July 23, 2000 - Talkeetna, AK to Fairbanks, AK - 295 miles

WHOOOPEEEEE !!!  We made it to our farthest North destination, FAIRBANKS, ALASKA !!!!  

(The Honda shop had the best "Fairbanks" sign we could find, to prove we'd arrived.)

We have traveled just over 5,600 miles from Albuquerque to Fairbanks!  (You can get here on a shorter route, but not one with as much fun and good scenery as we took.)  Since Norm rode about 1,900 miles from Vandalia, Ohio to join me in Albuquerque; he now has ridden about 7,500 miles since leaving home!

This was a day of riding in the rain - several times.  We started from Talkeetna in a heavy drizzle, and rode for about 80 miles in that.  Then off and on during the day we hit localized showers - four or five of them.  The net result was that we rode probably 200 miles in various rain showers.  It didn't bother us much though, as we just put on our rain jackets and pants, slowed down, and continued riding.  By the way, the temperature was fairly low, about 50^oF, so we had to keep bundled up.

We didn't get to see Denali (Mt. McKinley), as the clouds were just too low with the rain.  When we got to Denali National Park, the clouds were also too low to see more that the tops of the lower mountains.  However, since both Norm and I had been to Denali Park before, we didn't feel bad about having to just keep going.

The scenery was very good again, with surprising changes in types of trees and tundra type vegetation as we went either up or down in elevation.  The "skinny" alpine Black Spruce dominate the areas of most cold, and other spruces dominate the areas with more rain and probably not as cold temperatures.  We both remembered the area around Fairbanks as rolling hills (from one previous visit each to Fairbanks), but were surprised to see how large the hills were.

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