Day 7 – Seats of Steel

What a day. In the annals of motorcycling this one goes down as a major event: 590 miles in one sitting; a feat of true grit and iron butts. Only once before have I done more miles in a single day and that was on my Harley Soft-tail luxury liner: twice as big, three times the engine and all the modern conveniences. These little KLRs are amazing: a dual sport bike, running at highway conditions, within 1500 rpm of redline all day – and they just go. Amazing.

Stats:
Shelby, MT (40 mi south the border) to Fox Creek, Alberta
Total distance: 590 miles, :-0

Our day started with an issue leftover from yesterday: Alan’s highway pegs. Yesterday, coming out of Great Falls, MT, the weld connecting the highway pegs to the frame mounting bracket let go. Mechanically not a huge deal but for this kind of ride being able to adjust position is important and of course it is never good to have loose metal flapping around. Alan did some triage in the longstanding tradition of parking lot repairs, and it seems to be holding OK. Next, we got on the phone with one of our suppliers and are having an upgraded version shipped to the dealership in Fairbanks where we will pick it up Monday (cell phones, credit cards and FedEx can fix what ails you – I love technology).

Ride wise today was fairly uneventful. Crossing into Canada was anti-climatic – they don’t allow pictures to be taken of the border crossing - lots of rules for the legal immigrants. Anyway we rode through lots and lots and lots of flat, straight farmland. The road is in good condition but is not limited-access so there is lots of traffic in the towns: Lethbridge, Calgary, Red Deer, and Edmonton.

Because our plan is now to try and make 500 miles per day, Edmonton presented a problem. Edmonton happened at about 450 mi so we decided we’d go to the north side of town and look for a place to stay. Well we found our highway to Dawson Creek and civilization just vanished. Still a great road, 4 lanes of perfect pavement – but nobody using it. We decided to make for Whitecourt a speck on the map that appeared to be larger then the other specks. Whitecourt is100 km away, we suck it up and go. We arrive and, and yes, it is a fair sized town with several restaurants and motels. But wait, something is wrong – there are too many truck and semis in this town. We check a couple of hotels and there is not a room to be had, at all. Guess what, the real world is impinging on our fun. Haven’t you heard there is an oil boom on and this here is oil-patch country? Oh yeah, now I get it the Edmonton Oilers, that actually means something. And the place is wild. Full of young men, drinking, cussing, cars peeling out in the parking lot, and everyone smokes. It reminds me of the town that formed around the A&A during Plant Vogtle construction. Substitute Louisiana pipefitters for Canadian oil drillers and your there. The wild-west.


Well shoot – we are beat – it’s 7:30 – hungry and out of ideas. Alan chats up the lady at a hotel desk and she starts making calls – good folks are every place we need them. She finds us a room at the Grizzly Inn in Fox Creek which is 80 km away. Sold - we'll take it. Smoking room? Are you kidding me? They’re all smoking rooms at the Griz. Hey but we’re glad to be sleeping indoors.