Arctic Circle Jerks Part 2: Graffiti, Firewater, and Gravel

Arctic Circle Jerks: Part 1, for those just joining us.

So anyway, we looked around for something to siphon gas from or whatever, and then made elaborate plans to put all of Chris's gas in my tank so I could make it to a side road 30 miles up that led to a station 20 miles off the main road, and then bring back my full tank plus all 3 ItzaGasCans full so we could both make it to the next station down the road.

As it turns out, though, there was another open station not more than 5 miles down the road that wasn't on my map. This is because my map was a copy of the Milepost from 2003 (I am a genius), which was woefully out of date with regard to where fuel was.

So we filled up our tanks plus one of the emergency cans, just in case:


and Chris transformed into a ninja, with his new fleece cold weather gear and an official Harley-Davidson balaclava he picked up in Prince George. Note that the gas is $1.21 per litre:


We finally made it to Fort Nelson that night, where we had not managed to find a Couchsurfing host, so we put up our tent at a campsite at the edge of town, but not before visiting the local liquor store--it had been a really long and painful day and there's no way we were going to end it sober.

Have I mentioned my seat yet? The Suzuki DR650SE has the worst seat I've ever had the misfortune to do any distance on. To give you some context on this statement, I once did a round trip from LA to San Fran on this:



Yes, that seat is a license plate. The padded thing is a backrest. The bike's name was Gary. And that seat wasn't as bad as the godawful thing on the DR. I don't have a big ass by any reasonable ass measure, but the seat on the DR had at least an inch and a half of my ass hanging off each side of it, and was hard as a rock. So those first few days of the trip, I think I had some idea of what it feels like after some of the bad prison lovin'. Eventually I had the genius idea to turn that self-inflating sleeping pad into a ghetto air-filled seat cushion, which still wasn't all that great, but improved greatly on the alternative.

So I was still getting it prison style, but it was the lonely prison sex now instead of the angry prison sex, which is to say, with more lube and less punching. At this point I'd take what I could get.

Which brings us back to the need to drink. We picked up a bottle of Dr. McGillicuddy's Fireball Whisky and opened it up after we had settled in for the night.

Chris, Nate:


Meet Dr. McGillicuddy:





Truly, a pleasure to meet you.





and this is our tiny 32-year-old backpacker tent, set up there in Fort Nelson:


So the next morning, we had some trailmix, shared stories of hilarious sexual misadventures with each other's moms, and we were off, heading for Whitehorse:


We stopped at a small turnout to get some shots of the gorgeous scenery out here in the far outskirts of nowhere:







Hey, is that graffiti?

Nope, that's a shitload of graffiti!


"Dana Tubman smokes fatties with Brad"--kickass.


"Miller Mayes smells like [picture of poop] POOP"--I love the dedication to the message here, where they illustrated it, just in case you were not at all familiar with poop. Mad props, yo.

What can I say, I was inspired. So I whipped out a blue Sharpie and added my own, which I had spent the last 2 hours composing in my head:

There once was a native Alaskan,
Whose ass could be had for the askin'--
They say her caboose
Could handle a moose,
But had odors in dire need of maskin'.

I actually composed a second limerick as well, which was incredibly clever but so dirty it offended even me, so I'm not going to share that one. It really is that bad.

So we kept on, and passed Muncho Lake, which was gorgeous:


and then the famous Signpost Forest, in Watson Lake, BC, made from thousands of stolen roadsigns from all around the world, sort of like a frat house without any house or frat boys. Or beer, which I could have used at that point:




A while down the road, I had to pee. Bad. I kid you not, this was not a planned photo op--I stopped, whipped it out, and was peeing long enough for Chris to stop his bike, get off, see that I was pissing, start laughing that it was taking so long to finish, and THEN pull off his helmet and gloves, dig out his camera and take a picture, and then bust out laughing again because he seriously couldn't believe it. I must have been really using the Camelbak that day, because I am not exaggerating when I say that it took me a good 90 seconds at max flow rate to fully relieve myself:


I didn't even take the time to lose the helmet, that's how bad I had to go.

Man, that was awesome.

Anyhoo, we stopped in Whitehorse, Yukon that night and couchsurfed with a charming lady named Mel:


She let us cook bison burgers on her stove and use her internet and bring all our crap inside from the cold:


So I figured I'd repay her by letting Chris wash the dishes:


We crashed on her couches, and then woke up as cheery could be:


...and took off into the morning, heading for Fairbanks, Alaska.

I could probably just replace a lot of these pictures with the statement "and there was more nature stuff", but that just wouldn't properly communicate just how much fuckin' nature we passed. Anyone who likes space and trees should come up here, because this part of the world is big as damn.

Big as damn.



Here's Chris, showing the ideal position for super-long-distance riding on a sportbike. Laying on the tank, feet hooked over the passenger pegs. Works pretty well, although it looks strange.

Also, by this point Chris had gotten wise and gotten himself a Camelbak as well. I don't think either of us would attempt another serious road trip without one.


Speaking of big as damn:




I think that's Kluane Lake. It's pretty fuckin' large.

Gratuitous "parking in a no parking zone" shot:



Chris takes a squeegee to his bike:



I don't bother. We've been slaughtering bugs by the handful for the last 2 or 3 days, and we will continue to do so for a while, so I'll just let it be for now:

In retrospect, maybe I should have at least scraped off my headlight - there wasn't much light coming through the mass of dead bugs at that point.



The sky was angry that day, my friends, but I've never seen it more beautiful:

































The roads had only started to get shitty the day before, on our way from Fort Nelson to Whitehorse. Discontinuous permafrost and frost heaving tear the shit out of the roads, so the Alaska Highway, which is what we were on for a huge portion of the trip, is always under construction. And by "under construction", I mean "covered in 2 inches of loose gravel for some fucking reason".





If you're in an RV or a truck, it's no big deal, even though the retarded RV drivers slow down to about 30 over the stuff anyway. On a dualsport bike with 80% street-oriented tires, it's pretty shitty. On a sportbike, it's terrifying, like skating on marbles. Not including the infamous Dalton Highway, we probably did at least 80 miles of shitty terrifying gravel construction roads, and we did not particularly enjoy them:


After enough of that shit, Chris was considering lighting himself on fire with his Bag O' Gas (which is what those cardboard gas cans become after some rain) as a rational alternative to more gravel riding:


As a bonus, the weather started getting exciting somewhere around Fort Nelson. It would be a gorgeous sunny day, birds singing and moose humping at the side of the road, and then the road would change direction all of a sudden and put you right under a gigantic pouring raincloud. 20 minutes later, you'd turn a corner, head down into a valley, and it would be that gorgeous day again. Through most of upper BC and the Yukon, this cycle ended up repeating sometimes 12 times a day.

On the upside, though, the periodic rain helped wash the layer of dead bugs off my faceshield. Hey, glass half full! (Full of bugs.)

Anyhoo, we made it to Fairbanks late that night, after 590 miles of gravel and rain. We stopped at a Fred Meyers to pick up some food and other supplies, and our lady cashier had a mustache. I guess that's just how they roll here in Alaska.

And then we ate here:


Northernmost Denny's in the world. And we ate there. Take that, Lewis and Clark.

Then we set up our crap in a campsite in town:




and passed the hell out.

Tune in next time for the last leg up to the Arctic Circle, and the start of the long stupid journey back home!

Arctic Circle Jerks 3: Jerks with a Vengeance