A New Friend Made

Friday, July 29, Day 36
Dawson City to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory

Yukon Rest Area along the Alaska Highway. These were ubiquitous and handy. Always the same two little green one-hole outhouses dressed in white trim.

Cruisin along the Stewart River

River crossings were many, lots of rivers.
Sharp Shadow is in this picture!

Another beautiful river, another crossing

At 1250 I'm sitting at a table at the Selkirk Centre at Pelly Crossing, a general store, having a cup of machine-made cappuccino and my last night's leftover hamburger from Riverwest Cafe reheated in their microwave.

The generous cashier would not take my credit card nor my US $20 bill and instead insisted she buy my cup of coffee. I protested that I was going to also use her bathroom and only barely succeeded in leaving her with all the change in my pocket, around 75 cents US, a double-discount on the 80 cent Canadian price considering the exchange rate now favors the Canadian dollar.

On long stretches of easy, rolling good road, I lock the throttle, sit back and enjoy the scenery and meditatively hum along, kilometer by kilometer. Today has been a good driving day so far and the kms are ticking off.

So far today I have been often escorted by my fickle friend Sharp Shadow, but sometimes round a corner or top a hill and he disappears as if frightened off the clouds in the distance. I don't understand his behavior, as they have been impotent for the most part and only enhance the beauty of the sky without extracting a toll.

But looking down the highway, what do I see ?

Not just pretty sky decorations, these were speaking to me in loud cracks and booms.

See the grocery bags over my boots...they are not there as a fashion statement!

Glad I did that! Then the heavy soaking rain got really bouncy -- bouncing from my helmet, ricocheting into the windscreen, every which way like pinballs. It took a few seconds to realize that this phenomena is motorcycling in hail.

It was late by the time I got to Whitehorse, partly wet, somewhat cold and definitely hungry. When I went in to pay for gas at the local supermarket, I asked the clerk if she knew of a hostel in town, as the thought of pitching my tent in the darkening evening rain was not so palatable. As is so common here in these small northern towns, she knew many of her patrons and asked one of them for his help. That was how I met grocery shopper Pat Maltais. A fellow motorcyclist, he invited me, there on the spot, to his home, and I accepted. Down the road we went.

Here is Pat with his dogs Shade & Ranger in front of his cabin house near Takhini Hotsprings, outside of Whitehorse.

Pat has a pride and joy beautiful KLR cross bike that he got a out a year ago. He took my bike for a spin and liked it, found it very different than his. His is really the appropriate machine here. He generously offered me a test ride on his but I was ready to hit the shower and get warm and eat the sandwich I bought at the grocery market where I met Pat.

My stuff strewn about the room at Pat's, an effort to dry out. Pat often has guests staying with him because he is a Couch Surfing host; see www.couchsurfing.org.

Shade and Ranger.