The pause at the junction was refreshing, I actually squirted my bike off, and while using their high pressure wash hose, a friendly traveler did me the courtesy of shooting my old corpse with it too.  The weather has bee muddy for so long, and the road was actually paved ahead, what would be the harm of rinsing off the crusts of calcium chloride from just about every surface?  You dare not shoot it while the bike is hot, and so I relaxed for a while until it cooled off.  I tell you, where the heat from the cylinder fins, oil cooler and the pipes had baked it, that mud was like rock.  My rain suit looked exactly the same color, and the mud was trying to abrade through the fabric.

Back to navigation; we are just rejoining the Klondike Loop, after 'doing the Dempster' up and down.  The Klondike Loop started way back, over by Whitehorse, and although it is over 300 miles long by itself, we had already done about 300 before cutting up through the Yukon and Northwest Territories.  Rejoining it, there is only a couple of dozen miles to go to get to Dawson City.  So my bike is now clean for the city folk; -- don't want to disappoint them.  This junction is also where the Klondike River and the North Klondike rivers split (or I guess join) which makes for spectacular scenery and more tourist traps for gold panning, mining, history, restorations and such than I could stand.  My meanderings up to the 'Circle were lonely affairs with days passing without seeing another soul.  Now it gets pretty intense and commercial, and I guess my attitude took a long while to catch up.

I saw signs for this gold dredge, but when I got there there were people telling me where to park, asking which of several grades of tickets I planned on, to go now and eat here and buy this ---- whoa.  I just stopped, looked around at the place, and drove off down the road.  Maybe I was tired, but I couldn't stand it.  What I did do was drive up a game trail (yup and got muddy again) to find a secluded site.  I didn't actually camp, but I rested, walked and took a nap.

Dawson City is only 165 miles South of the Arctic Circle, where the Klondike and Yukon rivers meet.  Now where would you look for a more exciting hunk of country?  It does get to you after a while, thinking about how these old guys lived large and did big.  I really do think that oil wells in some desert take a lot of engineering to find and accomplish, but the old fart on his Harley can appreciate how it must have been around here.  If I am sliding around this game trail (why is it always easier to go up than it is back down?), imagine what they had to go through.  Hell, now that I have my belt drive instead of a chain, even the sand wouldn't bother me.  The fact that it is set into the most wonderful natural beauty also adds to the conflict.  I know they didn't care too much for pollution and the huge scars from the placer mines are visible if you look for them.  So, back before the turn of the (last) century, it all hit hard when they found the richest gold strike in North America.  It is still being actually mined.  This is not all tourist trap crap Disneyland, arranged for my entertainment.  When you see those old documentaries showing the line of people climbing the Chilkoot pass, carrying their two tons of provisions each, they were trying to get right here .  Damn, I just bopped on up on my little bike, and only had a chance to whine about my sore butt.  Harley could have made a fortune in 1898!

So I parked the grubby old Sporty somewhere near the center of town.  Instead of going to the Gaslight Follies (I would have had a tough time explaining that to Judy) I joined a walking/guided tour.  Although mostly forgotten, it was most informative and gave you the facts included in the above paragraph.  I hope my memory (as put into my notebook) got it right.

So I'm wandering around, actually not railing against the exhibits, because the people are friendly and don't really care if you are spending your hard-earned money or not.  I think this is such a busy time of year for them, they know they will sell out of whatever they want, and can plainly see I am not here to impress anybody, and couldn't carry much if I was!
 

Now why this guy hasn't been washed downstream yet really impresses me.

That gravel just behind the fence is all that is holding back the river, and I doubt if there is more than a couple of feet above the water line...

As I was looking at his cool gravestone and sod roof, I noticed these Caribou racks all over.  Now, just for fun, I went back and re-read my little encounter with the moose, and my legs got all wobbly.  Maybe there was a connection, maybe not, but I immediately set off to find what kind of tequila this town could find.

While waiting, I whipped out the 200 mm and recorded the first image of the "Top of the World Highway" as seen from across the Yukon river.  There is a campground just over there, and those guys down by the water also had some beer.  One more thing.  That is one more graded gravel road ahead of us, again, and the big orange tanker was trying to keep the dust down for me but finally gave up.  I think it was when I passed him.

Since both the ferry and the beer were free, I was doing all right, just having to pay for gas and the tequila.  I can't remember which was more volatile, but the climbing curves on the gravel went smoothly.  Now this is a fun little jaunt.  The Alaska Highway is only 175 miles, the weather is great, and life is good.  I am heading back to the old US of A, having spent many days in the various Canadian provinces, territories, and the occasional ditch.

