july 12 - i received another computer today from work, and determined that my hard drive crashed.  so i swapped hard drives and im back using my computer, but i cannot access all my files on the original hard drive.  that's a royal pain.   but at least i can now review and respond to emails, and of course blog more easily than using the phone.

Sunday was a ride from haines junction Yukon.  we crossed paths with 8 grizzlies that day.  A  lone male,  2 cubs and their mother, and 4 others.   the 2 cubs were play fighting in the middle of the road as we approached. we stayed far back knowing the mother had to be close by.  we saw the mother walking in the woods. the cubs eventually ran after her, but they kept climbing up and down trees as they went along.   we encountered on and off rain most of the day.   temps started at 45 degrees, and ended about 70.    we hit some torrential rain in alaska with lightning.  it lasted about 10 minutes, would stop and start again.  

at Beaver Creek, the most western town in Canada, we met a guy traveling from georgia to alaska, and a guy from the Czech Republic. that guy left Czech Rep. in January, flew to Chile, had his bike shipped there, and then rode all the way from Chile to Beaver Creek. He was planning to continue to Prudhoe Bay in northern alaska. he has riden about 30,000 miles on his adventure so far. he said the most dangerous places he traveled through was Columbia and mexico.

the scenery along the glenn highway from glenn allen  to palmer was spectacular.  tall snow covered mountains, lakes, rivers, glaciers, winding roads.

so we arrived in Palmer Alaska on sunday, stayed at a hotel in town.  then since it was raining on monday and because we were ahead of schedule, we just stayed there at the hotel in palmer for the day - first day of no riding.  we had dinner at the hotel, and the bartender/waitress, as it turns out grew up in St. James. Same school as Patty. but she graduated 3 years earlier than Pat with Pat's sister.

today we left Palmer, drove to wasilla to check out the hotel we have booked for the week.  its a nice best western on lake lucille, with nice views across the lake to the mountains.  after that we rode to the wasilla harley store.  then on to anchorage airport to check that out. we need to go back to the airport tonight to pick up Virginia and Patricia at 1am.   we left the airport and took a pleasure ride down the coast toward the Kenai peninsula.   just for fun and to take a few photos.  then back to wasilla, pick up the rental car, go to dinner, and get rested before the ride back to the airport which is about 50 miles away.

photos in a bit. trying to work on that now. (i lost all my software- remember?)