Monday, September 21, 2009

19 August 2009 Teslin, Alaskan Hwy, Canada






I got up this morning and it bloody cold. I can’t see my breath but my fingers are freezing as I type this. I got up last night to go to the bathroom and it’s been years since I’ve seen a clear star-filled sky like last night. It was beautiful. I saw two meteors and at least four satellites. There was a lot of movement in the sky for such a short time of stargazing. So far the mosquitoes have been mild. Today I will continue to travel on Hwy 37 (Stewart/Cassiar Hwy) and to Watson Lake on the Alaskan Hwy with hopes of making it to Whitehorse for the night.

Well, I’m back again and today was full of all kinds of surprises. I worked on my blog this morning and consequentially I had a late start. I got up at 6:30 a.m. but didn’t leave till 10:00 a.m. This Stewart/Cassiar Hwy has only three gas stops on it. If I missed a gas stop I would not make the next one. So being gas stop vigilant was a high priority today. I thought I missed the second gas stop so I backtracked 400 hundred yards/meters and double checked this one business to see if it was a gas station. I asked them and they said nope they don’t sell gas. He said 1.25 miles/2 Kilometers up the road is where the gas station is. I thanked him and left. My inner radar went off and so that’s why I went back to check. I was looking for a small town of Iskut and some of these small towns my only have 3 to 10 houses if you’re lucky. I also did this in Russia when I was in doubt about a location of a gas station. My next gas station was Dease Lake. It wasn’t hard to find. I pulled up to the gas pumps and went to put my kickstand down. The events that followed made Laurel and Hardy look like rocket scientists. Of course I had an audience of two motorcycle riders. One was a Honda rider from Inuvik, Northwest Territories and the other was a Harley rider from Detroit, Michigan. First off, without my wooden support stick my motorcycle will fall over on the right side. Anytime you park it you must always park the motorcycle with the kickstand in a low spot. That will make the motorcycle lean more to the left. Then you put the wooden support stick under the foot peg on the right side. At this point your motorcycle is stable and won’t tip over. When I pulled up to the gas pumps there was no slab of concrete to park on. It was a gravel parking lot. The area around the large gas tank and the pumps angled down and away so parking my motorcycle was difficult. I got it to point where I thought it was ok. I put my support stick under the foot peg and got off the right side of my bike. I wiggled the bike enough so the support stick sunk into the ground and the motorcycle and I almost fell to the ground. I sensed the bike was starting to fall with my heel of my shoe still on top the seat. I grabbed the bike and started pushing it toward the kickstand with the one foot on the ground. I then pulled the other foot off the seat. I about turned white with the idea of that thing falling over on me. I then put the support stick back under the foot peg and walked around the bike holding on to it. I got back on it, pulled the support stick out and laid it on top my speedometer and tachometer. I then started the bike, drove around the gas tank, re-positioned it so the kickstand would be on the downhill side of the bike. I reached for my support stick and it was gone. I looked around and found it four yards/meters behind my motorcycle. So now I had to roll my motorcycle backward to pick up the support stick. On that uneven ground I could never leave that bike unattended without the stick. I pulled up to the pump at an angle so the motorcycle wouldn’t fall over on the kickstand side and put the support stick under the foot peg. I also put it in gear so it wouldn’t roll down hill and tip over. There it was setting good enough to fill it with gas. The Harley rider then walked up to me and asked “do you do that every time you fill up with gas?.” I said it does appear that I am struggling. It was the uneven ground that was causing me all this grief. I also have this problem on the sides of roads or on roads that have a high crown in the center. We had a good laugh and at that moment I spotted my gas tank leaking. That was all I needed to make a bad situation worse. Now what am I going to do? I walked inside and asked if there were any garages in town with a mechanic. The young guy in the store told me his girlfriend would know. She came back and he asked her and she told him to tell me to ask the guy up the hill. He might have some ideas. By this time the Honda and Harley Rider came up with the idea of using Seal All that comes in a yellow tube to patch the tank. It can be applied with gas in the tanks and wet or dry. The perfect thing. I checked with the guy up the hill and he said he’d check with the town mechanic and if anyone had it……….it would be him. So off he went. He came back and said the mechanic was gone for the day. So the Harley Rider and the Honda Rider were brainstorming the problem and darned if the Harley Rider didn’t come up with an idea. He said you can take bar of soap and fill in the crack. It will stop the leak. By this time my motorcycle had set in the sun long enough for the gas vapors to pressurize the plastic tank and expand it. This pressure forced the gas to squirt out a hole smaller than a sewing needle. I could see exactly where the hole was. The Harley Rider and Honda Guy had nothing that could help me other than ideas so they left. I thanked them for their help and off they went. I looked at my situation and decide to plug the hole with soap. I first washed all the dirt away and then wiped it with a gas rag. The tank was leaking so gas was plentiful. I went into my shaving kit, got my bar of soap and rubbed it forcefully around in the area of the hole. It stopped the leak. I wiped the excess soap away and dug out my super electrical tape which can solve all electrical problems. I cut off a one inch/25 millimeter long piece and used it as a patch over the top of the leak. I then cut off a six inch /15 centimeter length and wrapped it around the patch, pulling it tight so the patch wouldn’t fall off. It was kind of like wrapping a bandaid around your finger. It wasn’t leaking. I reloaded my motorcycle and pulled it up to the pump again. I filled it with gas, paid for it and I was back on the highway again. I probably drove another 80 miles/130 kilometers and two sections of road construction before I reached the Alaskan Highway near Watson Lake. In that timeframe my patch didn’t leak any gas. I also took pictures at the British Columbia and Yukon Territory border signs. I was going to go into Watson Lake and purchase a tube of Seal All in the yellow tube but since it didn’t leak I continued on to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. Oh my God!!!!!!!!!!You won’t believe this. The old Alaskan Hwy that you heard horror stories about has been changed into a super highway. I traveled from Watson Lake to Teslin at 65/70 mph/100/110 kph. I hope this is true for the rest of the highway. I remember in 1995 when I was up here that there was a lot of construction and road widening. I mentioned to someone that you will be able to drive from Dawson Creek to Alaska at 62 mph/100 kph and they laughed at me. I was more than right. I put the pavement on this road at 10 years old because I see a quite a bit of repair. The first time I drove up here in 1986 the fastest you could drive was 35-40 mph/55-65 kph and then watch out for the semi-trucks. The scenery was mostly rolling wooded countryside. Unbelievably similar to Siberia in Russia, even the same kind of rocks. The farther west I traveled and the nearer I got to Teslin, the mountain and lake scenery improved and was really beautiful. Just before I arrived in Teslin I commented to myself that it sure smells like rain. Before I stopped it was a full rain. I pulled into a motel and booked a room for the night and updated my blog. I went to be bed around 1:30 a.m.

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