Anchorage

Made it home from Alaska on Wednesday afternoon. It was a great trip. We got to see a bit of the "Last Frontier" while on the train and on the bus trip in Denali National Park. Anchorage is like most big cities, at least while we were there. I imagine it'll change a bit once the weather starts turning and the tourists go home. That'll be coming up pretty quick they say. The train will stop running the daily excursions in about two weeks and the lodge in the park will do likewise. The lodge where we had lunch on the bus ride is at the end of the road 92 miles from the park entrance. The first 15 miles are paved and then it turns to gravel. The gravel is pretty well maintained but I would think keeping it in good shape is a never ending chore.

There were shuttle busses running most everywhere you wanted to go around town, so transportation wasn't an issue. We caught the Ulu Factory shuttle right next to our hotel and it dropped us off uptown right next to the visitor's center. On the second day of the trip Cousin Kirk and I were discussing what to do next when a shuttle from the Harley dealer pulled up. We decided to give that a go and off we went with Eddie at the wheel. Eddie's a retired firefighter from Anchorage and is a couple of years younger than me. He gave us the guided tour of the bike shop and cracked jokes along the way.

The shop had some nice used bikes on display as well as the new inventory. They also store bikes for customers over the winter. The prices on the new bikes seemed higher than what you would pay here in Indiana but I'm not an expert on any of the new bikes but it would be easy enough to get the MSRP off the internet and compare. As we were leaving the HD dealership, I just happened to look across the parking lot and noticed the Motoquest shop. 

There was an article in Motorcyclist magazine about them that I had read just a few days before leaving. I had considered looking the place up and then it just fell into my lap. I ran over there and talked to a nice young lady who answered a few of my questions and put me on the e-mail list. I've never done a long distance bike tour and they do tours in 20 different countries and rent bikes for solo tours as well. I'm going to check into that and see what's available. The Missus is not real comfortable with me setting out on my own on a bike tour but I might be able to get her to buy in on a group tour. She's very understanding of my wanderlust, but there is a limit. I don't want to push that limit - there's still a few other places I want to go.

Now that I've got my laundry done, the grass mowed and the litter box emptied out, I'll post a few more photos from the trip tomorrow.