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Date: 12/07 – 14/07
City: Fairbanks, Alaska
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 52832
Street: Street
Weather: Sunny, warm

We started the day relaxed, had a nice breakfast and started the tedious task of cleaning the bikes. The pressure cleaner got rid of the big chunks of that dried calcium chloride, but most of the bike was still dirty and some screws and the chain showed the first signs of rust. So we went to a shopping centre, bought some cleaning utensils and got to work. It took the rest of the day before we finished (before and after shots below).

The next day we started to have a look at the rest of the trip. It was really hard to make a start, we don’t know when and where we can sell the bikes, so we don’t know when and from where we fly to Europe. We also tried to get a price for a round the world ticket, which was not trivial either. In other word, we spent a lot of time but didn’t get anywhere. That was the moment when Lutz, a fellow guest at Sven’s from Germany, asked us if we would like to join them to go to a beer festival. He had already organized a dedicated driver, Rachel. She arrived yesterday from Switzerland and will work here for two Month. We were ready in no time and off we went. Rachel hadn’t driven one of these huge American Pickup trucks and their powerful and sensitive breaks. She got it under control before any of us got sea sick 😉
Here is Rachel in front of the huge car (V8, 5.7L).

On our way to the Beer Fest we found an old German Fire engine from Kaisersberg used as advertisement for Beer.

And here is our crew on the way to the beer fest.

With the entrance fee you got a glass and vouchers for 10 beer samples. I guess there must be around 500 different beers from around the world here, they even had Coopers!

After we sampled a couple of beers, I started to hear some familiar sounds; there was a marching band in Bavarian outfit playing some well-known drinking songs.

The Beer Fest closed at 10PM, have a look at the daylight J

We went to the car but first Lutz needed some Cigarettes. They were available at the pub opposite of the Beer Fest. The pub is called the Howling Dog and is some sort of icon in Fairbanks. Since it was not dark, it couldn’t be time to go home yet, right? So in we went finding live music and … Volleyball.

At the bar all sorts of different things were hanging around, hats and numberplates …. 🙂

A bit further down was a live band playing while outside a volleyball game was going on. It must have been around midnight when the photo on the right was taken.

We left around 2AM and it was still not dark 😀

Let’s ignore the next morning… the afternoon was great. Rachel and some others bought food to make tortillas. Everybody did a bit and a great meal for the whole group was prepared in no time. And it tasted great!

Tomorrow we will leave Fairbanks and ride to a hot spring nearby.

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Date: 10/07
City: Wiseman, Alaska
Kilometres ridden: 373
Cumulative kilometre: 52399
Street: Muddy dirt road
Weather: Cloudy, Fog, Rain, Freezing

Today we decided to start riding back. I really liked that the sun does not set here. Below is a picture that we took at 0:30 AM, no flash J.

In the morning we had breakfast and took a couple of pictures of our hotel, just to give our readers a feeling of what it looks like. The hallway, the eating area, our living room, bed room and our bath room.



In the entrance there was an area, where you had to put shoe covers on or change your shoes before you entered the hotel. I guess that was done to avoid having all the dirt in the hotel.

When we took off it was drizzling a bit, but no comparison to the rain that we had when we arrived. The road was mostly dry and it was so easy to ride! After a while we had to pull off the road to let the truck pass with an oversized load. There was no room for us on the road 🙂

As we started to get higher up it started to get foggy.

And the fog became denser and denser, up to the point where we could only see a couple of feet.

Here is Sigrid at road works, where we had to wait for a pilot car. I guess the car was for the road works – not for the fog 😉

After we went over the pass we could see the clouds that we were riding through.

The fog was gone and we even got some blue sky! It was so easy to ride the Dalton Highway without the rain. 😀
We found nice accommodation in Wisemans. This time we booked it a day before, so we didn’t have to get the expensive rooms.

 

Date: 11/07
City: Fairbanks, Alaska
Kilometres ridden: 433
Cumulative kilometre: 52832
Street: One lane highway, dirt road
Weather: Sunny, Cloudy

Eleven miles down the road was Coldfoot. It has the only petrol station for a long time. Below you can see the other accommodation available in this area at around 200 per night.