I really couldn't poke around much, because the signs explaining the border crossing warn, incessantly, that if you don't show up when they are open, you should just sit there and wait, or amazing frontier justice will be doled out to you and the horse you rode in on.  I am never surprised by traffic.  You can see the dust cloud miles away, but then as we climb higher and higher the weather gets a little damp again, cools off, and when I stop for a break, I find that I am all alone again.  I walked down the the old mining road behind this cabin, ate my premium mixed nuts and buttermilk, and after about 45 minutes realized that no car or truck had passed.  This is the "Top of the World" but really only about 4500 ft. elevation.  It is supposed to be desolate and forbidding, but I just found it enchanting.  This cabin must have been a rest and cache spot for the old travelers, and you might imagine the interior now, but I won't describe it to you.  Some things are better left unsaid.  The time zones may have got me, I figure, and knew for sure that I was going to miss the border crossing business hours.  I panic and take off at an immoderate rate of speed.  I am already composing my speech to the last Canadian Mountie Police - but I never saw one.

Hey, fear not.  The old scooter was just romping.  As the mist got colder, I whipped out my cleaned rain suit, and actually had to wrap a scarf below the chin whiskers.  Pretty grim sight, but I never promised you all beauty all the time.  The U.S. ranger and I spoke at length.  Why, you ask.  See, just above my headlight?  That is his pistol target.  Now those of you who know me; I don't have to explain, we went on for an hour.  But I digress. 

Just literally minutes down the road, I had to slam on the brakes again, and this time there was no ranger to do the camera.  Not bad for just resting the Nikon on the bike seat, dashing out there like a mad fool in the wind, and getting the banner just in the lee of the sign just in time.  I just looked at this picture; OK, next time I'll keep my helmet on...

I romp on, happy to have made another milestone; my 49th. State on a Sportster!

But wait.  Just now, you and I need to talk.
Why does one travel, for the sake of traveling?  If you haven't thought about it, done it, you should.

Don't go on a structured, scheduled, strictured project to do this, see that, and be home by just then.

Let go.  My goals for what you are reading, before I left, were to get out there again for about a month, and see what would happen.  Sure I read the Milepost and debated with Dave about Alaska, but if I had just gone up to somewhere, had fun and cleared the tension, and came back to Judy a little more sane in the head, that would have been a valuable return on the investment.

But to answer the question, why to travel, you need to go back.  I mean way back.  My pal Ulysses just took off, with (in my opinion) an ill-formed plan and not much in the way of proper preparation.  He got more than he bargained for, and that's the point.  Back in the foggy sixties, we called it the Serendip.  Practically, it goes like this:

1. When we're not doing it, the travel thing, you and I know what we are going to be doing next week, next month, next hour, etc.  That's OK, and is nothing to be ashamed of, I guess.
2. But, fling yourself to the Fates, go back over backwards off the speaker into the crowd, let yourself GO on a journey and things change.  I'm a binary bit-head, and what happens is just one of two possibilities:  "Things" will either get better, or they will get worse.  Without any doubt, when you do it right, they won't stay the same.
3. So, lets say, things happen to get worse at first.

Go back to #1 in this argument, and see that we have progressed beyond that.  Number two says we have changed, and can make change happen.  So, when things are bad, start up the damn bike and move on down the road.  Things will change.
4. And here we are.  Things change because we are moving, and, by chance, they get better.  Smile.  Inhale.  Swing out the kick stand and stay awhile.  If you put yourself in new, unknown circumstances often enough, you will hit a good one, and the easy part is not any harder than seeing it, stopping for a while and soaking it up.  I admit, I can't pre-organize the good outcomes, even when I can spend money, plan the trip, and take good advice.  I'm just not good enough.  But, with letting go of the problem, it solves itself.  Let's stop right here.
5. And just contemplate the secret:  Be guided by what happens, not dominated by what you believe.  Experience the touch of reality that is given to you by chance.  If you are master, and the determinator of all you survey by the strength of your convictions, you certainly may have an effect on reality.  But if you want to learn, to grow, you gotta let loose.  You need to absorb rather than fire your big gun.  I even bet, you can't out-think your most capable critics.  Have fun, look for a clue.

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now, you be good.   Don't break bad about me getting maudlin.  Get your butt up off the chair, get up here,
and when you soak up your own impressions, I'll listen and learn from you.  I swear.