Travel Log

I kept a log of my trip and uploaded it to my web site on an almost daily basis. It is arranged in chronological order and is grouped by natural segments of the trip. You can access it by clicking on the links to the left. Below I show my overall route up, around Alaska and the Yukon, and then back home. Total mileage for the trip as recorded on my GPS was 11,660.

I took the direct route on my way up to Alaska. To avoid Chicago traffic I took the Lake Express ferry across Lake Michigan. After a stopover with friends in Milwaukee I spent several days in Minneapolis with Chris and Maria and Emmet and Claire. Then I got on my way to Alaska, driving across N. Dakota and Montana to Grand Falls, MT. From there I headed north up through the Canadian parks to Dawson Creek, British Columbia, the beginning of the Alaska Highway. I took the Alaska Highway up through the Yukon to Tok, Alaska, then southwest to Anchorage where I meet Paul and Linda Wilson who had ridden up from Maine.

From Anchorage I rode down to Homer on the Kenai Peninsula for an overnight, then back up to Girdwood to visit my friend and colleague Beth Sirles. From there it was up to Talkeetna and Denali National Park, then to Fairbanks and up to the Arctic Circle on the Dalton Highway. Back to Fairbanks, down to the Denali Highway for a short ride, and then on down to Valdez. From Valdez I rode up to Tok again and took the Top of the World Highway to Dawson City, Yukon, then rode south to Skagway.

I took the Alaska Highway on the way back (deciding the Cassiar was too iffy for the LT), but from there took a more western route on the west side of the Canadian Rockies to Kamloops and then east to Glacier Park in Canada. Then south to Glacier National Park in Montana, and east via U.S. 2, a great road across northern Montana and North Dakota. A stop in Minneapolis, then down to West Bend, Wisconsin for the national BMW Rally, and on home taking the Lake Express again across Lake Michigan

Next time I'll do several things differently on my log. I'll try to focus more on the "people" aspect of the trip. There were many times when I got back on the bike after an interesting encounter and realized I had totally forgotten to take my camera, failing to realize such encounters are an important part of the trip. Like when I got my oil changed at Kamloops, chatted with Shirley at Gulkana, and met the father-son team from Newfoundland. I will also include more about the experience of riding the bike, and more about the bike and how it performed.