Since I had to get from Alaska back to the lower 48 for another year of CTY, I figured I should do it the exciting way. My last big motorcycle trip was from Grand Rapids, Michigan to San Francisco, California with Nate back in 2009, and I learned a lot about myself and about life on that trip. I was curious whether this trip would be the same.
Wood is really valuable in the bush both for heating and construction. Each spring when the river breaks the ice moves out in big chunks and takes down some trees with it. Conveniently the ice (usually) strips the trees of limbs and leaves them on the banks of the river. Although some of the logs are higher up the bank and still have some branches. So we took the opportunity to boat up river, collect the logs, build them into a raft, and then push it back to Bethel to use as firewood for the winter.
I just came back to the lower 48 after living with Nate in Bethel, Alaska for the last four months. I was working up there managing a new startup agent company for Everts Air Cargo. I'm in the process of posting a few other photo sets of specific interesting things I did in Alaska, but was having a hard time figuring out how to explain daily life in the bush. So I decided to post a few pictures of my everyday endeavors since most of them may be new or interesting to people who have never been there.
So here it goes, a few pictures of everyday life in Bethel.
One of my new years resolutions this year (and last year) was to build a boat. My sister got me two books about boat building for Christmas and I spent a while studying, reading, and planning before finally getting down to business. Although I had originally planned my first boat to be Gavin Atkin's 12 foot Ella Skiff, I decided to start with something smaller so I wouldn't have to scarf plywood together on my first build.
It's time for my 2015 New Years resolutions. (See also: Other Years). To be honest, I did terribly with my resolutions last year, not making a single one of them. Some of them will be recycled this year. In fact most of this years resolutions are repeats from previous years that I liked and worked well. Last year was not a good year for me in terms of doing things I like or growing as a person, so this year I'm quitting my job and trying to get back to being the kind of person I can be proud of.
Thanks
I want to start with a big thanks to everyone who helped out along the way. I definitely couldn't have done it without all of you.
After a big breakfast of sausage gravy, cereal, and a waffle, I hit the road at 9:30.
I was glad I went extra far yesterday so today could be shorter. I cruised along steadily and quickly. The big breakfast seemed to help. I never made a proper rest stop today; the longest rest was about five minutes to refill my bottles. I stayed in a higher gear today opting for forth or fifth instead of third, and sometimes shifting all the way up and riding standing up just to give my butt a rest. The change in cadence was nice and kept me moving quickly.
Sleep was weird last night. I fell asleep immediately, but then lay awake from three to five in the morning. Luckily I woke up just after seven and got on the road just after eight. It was my earliest start yet.
I had a quick turkey cheese wrap with ingredients I bought the night before, but then ditched the rest of the meat and cheese because I was afraid they had gone bad over night, and my stummy already felt a little funny when I woke up.
Even though I was camping out in a technically illegal spot, I still snoozed a few alarms this morning. I finally got up when raindrops started to fall. I quickly moved everything to the one bench in my clearing that had an overhang so I could pack up while staying dry. Between the rain and the sorer-than-expected ankle I wasn't in the best mood. But it got even worse when I was packing my tent into my saddle bags and one of them ripped open. Right across the top; a huge rip. The tent was in well enough that it wouldn't fall out so I left it and decided to think about it more later.
