275 miles today. Whitehorse to Watson lake.
So I’ve got to back up for just a minute, I wrote yesterdays post kind of early and right after posting I got a bunch of neighbors. There was an older guy on a big fancy BMW, two younger guys on KLRs and a woman on a DR650. We had a great time swapping stories and checking each others bikes out. The lady on the DR started riding 3 years ago and just never stopped. She’s been all the way down South America and then shipped her bike to Africa and then Europe then the east coast and now she’s here. Talk about a world traveler! One thing I noticed while talking was how the three on the simple bikes were all sharing fond memories of when something broke or needed to be replaced and whenever me or the guy with the BMW talked about something broken it was an annoyance. I was thinking about that while laying in bed later and I think the difference is expectations. If you’re traveling on a simple bike you’re going to the same places as the fancy bikes but you’re doing it for a lot less money. It’s almost like cheating or some kind of loophole. You trade the gadgets and conveniences for simplicity and ease of repair, and you almost expect failures knowing that it’s just part of the game. When you spend a butt load of money on a fancy bike….the damn thing better not break. We expect it to perform, so when it doesn’t it’s a let down and an unexpected problem. Well the reality is that all bikes break, and fooling yourself into believing that your expensive bike won’t fail is just setting yourself up for disappointment. Might as well just accept that things break and try to be as prepared as possible. Anyway….I just thought that was interesting. I had a great evening talking to my new friends but that was one of the things I took away from the conversation.
I had trouble sleeping in this morning so I decided to just get on the road early. I quietly packed up being sure to close doors and latches softly so I wouldn’t disturb my neighbors……and then fired up my outrageously loud bike which decided to do an extra loud pop too just for good measure. I felt really bad as I slowly roared my way through the campground to get to the road. I’m sure I woke everyone up. Sorry guys.
Today was a nice and mellow day. Which was exactly what I needed. The road was in much better shape today but it came at the cost of scenery. Not many great views today and not much to write about either. One thing though.
While I was riding I realized that I’ve only got a few days left. It kind of snuck up on me. When I planned this trip I did it with preplanned days off but an extra 5 days to use incase of emergency or just to use as extra days off if I wanted. Well here I am almost at the end and I feel like I didn’t miss anything. I didn’t wish I had more time anywhere or feel rushed at any point. I made the decision to skip a couple things but not because I was in a crunch….it just made sense with the flow of things. If I were to use every day I had, the trip would have been 32 days. Right now I think I’ve got 3 days left. And I don’t regret a single thing.
Made it to a campsite pretty early. It’s actually the same place Enrique and I stayed at when we were up here in 2014. Totally by chance. I didn’t recognize it until I had already been here for a while. I set up camp and took a wonderful and severely needed shower. Now I’m eating a good meal for a change. It’s been camp food for almost a week now and I’m sick of it.
Here’s todays video
There’s no internet here so I’ve got to find other ways to stay entertained and also you won’t see this for a day or two. I’m gonna go look at clouds or something.