got to ride Seward hwy in nice weather for one of your days. It's stunning. We were over in Glacier NP a couple of weeks ago and had better weather and no more snow up there except small fields and shadow patches. Crowded, but worth the ride anyway.

Nice to see you and DM out and about having a fun trip. I hope you both enjoy many more years & trips together. ::008::


p.s. Denali was under whelming to us as well. Maybe if you take one of the long bus trips it shows better? The day after we left there were rains and flooding and the 10 hour bus got trapped up in the park due to wash outs and they had to helicopter food and water in to those people. ???

 

[Don in Lodi]

I read a chart once showing the cloud free days for a season on Denali, there were only a hand full. If there are no clouds anywhere else, Denali will form its own apparently.

 

[EricV]

I read a chart once showing the cloud free days for a season on Denali, there were only a hand full. If there are no clouds anywhere else, Denali will form its own apparently.

True. We were told only about 30% of visitors ever see the mountain. We saw it when we were there, but stumbled upon an incredible view point at a Veteran's Memorial.

 

[bob dirt]

great ride report! My 40th is coming up in October. I'll be 60 in two days. I know how much it means to be able to do epic things with your soul mate. We both retired early to continue our adventure with no limits

 

[Dirt_Dad]

... and my wife felt a lot more stable once I dropped the tire pressure for her bike about 10 psi, putting it around 26F/30R. She said it then went where she pointed it, rather than following the ruts.

Interesting perspective. I've never aired down for me. I change surfaces so frequently it's just not something I can bother with and I don't mind a bike moving around, and that has given me a blind spot to the pressure change. But if it would have made the Chicken ride easier for her I should used that trick. Thanks for the thought on that one. I need to try to keep that in mind for her.

We had no problem seeing Danali the day we were there. Which is good. Now I know once is enough.

great ride report! My 40th is coming up in October. I'll be 60 in two days. I know how much it means to be able to do epic things with your soul mate. We both retired early to continue our adventure with no limits

Thanks...sounds like some ride planning is in order. Congrats on the 40th.

 

[bob dirt]

We were able to land on Denali a couple of years ago.

 

[Dirt_Dad]

We were able to land on Denali a couple of years ago.

That looks way more interesting than the Denali we saw.

 

[bob dirt]

We were lucky. They hadn't been able to land for three days and they were socked in on the morning flight. We took the later flight. They would have given me $300 back if they couldn't land. The father of the owner flew us and had to go higher to their secondary spot. I think that was the coolest thing we've ever done. We were not on bikes. We rented a Ford Explorer

 

[limey]

Nice RR Dirt Dad. The wife and I just got back from our Alaska trip and it was outstanding 41 days and the only rain to talk about was the last 3 hrs home.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Checkswrecks]

Paul - That's awesome!

 

[Dirt_Dad]

Looks like you were able to hit everything on your ride, Limey. I definitely see some stuff on your map that I'm thinking we should have done. Really looking forward to your ride report.

 

[snakebitten]

Limey is a MADMAN!

I reckon his route included as many water crossing as possible.