pedalpanam

I started my day off in Hyder, AK at the bear viewing boardwalk.  It is a little creek and pond where bears, black and grizzly come to feast on salmon, and tourists with ginourmous lenses wait to take pictures from a boardwalk.  After about an hour I had only seen a bear way in the distance, and decided to see the Salmon glacier. Continue reading Houston, BC

[Dear readers, I thought this update had gone through, but it turns out it didn't.  So here it is anyway, 5 days late.]

A quick update to say that after 14 days on the bike, with the last week being particularly rough with a doubly whammy of stomach illness and awful headwinds, I’m taking a day off in Hyder, Alaska.  It is the southernmost city in Alaska you can drive to, only 40 miles off the Cassiar Hwy.  I left my bike in Meziadin Junction, and hitched a ride with a couple and their daughter from Spain.

More tomorrow!

Hey guys…Karen here again.

Before Matt’s big trip I wasn’t  one to answer my cell phone when I didn’t recognise the phone number. This summer I quickly learned that I really do need to answer it because most likely it is Matt calling from the middle of nowhere letting me know he’s alive. The second lesson I’ve learned is to carry a pen and paper with me wherever I go or else I won’t remember where he is.

The last phone call I received from Matt was on Monday August 17th. His phone card was down to 3 minutes. Before the recorded voice interrupted us to tell us the phone card was almost done I was able to get the following update:

Matt is still on the Cassiar Highway, halfway between the Alaska and Yellowhead Highway. He had to take a few days off because he was sick for a while but is feeling better and his journey continues….

Hello everyone! This is Matt’s sister Karen. Matt called me last night (Monday August 10th) to let me know that he is 20 miles west of Watson Lake at the intersection of Highway 1 and Highway 37.
Instead of taking the Alaska Highway to Dawson Creek he will be taking Cassiar Highway south to Yellowhead Highway which will take him east to Prince George.

I think I got the details right but I apologize if I didn’t. Matt sounded good but we weren’t sure how expensive the call was so we kept it short. If he doesn’t have internet access he will call me and I will give the next update.

I’ve thought about writing a post that would tell you about all the connections of some of the people and places on this trip so far.  A few would be about cyclists that I’ve run into a few times, others would be about people we met along the way that recalled meeting cyclists I’d heard of that came through just the other day or years before.  The moral of the story would be that especially when biking through parts that often only have one or two highways through it, cyclists and people who have met these cyclists will often run into each other more than once.

But for now I’ll tell you a little story about some folks I met on the train almost two months ago sometime around Montana.  Karl and Emmy had hitchhiked their way from the east coast and were behind schedule, so had to get on the train.  They were spending some time in Seattle and then headed to Alaska.  We chatted and played cards for a few hours in the observation car on the train.  Great folks, and talking with them convinced me that if I wasn’t biking arond, hitchhiking would be the best way to see places and meet people.  So many cars going everywhere with empty seats…

Anyway, a month later I was in Fairbanks just having repaired my rim and trying to figure out how to get back to Delta Junction.  I looked at the ride-share page on Craigslist, and noticed a Karl needing a ride from Fairbanks to Tok, same direction I was headed, and the area code was from Maine!  I had a feeling I knew who it was.  I called, sure enough, it was Karl from the train.  He was on his way back to Maine after his time in Alaska.  He hadn’t found a ride from anyone yet so I didn’t actually meet up with him, and later that day I would end up taking a shuttle back to Delta.

Now here comes the crazy part.  We were no more than a mile or two out of Whitehorse yesterday when I saw two hitchhikers ahead.  I had some witty remark all prepared for them (“Jump in, make sure to buckle up”), and then, my jaw dropped and I let out a big yell.  It was Emmy!  Her and another friend were hitching from Alaska across Canada and had been dropped off by their previous ride only a few minutes before we biked by.

After a reluctant departure from the bakery, this encounter brought a much needed smile to my face.  Emmy is the only person I’ve run into that I knew before starting the trip in Alaska.  We chatted for a bit, and saw them wave from a car a little while after.  Good luck Emmy and friend on your way back home!

PS.  All the hitchhikers I’ve encountered (myself included) on this trip seem like safe, interesting people.   If and when I get a car, I’ll look forward to picking them up.

In an interesting turn of events after my last update, we ended up staying in Whitehorse on Tuesday to help out at the bakery run by our host we found through couchsurfing.org.  A great place with amazing food and people!

We liked it so much we’re staying another day, and will probably get going again Thursday morning (though it will be very hard to leave).