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Trans Americas 2009 - The Blog
The Just One More Mile story of Paul's Trans Americas 2009 motorcycle expedition.Saturday, 25 July 2009
A great send-off...
The penultimate day... tomorrow the trip starts for real as we roll out of Anchorage and head North into the “Last Frontier”...
The day started like any other, with me waking around 7.30am and showering, dressing, breakfasting and updating the blog. Seems the routine is working, although this blog entry has been written in the evening, as tomorrow is an early departure... but more of that tomorrow...
With the morning free, I lounged around sorting out my packing and trying to work out how I ended up with so much stuff. I'm sure when I packed at home it all comfortably fitted in my 2 pannier bags, but now I've filled my top-box as well. And that's with me throwing away my canvass trainers and ditching the box my service kit was in to conserve space. Still, I think I got it sorted eventually, and so I'm ready to go...
By the time I'd sorted out my packing it was time to head off the BBQ being hosted by the local bike “gang” Team Pterodactyl. Rolling out from the hotel in formation again, we rode out of town to Larry's house, a beautiful large house with a massive garage (got some ideas for when we buy the smallholding!), where we were met by several members of the “gang” (they're not really a “gang” as such, but Gina loves to tell the kids at her school that she's part of a gang...) and the food started a-coming. And a-coming... Huge steaks expertly cooked on the BBQ, reindeer sausage (which are delicious), Fresh Alaskan Salmon (the best salmon I've ever tasted, with about 20 times more flavour than the stuff back home), wonderful chewy chocolate brownies, and assorted nibbles (including some real cheese, a rare sight in the US!). We watched a video of Kevin and Julia's fact-finding trip from London-Bejing via Tibet that forms their latest organised expedition (a 10-week trip through some very serious terrain....), which looked fantastic (but first I need to get to Ushuaia!), and then some footage of the gun shoot from yesterday... boy, did we look mean... (ok, no, we didn't, we looked like excited schoolkids!).
The hospitality we've received whilst here in Anchorage has been just fantastic, and I can't really thank Team Pterodactyl enough for all they've done for us, but hope that I'll see them on the road at some point in the future...
Too soon it was time to say our goodbyes, posing first for a team photo in Larry's enormous garage...
So let me introduce them. From left-right, back row (standing): Danielle, Christine, Max, Karen, Ken (hidden being Nick), Nick, Me, Aaron, Jim, Andrew, Julia, Al, Lorraine, Edwin, Jeff (the Van Man); front row (kneeling): Kevin, Gerald, Chris, Nigel, Andy. Missing from the photo are Richard and Mac, not sure why! So that's it, the 22 people who tomorrow morning at 8am will roll out of Anchorage on 18 motorcycles (with Karen, Christine and Lorraine all riding “wingman” [think “Top Gun”]) and 1 Ford Transit van...
It's going to be on hell of an adventure...
The day started like any other, with me waking around 7.30am and showering, dressing, breakfasting and updating the blog. Seems the routine is working, although this blog entry has been written in the evening, as tomorrow is an early departure... but more of that tomorrow...
With the morning free, I lounged around sorting out my packing and trying to work out how I ended up with so much stuff. I'm sure when I packed at home it all comfortably fitted in my 2 pannier bags, but now I've filled my top-box as well. And that's with me throwing away my canvass trainers and ditching the box my service kit was in to conserve space. Still, I think I got it sorted eventually, and so I'm ready to go...
By the time I'd sorted out my packing it was time to head off the BBQ being hosted by the local bike “gang” Team Pterodactyl. Rolling out from the hotel in formation again, we rode out of town to Larry's house, a beautiful large house with a massive garage (got some ideas for when we buy the smallholding!), where we were met by several members of the “gang” (they're not really a “gang” as such, but Gina loves to tell the kids at her school that she's part of a gang...) and the food started a-coming. And a-coming... Huge steaks expertly cooked on the BBQ, reindeer sausage (which are delicious), Fresh Alaskan Salmon (the best salmon I've ever tasted, with about 20 times more flavour than the stuff back home), wonderful chewy chocolate brownies, and assorted nibbles (including some real cheese, a rare sight in the US!). We watched a video of Kevin and Julia's fact-finding trip from London-Bejing via Tibet that forms their latest organised expedition (a 10-week trip through some very serious terrain....), which looked fantastic (but first I need to get to Ushuaia!), and then some footage of the gun shoot from yesterday... boy, did we look mean... (ok, no, we didn't, we looked like excited schoolkids!).
The hospitality we've received whilst here in Anchorage has been just fantastic, and I can't really thank Team Pterodactyl enough for all they've done for us, but hope that I'll see them on the road at some point in the future...
Too soon it was time to say our goodbyes, posing first for a team photo in Larry's enormous garage...
So let me introduce them. From left-right, back row (standing): Danielle, Christine, Max, Karen, Ken (hidden being Nick), Nick, Me, Aaron, Jim, Andrew, Julia, Al, Lorraine, Edwin, Jeff (the Van Man); front row (kneeling): Kevin, Gerald, Chris, Nigel, Andy. Missing from the photo are Richard and Mac, not sure why! So that's it, the 22 people who tomorrow morning at 8am will roll out of Anchorage on 18 motorcycles (with Karen, Christine and Lorraine all riding “wingman” [think “Top Gun”]) and 1 Ford Transit van...
It's going to be on hell of an adventure...
posted by Paul # 18:00 
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