Well, today marks the official start of my return trip to Virginia! I have ridden a total of 6,415 miles since I left on June7. I left early before breakfast at the lodge and stopped to gas up in the very little town of Fox, Alaska. Asked the gas store clerk where a good place for breakfast and she said go out to the end of the parking lot and a lady in a little log house cooks out there. Sure enough a lady who calls herself Granny was there. I got the homemade sausage gravy and biscuits. It was very good. The kind of gravy you can almost cut with a knife. She perks her coffee in a large "chuck-wagon" style peculator on her stove (I told her that the coffee was good, so she showed me the pot and how she made it. That was cool!) Several other guys came by on their way to work and ordered from her too. It was great and I got to meet and talk to several of the locals. One guy was orginally from North Carolina, near Wilmington. He came to Alaska several years ago to find work. He drives a big dump truck for the Fort Knox Gold Mine near the lodge I stayed at. I went on to visit the Fairbanks Harley Davidson shop and buy a tee shirt from the most northern Harley shop in the world!
Saw and talked to a lot of riders there. Stopped, took a few pictures and had lunch in North Pole, Alaska. All the street lights are designed like candy canes. I had lunch at the Country Cafe in North Pole.
This restaurant was visited by Guy Fieri a couple of years ago on a Christmas time special. They had picture of Guy in the restauarant. It was excellent and quite a lot of food for lunch. I think I included a pic of the lunch!
Headed on for Tok for the night. About 30 miles away from Tok it started raining and the temp dropped from 75 to 49!! I pulled over to put on the raingear at a wide spot and a guy on a bicycle was there too putting on his raingear. We started talking and he was also from North Carolina (Pilot Mountain)!! He was about my age and had retired last year. He decided he wanted to do something special for retirement so he just started training on bicycle riding last year after he retired. He then decided to ride a bicycle from Alaska to North Carolina!! So this was the start of his retirement trip. He had shipped his bicycle and had just flown to Fairbanks. Gees, made my little ole retirement motorcycle trip not seem that big of a deal (then I thought after I left him, hey, I rode all the way to Alaska and now I am riding all the way back!! Heck, he flew one way!! hehe!) Anyway, we suited up and parted. I doubt I will see him again. Wish I had asked if he had a web site/blog for his trip as I am sure it would be interesting! I did 251 miles for the day.
Saw and talked to a lot of riders there. Stopped, took a few pictures and had lunch in North Pole, Alaska. All the street lights are designed like candy canes. I had lunch at the Country Cafe in North Pole.
This restaurant was visited by Guy Fieri a couple of years ago on a Christmas time special. They had picture of Guy in the restauarant. It was excellent and quite a lot of food for lunch. I think I included a pic of the lunch!
Headed on for Tok for the night. About 30 miles away from Tok it started raining and the temp dropped from 75 to 49!! I pulled over to put on the raingear at a wide spot and a guy on a bicycle was there too putting on his raingear. We started talking and he was also from North Carolina (Pilot Mountain)!! He was about my age and had retired last year. He decided he wanted to do something special for retirement so he just started training on bicycle riding last year after he retired. He then decided to ride a bicycle from Alaska to North Carolina!! So this was the start of his retirement trip. He had shipped his bicycle and had just flown to Fairbanks. Gees, made my little ole retirement motorcycle trip not seem that big of a deal (then I thought after I left him, hey, I rode all the way to Alaska and now I am riding all the way back!! Heck, he flew one way!! hehe!) Anyway, we suited up and parted. I doubt I will see him again. Wish I had asked if he had a web site/blog for his trip as I am sure it would be interesting! I did 251 miles for the day.
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