So the next day we all were up surprisingly early, I’m sure the sun being up at 4am had some thing to do with it. I was reminded of why I never slept much in the summer and why I slept all the time in the winter… Food played a big part on this trip, all of are a bit picky when it comes to food and won’t eat anything the least bit sub par. So breakfast consisted of local bacon, eggs and homemade biscuits.
Lori and I had planned on riding some of the trails off the hwy, but since the snow was still melting we didn’t have much luck in finding one that I could go down with the BMW. We tried a few trails, I borrowed her XT and would start down them to see just how far we could go. There was one that looked pretty good, until I got about 300 feet from the trail head. It then got so rutted and muddy and rocky that I almost dropped her bike. The others would have been great if the ground wasn’t soooo wet.
After checking out about 5 trails we gave up and decided to just ride to the Maclaren River Lodge for lunch. It’s pretty close to the starting point of the Denali hwy. Right on the banks of river, just past the summit. We made it to the Lodge with out any issues, even though I did try to find some when testing out those trails. he he.
Lunch was great. Now remember how I said we had burned up all the firewood? So while we were there Lori asked about firewood. I think she was originally planning on getting the car and coming back for the wood. That is until she mentioned she would love to get her hands on some bungee cords so we could just take the wood back with us. I made the mistake of telling her that I had 6 of them in the saddle bag. With that began the firewood tetris game. It took only 3 tries for her to figure out how to get all that wood onto her lil 250.
Of course, I had wood stuffed into both bags on the bike and into the backpack I brought with me.
As we were getting ready to leave the lodge, a large number of bikes that were rented showed up. I had spoken with one of the guys the day I picked up my bike. I had kind of figured that we’d run into them at some time this day. They were planning on staying at the Tangle Lake Lodge. It was just down the main road from the camp grounds. I would have headed over to that lodge later to chat with them later if they hadn’t been so snobbing in the parking lot. A couple of them were nice, enough, but the others just pretended to not see me when I walked over to say hi. The sure were interested in Lori when she rode by with all the firewood on her bike. She and I both were a lil’ worried about doing something stupid as we pulled out of the lot with all of them staring at us.
- Rented bike gang….
Since she was loaded down, we beelined it back to the campsite. Lori was finally starting to feel more comfortable on the gravel road. She actually got the bike up to 45mph at one point. She was doing great until a couple of those guys we’d left came flying by, kicking up all kinds of gravel and dust. One of them spooked her by being just a bit too close as he went by. I was riding behind her so I saw them coming and waved them around me. I was hoping that they’d give her more room then they did me, since I’d move a bit more toward the center of the road hoping they travel straight by both of us. Guess not. We made it back without issue to the campground. After watching how they were riding, I’m shocked that there are still places to rent bikes.
After we got back it was nap time… It’s rough being on vacation. We went for a small hike latter too. Then dinner, which wasn’t nearly as exciting as the night before, and no vistors on bikes joined us. I was really happy we picked up that wood. It was the coldest night I’d had since I arrived. Even with the raging fire I was freezing and shivering. So it was an early night for me, that way I could get into the super warm bag that John had brought for me to use.