Until this point on this trip, we’ve been fairly fortunate. Not only has the weather been generally favorable, the roads unparalleled, the company funny and fun, we’ve also been fortunate enough to spy ‘The Big Three’ animals that everyone comes to Alaska hoping to see. In no particular order, we’ve seen cows:

Pigeons:

And of course, the animal Alaska is most famous for, Dogs:

Thus far, all our wildlife viewing has been up close and personal, but also fun and completely attack free. But now we’re stuck, eyeball to eyeball, hearts pounding as we face down the biggest and baddest animal of them all, bigger and badder than the Big Three combined.

Just when things look like they are about to get all splattery, something comes along. More specifically, a truck races through our standoff, startling Mama Buffalo enough that we are able to squirt through before she turned us into Grade A Ground Human.

Wheeeewwww! That was a close call! If you ask me, it was a little too close, and unfortunately it’s not even the last close call of the day. We still need to find a place to sleep.

Glad to be in three individual, intact pieces, our group shuffles away from the buffalo, following the deserted road for mile after hotel free mile. At the perfect time, that time between the end of hope and the beginning of despair, the perfect place magically appears in the woods like an oasis. Either they have forgotten to illuminate the NO part of their Vacancy sign, or we have caught another very lucky break.

It’s late. We’re tired, but hopeful. At the desk, I kick off the most tedious conversation of all time.

“Hi.” I begin. “Do you have rooms for tonight?”

“Rooms? Hmm… ” The clerk shuffles some papers, then looks out the window. The sun is setting out there. Yep. Sure is. Gonna be dark soon. Though we both can see this fact, it takes a minute for this information to register with this man. Finally he looks back at me. “Yes. I have rooms.”

“Great! We’ll take two!”

“Well, wait a minute…” He then waits a full minute in silence, before turning a few pages in the hotel register book. “Ummm… Now, let me… check the right day…” Thankfully, he doesn’t wait a full day, just pauses for a really, really long time. Collectively, we hold our breath, waiting to learn our fate.

“Ah, yes. Here is today. Umm… Yes. I have rooms available today.”

“Great! We’ll take two!”

He scratches his nose, looks at us like he is seeing us for the first time, then continues, “I have two inexpensive rooms with bath tubs only…”

“Great! We’ll take….”

Continuing his last thought, the man cuts me off, “…and I have a two room suite, with full bathroom, but it is expensive.”

It takes more precious time to learn the difference in price between the cheap rooms and the suite is $20. After more banter, we finally are allowed to rent the suite. And I have to say, while it took a while to get there, the effort is worth it. The lakefront cabin suite is mighty sweet!

It’s hard to leave the next morning. The resort books three day float plane trips to really remote cabins, which sounds so perfect that I have a hard time believing it is real. Now I have another place to add to my bottomless bucket list.

Sadly, there isn’t enough time to ride in a plane that intentionally floats on water, so it’s back on the road again for us. We have about 2400 miles to go, and less than a week to do it in. Horny Canadian wildlife greet us on another fine morning in their country.

The road is fantastical as well, supplying an endless variation of curves, hills and of course, scenery. We continue to chip away at the remaining miles.

We stop at Testa River Outfitters, to fuel up man, woman, and machine.

The entire day pretty much flows by. Thoughts come and go, and I start to get bored. I reach back to grab Sleeping Beauty’s hand, and a spontaneous thumb wrestling war breaks out. We go at it, back and forth, having our own private Thumb Wrestlemania while speeding down the Alcan highway. I am sad to say that while I am still the heavy weight of our relationship, after twenty rounds, Sleeping Beauty is declared the Official Thumb Wrestlemania Champion of the World!

We wind our way down the highway, until, with very little fanfare, we reach another milestone on this oddysy; the famous ‘Start of the Alcan‘ sign.

I’ll admit, after ten days of nearly constant motion, the three of us arrive at the sign a little loopy and road weary. We make ourselves laugh until we’re drooling by imitating the way random strangers would help us capture this historic moment if we asked them to take our picture in front of the sign.

And with this accomplishment, the most difficult two thirds of our ride is officially complete. We toast the Best Day Ever right in the parking lot, and mentally prepare for the final thrust through Canada, back into the USA for good, and – unless I can talk them out of it – home and the inevitable end of our ride.

The End? Not even close! Click here for more.

Author: frenchy