DAY 116

July 8, 1999

Patrick left around 10:30am and I left at 11:15am. Just when I thought no one could possibly move any slower than me, I catch up to 2 cyclists moving very slow. Randy and Anna have been cycling now for 10 months and are on their way back to Fairbanks. I slowed my pace and rode with them to "Walkers Continental Divide". Patrick was there talking to 3 other cyclists. One of them was cycling from Prudhoe Bay. I think his name was Jamie. Anyway, he was pulling a very overloaded B.O.B. trailer with a shotgun sticking out of it, and front panniers. Hey now, that’ll shoot out some RV tires huh? :-) Actually, he got it for the road from Prudhoe Bay to Fairbanks because of the Polar bears and Grizzly bears. Well, I’ll just take my chances with the pepper spray. After about an hour and a half of talking, Patrick and I started riding west again
    • 4:00pm – 23.81 miles, 7.5mph avg. Took a break at Swift River Lodge. Headwinds all day so I just pedaled easy and listened to my walkman to help me enjoy the day.
    • 9:15pm – 67.52 miles, 85.mph avg. Arrived at Morely River Lodge. Patrick was about 25 minutes ahead of me.

As soon as I parked my bike, I was swarmed by hundreds of mosquitoes, this was the worst yet. I saturated myself with Deet, which by the way, will eat holes in bike shorts. Darn the bad luck! We built a fire, had dinner, and drank coffee with Kahlua. Most of the evenings discussion was about the stories we heard from the guy that gave us a ride to Ft. Nelson on day 109. We kept laughing and repeating those stories. We decided to send him a postcard to tell him a good bear story. I made up a ridiculous one about the black bear that chased me and hopped on my trailer as I was pedaling 30mph downhill. The bear was after the food in my trailer…and the story continues with a lot of funny, made up, stuff :-) Anyway, we had a good evening with lots of laughter.

Today - 67.52 miles
Total -  5470 miles
Avg. Speed - 8.5mph

 

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