The weather today was beautiful, so we took it easy with plenty of stops and lots of photos.

Me trying to be arty 😛

After a great ride we arrived at the Yucon River Camp, our next petrol stop. There we meet Bjoern and Trinelise from Norway. That was the first time that I met somebody with the same name as me! We talked for a bit before we continued to Fairbanks.

On our way back we only had a couple of road works and all of them watered the road moderately. We arrived at the Dalton Highway sign much earlier than we thought. The ride back was really pleasant, completely different to the way up. It felt like we were riding on a different road.

On the way to our hostel was a pipline exhibition. We missed it on our way up to Dead Horse. I was always wondering what the metal pipes left and right of the pipline were. As it turned out, these are heatpipes with radiator fins at the top. They should ensure that the permafrost under the heated pipe doesn’t melt and prevent that the suppot structure sinks into the ground.

There was also an exhibit of PIGS, units that are sent throught the pipline to clean it. On the left an old model on the right a modern one.


Next stop was Sven’s Basecamp Hostel, and it felt like coming home! After we settled in our room we started to celebrate that we really made it to the top and back without breaking any bones again.

As I found out, the celebration didn’t stop there 🙂

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Date: 07/07
City: Wiseman, Alaska
Kilometres ridden:
Cumulative kilometre:
Street: One land highway, dirt road
Weather: Sunny, warm/ cloudy, drizzle

When we started from Fairbanks there was still thick smoke in the air, which made it hard to see the surrounding mountains.

After 100km we arrived at the Dalton Highway.

We were surprised that the highway was in such good condition, it was even partially paved. A couple of hours later we arrived at the Yukon River Camp, one of the few places where we could get petrol.

The camp was built near a bridge over the Yukon river. When we went to the river bank, we noticed that there was a barge on land, not sure what the story was, maybe they are waiting until the river is flooded to get the barge back into the water :P.

When we left the Yukon River Camp, we noticed that the road deteriorated and we got more and more average gravel stretches. A couple of hours later we arrived at the Arctic Circle, from here on, the sun won’t set at night.

Not long after that we arrived in Coldfoot, the last petrol station before Dead Horse. So we filled the bikes up and drove to our accommodation in Wiseman.

Date: 08/07
City: Dead Horse, Alaska
Kilometres ridden:
Cumulative kilometre:
Street: One lane highway, dirt road
Weather: Cloudy, fog, rain

During the night I could hear the rain pounding on the roof for an hour. That was bad news; if the road is wet it will be very slippery. When we got ready, there were still clouds around, but the ground didn’t look too saturated, so we hoped for the best. When we started, it started to drizzle, and when we drove over the pass, the visibility was really bad; the road was completely covered in fog. It didn’t get better the whole day, it was either drizzling or raining or we were in fog. The road was very slippery and the spray from the road covered our visor in no time, so we had to stop and clean them frequently. On one of these stops, Sigrid’s bike refused to start…. Oh Oh the starter motor didn’t make a sound…. After multiple attempts we -finally- got the bike push started. What a relief!

On any of the subsequent stops we left the bike running.

When we finally arrived in Dead Horse, the temperature must have dropped quite a bit, our Gerbings were on full blast. That made it just berable but not really warm.

The bikes were covered in Calcium Chloride, which turns hard if it dries, as you can see on the engine block.

We had problems to open the zipper of our boots, I guess I have to find a pressure washer to clean at least the oil cooler and the fins of the engine block.

We were happy that we made it in one piece! These were the most difficult 400km of our entire trip. After we checked in we had a look at the weather, forecasted was ‘a possibility of snow’…. We decided to stay another night…

 

Date: 09/07
City: Dead Horse, Alaska
Kilometres ridden:
Cumulative kilometre:
Street: Muddy dirt road
Weather: Cloudy, snow, rain

Got up at 4AM, had a shower and then we had breakfast in the food area and took a picture of our motorcycles, it was daylight after all!

At 9AM we made our way to the camp where the bus to Prudhoe Bay and the Arctic Ocean would leave from.

