Day Whenever..

Well I made it back to the lower 48. It was a long 2,300 miles through the usual construction, rain, muck and brilliant days. The road was mainly a two lane deal with an occasional passing lane on the hills. I saw plenty of wild animals along the road. There were bears, goats, lambs, rams, wild horses and of course more moose. I didn’t even attempt to take pictures.

I left Fairbanks on Saturday and rode to Haines Junction and arrived around midnight. All the gas stations were closed for the night but there was a bluegrass festival going on down the road a bit so I stopped in to watch the Bootstrap Band play their last set. They finished up around 2:30 in the morning and everyone called it a night. There wasn’t any place available to stay due to the festival so I tried closing my eyes sitting on the bike and gave up on that with the mosquitoes buzzing around. I just road up and down the junction slowly for a few miles in each direction and then one station opened at 6am and I was able to fill up and move on down the line.

Even with that stop I still logged 1,000 miles that day and night and day before stopping. The next day I only made it about 350 miles due to the weather again but made it up with another 1,000 mile marathon ride which brought me to Vancouver B.C. Wednesday morning. I had to wait until 8am before they opened the gates and started checking people.

Once I made it to the USA side I stopped and washed the bike and then grab a bite to eat. I figured I would make Spokane before I stopped for the day but you never know what a day may bring to change my plans.

I was heading down Interstate 5 heading toward Seattle and when I took an exit ramp I went to downshift. I know I had been up for 30 hours riding at this point but when I went to push the downshift lever it wasn’t there! I felt for it again but I couldn’t find it and pulled the clutch in and drifted to the side to see what the problem was. The lever was there but the front lever stripped its sprocket and was down resting on the fairing. I got my tools out and unscrewed the set screws and tried putting it all back together.

I then turned around and headed back up the interstate to the Harley shop about 25 miles back. By the time I reached the dealer the downshift had fallen off again but I thought ahead and set the rear shift up a little higher just incase I needed to use it to shift both ways. The guys at the shop did the same thing I did and reset everything but it didn’t even make it a block before it fell off again. They said the teeth were worn down but that part had to be ordered and is a major operation to put it in. I elected to just try to make it back using the rear lever.

I stopped and got a room and made some calls about maybe renting a U-Haul or Budget truck but $2,300 is too much for a one way truck. So keep me in your prayers as I will be leaving Seattle early Thursday morning and doing my 1000 mile marathons again. To add another glitch to the mess my cruise control is acting up. The guys at the shop said they couldn’t look at that without an appointment. I will wait until I ride back to PA to get it looked at.

Some may look at this and get discouraged but I look at it from another point of view. This all could have very well have happened when I was in the middle of nowhere in Alaska or Canada. But I am back in the states, I have good interstate roads to travel on and won’t have to shift much and there is always someone going by to lend a hand. There were times I could go for hours without seeing another car or truck and then there were the bears on the roads.

Nowhere does it say we won’t have trials to go through but I am watched over and these too will pass. I should still roll in sometime Sunday night and be at work Monday morning. Life is what you make of it and I just look at it as another adventure page in my book of life.

I think these pictures will probably be my last. There were some beautiful sunset reflections to remember along the way. I’ll still stop and snap pictures if something catches my eye and just upload them when I get home.

See you soon!
Carl Fetchmor