Day 21 Animal Day

Still heading South trying to get back to the states. 

I'm running over roads that I did coming up but some of them I'm not remembering. I must have really been zoned out when I was coming through some of these spots. One area swings around a lake and up and down twisties that I just don't remember all of. I was probably so focused I didn't even notice where I was going. 

One thing I definitely remembered from when I came up here is the bridge at Teslin. The metal bridge where the metal is in bad shape. It's still bad but not near as exciting as it was the first time. I guess I'm getting more comfortable with the wobbles on the metal bridges now. The bike was still wandering all over the bridge and bouncing up and down at the same time but it just wasn't near as "blood pressure elevating" as before. 

Anyway, today was the animals day. I have got to come up with some easy way to get a camera out and take pictures. I couldn't just leave it out because it looked like rain the whole day. The way I have it now is in the tank bag and I have to stop the bike, turn it off, get off the bike, open the tank bag, dig out the camera, put everything back that I took out so I could get to the camera, zip the bag back up so I don't have everything fall out of it, and then I'm ready to take a picture. 

Needless to say, I didn't get any pictures today. 

I saw a moose cow standing in about two feet of water eating. What they do is go out in the ponds and graze just like a cow, but with their heads totally underwater. They like the stuff that grows on the bottoms of the ponds and lakes up here. 

Then, I'm pretty sure what I saw were reindeer.  They were all over that highway. A person couldn't go very fast at all because just as sure as you speed up, there will be a bunch of them around the next corner. And they always seem to want to run in front of you. They wouldn't run very far or fast but they waited until you were almost on them and then start running. Right in front of you most of the time. 

Then I had to stop for a herd of buffalo. Yep! Right there in the middle of the road. It's sort of funny. The road to those buffalo is like a fence to a cow. You know how cows always go up to the fence and try to get the grass on the other side? Well, buffalo are like that with the road. There'll be twenty or so buffalo divided between the two sides of the road. All of a sudden, five or six on one side of the road will just head over to the other side. A minute later, five or six from that side will just head over to the other side. It's comical. The exact same grass is on both sides of the road but it always looks better "over there". 

These are woodland buffalo. They almost became extinct. I don't think there are over three or four hundred of them left. Somewhere around twenty or so are killed by cars and trucks each year and I can see how. They are DUMB! I saw more of them after the herd but they were just in ones and twos along the road. 

But when I stopped for the herd, they were right in the middle of the road. Being on a motorcycle I didn't think I should just ride up to them and see if they move. They were a lot bigger than I was so I waited until a car came along and they slowly moved up to the buffalo and honked their horn and they finally moved off the road. I zoomed along behind the car causing one buffalo calf to take off running off the road in a hurry. 

Then there was one area where the stone sheep were out. They get on the road to lick the salt off the road. They can't be trusted either. They'll run right in front of you too. I probably saw around fifty of them. 

Then I saw another grizzly but couldn't take a picture of this one either. I had just passed a car and there was no way I could jam on my brakes to stop to take a picture. It was another pretty big one too. It was pretty close to the road and not paying attention to the cars or me at all. He might have paid more attention if I had stopped to take his picture. 

Then I saw another black bear but he was too far away to take a picture. He was probably three hundred yards away. 

Went through more construction areas today but nothing like along the Dalton Highway. 

When I stopped for lunch, there was a young guy stopped also and he had a bike exactly like mine. Same color and everything. That's the first one I've seen since I got mine. He was heading for Anchorage to meet a friend and do some touring of Alaska. I believe he was German but he had almost no accent. 

That brings up another finding I have made. There are a LOT of Germans in Canada and Alaska. I keep hearing Germans talking all over the place. They must really like the cold weather. The woman who worked in the bakery in Haines Junction said she left Germany with her youngest daughter and husband fifteen years ago. She said she will never go back to live. She likes it too much in Canada. 

Can you imagine leaving three of your kids, taking the youngest and heading off to a new country when you don't speak a word of their language. She still has a strong german accent but she can talk!

I stopped at one resort to see if I could get some lunch there but the dining room was closed. The woman working behind the counter had a german accent and two guests were coming out the door as I was going in and they were speaking in german. Almost like a resort for germans. 

There are pockets of people here from different countries depending on where you are in Canada or Alaska. It reminds me of Nebraska a little. There are towns there which were largely settled by people from one country in Europe or another. Some mostly german, some Scandinavian, some polish, etc. 

Making progress getting back home.

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