On the way to Prudhoe Bay we passed the Prudhoe Bay National Forest 😛

 

Finally we arrived at the Arctic Ocean and we got ready for our Polar Bear Challenge – a dip in the Arctic Ocean. Somebody from the bus was nice enough to take a video and a picture of us when we were in the water.

Both of us were happy when we were back in the heated bus, it was a cool experience though :P.
Since we fullfilled our dream to travel from Prudhoe Bay to Ushuaia, we thought it’s time to share a bit of the journey with the following video, enjoy.

In the afternoon we meet Jacob, he organized a pressure cleaner for us, so I could free the fins of the engine and the oil cooler.

We also found the petrol station and filled up both bikes, so they are ready for tomorrow.

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Date: 03/07
City: Tok, Alaska
Kilometres ridden: 622
Cumulative kilometre: 50894
Street: One lane highway
Weather: Sunny, warm /cloudy, rain, cold

We packed our noble steads and were hitting direction Tok. We had breakfast/lunch at Otter Falls Cutoff, a gas station with a nice road house. As we found out, we were not the only hungry ones.


The squirl tried to get into our food bag, but it didn’t succed. On the way we passed the Kluane Lake, well have a look yourself.



On the way to the border we came across the first road works where they sprayed Calcium chloride. When we stopped we realised that our gear and bikes looked now like real adventure bikes.


Not long after the road works we hit the Canada/Alaska border.


Since the sun doesn’t set early, we had plenty of time to get to Tok. Here we meet Houston and his parents again, the motorcycle riders we met a couple of days earlier in Dease Creek.

Date: 04/07
City: Tok, Alaska
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 50894
Street: One lane highway
Weather: Sunny, warm /cloudy, cold

Today is the 4th of July, the USA independence day. There are great celebrations all over the USA, mostly with fire works at night. Having said that, here in Tok, there won’t be any firework; they have enough problems with wild fires in the morning, so they discourage people from having fireworks. Below you can see the smoke covering the sun.

And there is the midsummer night sun, we would not see much of the firework in bright daylight anyway. So we watched the street parade with Houston and his parents. We even got some loot: candy!


Later we went to the country fare, down the street.

I like the vegetable race and the pole climbing.


The pole was covered in soap and some dollar notes hung higher up. If you can get them off the pole they are yours.

Date: 05/07
City: Fairbanks, Alaska
Kilometres ridden: 326
Cumulative kilometre: 51220
Street: One lane highway
Weather: Sunny, warm /cloudy

Our goal today is Fairbanks, the last town before we go onto the Dalton Highway. At the petrol station we meet Michel and Jeanie, a couple riding two KLRs, we talked for a while and then took off .

It so happens that we find other motor cycle riders at petrol stations. I guess here we are in the middle of the high season and there are not too many towns before the Dalton Highway.

On our way to Fairbanks we had to pass through North Pole. No question we had to stop here to see Santa 😀


They even had a christmas tree for Australia, have a look at left picture at the tree in the middle, it is upside down.


Not long after we arrived in Fairbanks at Svens Basecamp hostel, where we got a warm welcome from Sven and his sister Nadja.

Tomorrow we will get new rear tires for both bikes. We organized that a couple of day before, so they are waiting for us J

Date: 06/07
City: Fairbanks, Alaska
Kilometres ridden:
Cumulative kilometre:
Street: City roads
Weather: Sunny, warm

We had a slow start, Bjoern made breakfast in the kitchen


and we slowly made our way to Adventure Cycle works, where we met Dan and Shawn. They were very patient and didn’t mind me asking questions while they were working.


They replaced both rear tyres and my front tyre. As it turned out, I was lucky since my tube nearly had a puncture, so it got replaced straight away. In addition they recommended a different tyre, Heidenau K60 with a better pattern for off-road riding.

Back in the hostel we looked at the weather forecast and decided to go tomorrow, since it should be sunny for the next couple of days.

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Date: 28/06
City: Smithers, Canada
Kilometres ridden: 371
Cumulative kilometre: 48968
Street: One lane highway
Weather: Cloudy, warm, drizzling

Not much happening today, there was more nice landscape and we were lucky and just avoided the heavy rain. We could see it coming in, but we arrived in Smithers without getting wet. We had looked up Wombat’s and Val’s blog and stayed in the same Fireweed hotel they did.

