Tok, AK to Fairbanks: Making new friends

After last night’s storm, we awoke to clean skies and dry roads. We took the time to wash the biggest chunks of mud off the motorcycles and to re-lube the chains before saddling up and moving on.

Just a few miles out of town, a yellow hot-rod passed us as if we were standing still and a few seconds later a black one did the same. In seconds they were gone. We stopped at Delta Junction (the official end of the Al-Can highway) for fuel and lunch. As we were fueling and asking the locals for a recommendation as to a place to eat, we met a couple on a Goldwing and invited them to join us for lunch. As we rode to lunch, two V-Strom’s – identical to mine – passed by; we found them again at the restaurant. So, Larry from California, Willie from Mc Call, ID (the V-Strom riders), John and Peg from the mid-west and us ate together and had a whooping good time of laughter and tales. Larry and Willie are two former motorcycle racers (they settled down to responsible lives in the early seventies); they are going to the Arctic Circle. John and Peg had decided that for their 50^th anniversary, rather than a big banquet/reception at a hotel, they would fire up their 1992 Goldwing and ride up-to and around Alaska! Way to go - dream big and keep the romance going!

Somehow in the conversation, Larry and Willie mentioned that the night before they had a fun dinner with two guys: Bruce and Bob who also were going to the Arctic Circle but in hot-rods. When asked, they verified that one was yellow and one black: the very ones we saw.

We exchanged phone numbers with Larry in order to “try to get together for dinner in Fairbanks if practicable”.

Fairbanks was hosting its Golden Days so rooms were either all taken or at a steep premium. Julia and I were referred to a Bed and Breakfast. There we found the two hot-rods. Bruce – the owner/driver of the yellow one – mentioned that the night before they had dinner with two V-Strom riders and actually hoped to connect with them for this day’s dinner. We asked if they were Larry and Willie … to make a story short, Larry and Willie, Bruce (Grants Pass, OR) and Bob (Napa, CA) and Julia and I all ate together at the Pad Tai House on College Drive (the best Tai food any of us ever had). We laughed a lot and listened to hot-rod stories. Both Bob and Bruce had been mechanical nuts all their lives and raced since they were teenagers (I think that to this day they would raced anything, anywhere, at anytime of the day or night). They had finished exchanging engines and transmissions on the two hot-rods (originally Ford 31’ and 32’s) only the night before they began their journey. Normally they run tricked-up engines and transmissions that dyno at or just short of 800 hp! For the trip they deemed it wise to run detuned versions at respectively 500 and 570 hp. They drive them as open buckets: they do not have tops … rain or shine. Their ages? … hard to tell, but Bob has a magnificent head of white hair around a wrinkled, kindly, bespectacled face and Bruce has been retired from Chrysler for years and years! Since the “hot-rodders” and ourselves “lived” at the same address that night we joined them for after dinners and more stories, time flew and it was 11:30 PM (and still quite light out) when we all decided to retire to bed.

The day before, we had played tag with another team of travelers: Suzy and Kathy who are traveling into and around Alaska in an SUV. We kept running into them at refueling stops, potty stops, lunch, etc. They even shared their candy with Julia. Too bad we lost them in Fairbanks; we will miss their smiling faces.

Total mileage for the day: 225, scenery spectacular.