Days 7, 8, 9

We made it to Delta Junction the evening of July 3rd and headed out to my brother-in-laws cabin on the Delta River. It has been a wet few days. On July 3rd we left Watson Lake on a cool cloudy day but did not run into any rain. We stopped in Whitehorse and picked up some oil at the Canadian tire shop and headed to Otter Falls Cutoff RV Park to spend the night. We rode 356 miles on Friday.

Saturday was another a cool day but dry until about 4:30 in the afternoon. We saw a Grizzly just pastthe Kolane Lake area. After lunch at Buskshot Betty's in the little berg of Beaver Creek where Ron had eaten at 3 years ago on his first motorcycle trip to Alask,a we crossed the border back into the United States. We stopped about 3 minutes too late to get all of our rain gear on and headed out for Delta Junction. Arrived about 7:30 and took out the map to to find Dan's place.

We had ridden 432 miles on Saturday and reached the end of the 1422 miles of the Alaska Highway, 3200 miles from Littleton. I was suprised at the quality of the roadway for most of the Alaska Highway. It is all paved and smooth until about the Kolane Lake area then it deteriorated from there North. Frost heaves and pot holes make the motorhomes and 5th wheels have a rough go of it. It is just fun on a motorcycle.

On the 4th of July we headed over to Dan's buddy Wilkey's house with the motorcycle/snow machine garage that we used to change tires, oil and perform other maintenance items. My left head gasket has been weeping so I checked the compression, head torque and set the valve clearance. All looks good for the push to Prudhoe Bay. After the bike work was done, we walked out to Wilkey's beach on the Tanana River and had a fire, beer, fireworks, guns, music and tomahawk throwing for the remainder of the forth.

Made soome reservations at Cold Foot and Prudhoe Bay for the next three nights and got groceries for the trip North.