Date: 29/06
City: Dease Lake, Canada
Kilometres ridden: 599
Cumulative kilometre: 49567
Street: One lane highway
Weather: Sunny, warm, Cloudy, raining

Today we would start to travel Highway 37. It was not clear where we could find accommodation and how far the petrol stops are apart, so we stopped at New Hazelton to get some more information. It looked easy, there should be enough accommodation and fuel stops around.

The tourist office suggested that we have a look at Kitwanga, a small Indian reserve that has an exhibition of totem poles.

The landscape was great, I realy could get used to traveling through this area 😀

We arrived in Dease Lake and found some nice accommodation.

Date: 30/06
City: Upper Liard, Canada
Kilometres ridden: 246
Cumulative kilometre: 49813
Street: One lane highway
Weather: Sunny, warm

We started a bit later since we only had 250km to go. Tomorrow is the 1st July where the 146th Canada day is celebrated, so we bought some flags to put them onto our bikes.

We left British Columbia and entered the Yukon today. The landscape was still awesome.

On our way to Dawson Creek we found some nice accomodation, the only disadvantage was that the wifi connection was a bit weak, so Sigrid had to get close to the main house to get connection.

It was the first time that we made contact with the famous Alaskan mosquitos, so Sigrid was not sitting there for very long 😉

Date: 01/07
City: Whitehorse, Canada
Kilometres ridden: 427
Cumulative kilometre: 50240
Street: One lane highway
Weather: Sunny, warm /cloudy, rain, cold

Around 4 AM the mosquitos lined up for breakfast in our room. We couldn’t find where they were coming from, but for every killed mosquito there were at least two new ones, so we left relatively early. Our first break was in Teslin, a road house with a petrol station, where we made lots of new friends.

On the way to Whitehorse it started to rain, so we were really happy when we found a motel with an underground car park.

Date: 02/07
City: Takhini Hot Springs, Canada
Kilometres ridden: 32
Cumulative kilometre: 50272
Street: One lane highway
Weather: Sunny, warm /cloudy, rain, cold

Today we planned to have an easy day and go to the hot springs close by and camp there. We sensibly pitched the tent first and then went to the hot spring.

Darn! There was a power outage, effectively closing down the hot spring. Bummer! Sigrid was not happy…While we talked to the manager we found out that he moved from Berlin to Canada only a couple of years earlier, so we had plenty to talk about and before we noticed the time pass… the power was back on! Yeah! It was so nice and relaxing in the hot spring that I forgot to take pictures :D. Tomorrow we will leave Canada and enter Alaska, the last state on our list!

 

 

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Date: 26/06
City: Honeymoon Campground, Canada
Kilometres ridden: 237
Cumulative kilometre: 48170
Street: One lane highway
Weather: Sunny, warm, drizzle

We left in the morning with the idea to take a secondary road to get to Lake Louise. When we arrived at the turnoff we saw a sign: “closed due to flooding”
Hmpf. So we decided to stay on Highway 1. It didn’t took us long to arrive at Lake Louise. What a view!

After a short stroll we continued on the Icefields Parkway, here are just a couple of pictures from different viewpoints.

Below you can see the road that we came on.

Along the way we met a fellow motorcycle rider who was working as a tour guide. He recommended that we have a look at the Athabasca Glacier which we did. Below you have a view from the road onto the Glacier.


There was a possibility to ride close to the Galicier and walk to the shoulder. The next picture is from the car park close to the Glacier. The black dots are people walking to the shoulder.


And here we are, on our way to the shoulder.


The access to the shoulder was closed off. The water under the glacier creates cavities and people can just disapear in them, so that was close enough for us.


On our way we noticed the markers with years on them. They showed where the shoulder of the Galicier was in that year, on the left picture is the marker from 1992. Looking back from here, the marker for 1914 was close to the foot of the other mountain.

It started to get late and when we passed the Honeymoon Campground, so we decided stop here. The view onto the lake was just great.

 

Date: 27/06
City: Prince George, Canada
Kilometres ridden: 427
Cumulative kilometre: 48597
Street: One lane highway
Weather: Sunny, warm

Today we were aiming for Prince George. The landscape was again stunning, so we stopped very often to take pictures, below are just a couple of them. There was no hurry, since the sun didn’t start to set before 11PM.

And then we saw the Athabasca Falls, so we had to have a look at them as well. Once more, the view was great, but it was not possible to get one picture of the whole fall.

We contined to Mt. Robson which is the highest point in the Canadian Rockies. Well, he was hiding behind the clouds a bit, but you can get the idea of how large he is.

In the parking lot we met a group of four guys and a girl on bikes. We started to chat and they told us that they are part of a rapid response unit. These are the people which are flown in by helicoter to fight wild fires, we were impressed!

We continued, and later on had a short break at a river. Sigrid couldn’t resist, she had to dip here feet into the ice-cold water. Well, I volunteered to take the pictures, somebody has to do it, we can’t just both go and freeze our toes off 😛

When we left the parking lot we saw a new sign, I thought it looked cute.

We arrived in Prince George and had to take a picture of Mr. P. G. 😀

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Date: 19 – 20/06
City: Hope, Canada
Kilometres ridden: 263
Cumulative kilometre: 46972
Street: Paved Highway
Weather: Cloudy, rain/ fresh

We settled our noble steeds and were ready to leave around 10AM. Tad and Gaila gave us last instruction how to prevent back pain during traveling, so we had a short yoga session in the garageJ. Now prepared for the road, we said good bye to our friends, and drove off.


Tad recommend that we  take a small detour to ride via Chuckanut Drive instead of the highway, which was a really good suggestion. We really enjoyed it, thanks Tad!!

Just before the border it started to drizzle, so we put our raingear on and went through the border. Not long after, the drizzle turned into a downpour, so we took it easy on the highway and looked for accommodation in Hope, our destination for today. And we found a great hotel with hot tub and a heated pool for a great price.


The next morning it was raining even harder than the previous evening, so we decided to sit in the hot tub a bit longer and have a look at the weather tomorrow. We got a mail from Gerald, a guy we met in Nasca, Peru. He invited us to his house not far from here, so we loosly made an appointment for tomorrow. We started to hear news that large areas in Alberta are flooded  and that roads are closed. As we found out, one of the roads is the one we wanted to take to Banff. Let’s see how it goes, we will have to take it one step at a time

Date: 21/06
City: Pritchard, Canada
Kilometres ridden: 289
Cumulative kilometre: 47261
Street: Highway
Weather: Sunny, warm

The weather looked much better today. Looking at the road report showed us that the road to Banff is still closed due to high river levels caused by the rain last night. It was still cloudy but the heavy rain had stopped. So we packed up and left to meet Gerald. The road was in pristine condition and it was enjoyable to follow the meandering river. When we arrived at Gerald’s house we were greeted by two curious horses.


We settled in and not long after Mike, his friend, came over to say hello. We talked for a while when he mentioned that his horses need new shoes and that the farrier would do this tomorrow morning. Great, we’ll check it out, since I haven’t seen a Ferrier at work. We talked for a while and after dinner Gerald showed us around his property. He has some hundred chickens and when we told him that we had four and would bring them to the Vet if they got sick, he smiled.


The two horse that greeted us where Mike’s, so we had a short stroll to see Geralds horses which were on another field.

After a nice salmon dinner we chatted for a while before going to bed. What a pleasant day.

Date: 22/06
City: Halcyon Hot Springs, Canada
Kilometres ridden: 318
Cumulative kilometre: 47579
Street: City roads
Weather: Sunny, warm

After breakfast we went to a place where Mike’s horses got new shoes and a pedicure. It was the first time that I saw how it’s done.


We watched the farrier for a while. Then we returned to Gerald’s house, packed the bikes, took a couple pictures before we said good bye.


We decided to make a detour and stay at a hot spring, and see when the road to Banff is open again. So we followed the scenic Highway One and when it started to rain, we pulled in at a rest stop. By chance this was the place where the last spike was driven to finish the Ocean to Ocean railway connection.


We put our raingear on and continued to our final location a hot spring. To get to the hot spring we had to make a ferry crossing, which was not that exciting since it was pouring down when we crossed the river.

After a short ride we arrived at the Halcyon Hot Springs, let’s say we didn’t camp since it was raining; instead we took a nice block house.

The pool was nice and warm, so we stayed there until sunset, the view from there was just amazing.


At night we looked at the internet and found out that the road to Banff was open again!

Date: 23/06 – 25/06
City: Banff, Canada
Kilometres ridden: 423
Cumulative kilometre: 48002
Street: single/double lane highway
Weather: Sunny, cloudy, rainy, foggy/ warm, cold

We couldn’t resist having a dip in the morning before we left.

Today the rain was gone so we went back over the ferry to Highway One. This time the ferry crossing was really enjoyable.

The scenery on the highway looks more impressive when it doesn’t rain.

The next mountain pass had a bit of fog, which looked great.


The road to Banff has been open, but everything south or east from Banff was still closed. When we arrived in Banff we got an idea why. The part of the park was flooded by the river close bye.


In Banff we got a nice hotel with a great view from the room, have a look.


I really like this area with the beautiful scenery. The next few days we took some time for maintenance, strolled through Banff and hiked to the hoodoos, a stone formation that looks like a column. The view was as always fantastic and the sign posting for the tracking path was, well, lets say fair :P. Sometimes we were not sure if we were on the right way or if we were walking in a dry river bed. I think was possibly was both. 😀

When we arrived, there were tour busses, that’s when we realised that we could have followed the road….But what would be the fun in that? 😛

Sigrid did well with her leg getting over that terrain.


On our way we saw some Ground squirrels and met some deer which weren’t bothered by us at all.


Arriving back in Banff, we decided to have a look around before we returned to the hotel. We had a look at the Dominion Park Branch. In this building Canadas first National Park was declared in 1885. The building looked great and the view back to Banff and the mountains behind was just awesome.


Tomorrow we will start our last leg, getting up to Alaska and then to Prudhoe Bay.

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Date: 16/06
City: Seattle, USA
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 46709
Street: City roads
Weather: Sunny, warm

Today we went sightseeing with Tad and Gaila. First we had a look at the buzzing Pike Place Market, is one of the oldest continually operated public farmers’ markets in the United States.

There we could see the guys throwing fish, which is quite unique. If somebody purchases a fish from the outside of the stall, a guy throws the fish to the cashier who wraps it up. If you look hard, there is a big fish mid-air in this picture:

On our way back we saw the first Starbucks shop, but the queues were too long so we gave that a miss.

We saw an artist who was playing a guitar and balancing another guitar on his chin. To top it up, he was twirling a hula hoop at the same time. How is that for coordination?

On our way to the space needle we found some water features. Sigrid and Gaila couldn’t resist.

Well at least at this water feature, the next one was different kettle of fish. We decided that the day was not hot enough and we didn’t have our bathers with us, so we posed instead.

Next stop was the Space Needle

We took an elevator to the visitor deck and took some pictures from there. The day was a bit cloudy but the view was still great.

Right beside the Space Needle was a Chihuly Garden and Glass exhibition. Mackenzie and Adam – another motorcycle couple from Tasmania – were raving about this exhibition, so we decided to have a look at it. Below are some pictures from this incredible exhibition – all the items made out of glass.

Below are some pictures of a ceiling.

And then there is the glass house

and the outside garden with glass sculptures and flowers.

Next we met with Tad and Gaila in the EMP building (in this case, EMP stands for Experience Music Project 😀). The form inside and outside was so unique that I wondered how somebody can come up with something like it. It turned out, that the architect designed the building by slicing electric guitars and using them as building blocks.



From here we went to the IMAX cinema to watch Superman in 3D. The seats are so big that you feel really small.


Everybody got some of these glasses to protect your eyes from debris flying around in the 3D movie 😉


The movie was nice, we got lots more information why Krypton exploded and why superman lost his parents.. you see, cinema has educational value 😀.
On our way back we passed the Space Needle again, this time at night.


What an amazing day.

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Date: 14/06
City: Seattle, USA
Kilometres ridden: 53
Cumulative kilometre: 46656
Street: City roads
Weather: Sunny, warm

Yesterday we booked our bikes in for maintenance at a workshop outside of Seattle. Today we dropped them off and Gaila was nice enough to drive us back.

On our way back we passed Microsoft, so Sigrid was keen to get her picture taken in front of the site.

Gaila told us about a troll under a bridge; we were certainly keen to see that. And here is a troll under the bridge. What you can’t see is that the troll holds a VW Beatle in left hand.

The next stop was the restaurant where the surprise party was organised. It worked great and Phoenix enjoyed the surprise and the marvellous cake. We met a young English motorcyclist who is on its way to Prudhoe Bay, we will see if we can meet him in Alaska and do the last bit together.


We enjoyed the whole evening with food and cocktails – enough said – and got back home pretty late but happy 😀

 

Date: 15/06
City: Seattle, USA
Kilometres ridden: 53
Cumulative kilometre: 46709
Street: City roads
Weather: Sunny, warm

Today a group ride was planned and since our bikes were in the workshop, Gaila offered her BMW F650 for us to ride two-up. Well as you can imagine, Gaila had to twist my arm very hard for that…  😉
It gave us the opportunity to see how the BMW compared with our DR650. Unfortunately the BMW performed verrry well.


After a short ride in the big group we split up. We had to get back to the workshop which was servicing our bikes, luckily via a detour through a national forest partially following a river.


The way to the workshop took longer then expected, so we had to hurry a bit, which was fun as well 😀. Gaila and Tad dropped us off at the workshop. They went back home and to their other appointments. We waited until the bikes were ready and went home as well.

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Date: 12/06
City: Seattle, USA
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 46603
Street: City roads
Weather: Sunny/ warm

After breakfast we called the shipping company and asked about our bikes. It turned out they have been shipped via truck from LA and not via airplane. Phew! That explains the long delay. The estimated time of arrival was today around lunch, which worked well. Around noon, I saw that the bikes had arrived. We used the free shuttle bus to drop us off at the airport cargo area, got the paper work and made our way to Customs via taxi. The taxi driver had a hard time to find the address, which I thought was funny. Eventually we got there and got the paper work processed. The customs officer was great. We talked about our trip and he gave us some suggestion what to see around the Banff and Jasper area.

We rushed back to the cargo area and here we saw our noble steeds again, wrapped and intact! 🙂 Somebody must have a look at the luggage at the bottom, since that was no longer wrapped.

I connected the batteries again, got them off the pallet; put all the luggage back and off we went, back to the hotel.


We had our bikes back, yippe. It was the first time that we shipped the bikes so I was happy to have them back in one piece. When we got back to the hotel our luggage was still not there and it was too late to call the office. We will see what’s going on tomorrow.

Date: 13/06
City: Seattle, USA
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 46603
Street: City roads
Weather: Sunny, Cloudy/ warm, drizzling

Today we managed to get our luggage back and nothing was missing. So we repacked everything to fit it back into the panniers, packed the bikes and went off to Tad and Gaila’s house a bit outside of Seattle.


Tad and Gaila are a couple we met a year ago at the overland expo close to Flagstaff. They started their journey http://www.overlandnow.com around the same time as we did and rode all over Central America using back roads where possible. We kept in contact during our trip and when they returned a week ago, they invited us. Gaila likes cooking, we like eating, so it’s a good combination 😉.
To welcome us, Gaila prepared a nice rhubarb pie, hmm, yummy!

In the afternoon we picked up Tad’s bike from the workshop and organized and fitted a new rear tyre for my bike. For some reason after this short trip, Tad had a new-found appreciation of Sigrids endurance sitting on the back of my bike all the the way back from Ushuaia. As he put it, it was “an experience” 😉. I guess he doesn’t like the firm …. wood-like ….. seat 😉.
Oh, I nearly forgot, on our way back my bike stopped on the highway! As it turned out, we have to put petrol into the big tanks, otherwise the bike stops working …  Learn somthing new every day 😀.
We have these 32L tanks and in the end I relied on Tad to give me some of his spare elexier to get home. What a day,we were happy to have all our stuff back and got an amzlingly warm welcome from Gaila and Tad!