A Few Days in Fairbanks
16 July 2018
Cheap lodging is addictive.
Photos:
It was time to move on - to the bustling city of Fairbanks, Alaska. I packed up my stuff first thing in the morning, and hit the road. Shortly after getting a fresh tank of fuel in Delta Junction, I got my first glimpse of the famous Alaska Pipeline where it crossed the Tanana River at Big Delta. I was hoping to find some sort of breakfast, but I didn’t see much that grabbed my attention, so I kept going. The road between Tok and Fairbanks feels like just about any major tree-lined highway in the lower 48, except the trees are a little smaller. There’s plenty of traffic, plenty of places to stop for gas, and plenty of tourist traps. The one I stopped at, mostly because I was really in the mood for a cup of coffee, was North Pole, AK, right on the outer edge of Fairbanks. Its the only place on the planet where its Christmas 365 days per year, even when tourists are walking in wearing shorts and flip flops and there’s no snow. In town, the street lamps are decorated like candy canes. I decided to stop at Santa Claus House, which is right off the highway and sells anything you could possibly want for Christmas.
I pulled in and parked next to a group of KTMs, then wandered inside. The building is white on the outside with red trim and I could feel the holiday spirit emanating from within. I picked up a cup of coffee, and a brownie, and probably thought they were overpriced, although it turns out thats just a fact of life being in Alaska - everything is expensive. The coffee and the brownie were delicious, so I didn’t really have any room to complain. I had no need (or space) for Christmas ornaments, so I took a browse through the pictures and stickers, then headed out. Its a worth a stop, once, I guess. I think in another 20 years, if they keep at it, they could be the Wall Drug of Alaska, for better or worse.
Someone once described Fairbanks, AK as Terra Haute, IN (or any midwestern town), transplanted. When I first coasted into town and immediately found the Home Depot, followed by a Subway, I couldn’t disagree. That said, Fairbanks isn’t as flat as Terra Haute, and you really can’t miss some of the charming Alaska-specific things.
My first stop was the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. As has been passed around amongst many motorcyclists, they turn one of their dorms in to an very reasonably priced hotel during the summer. Its run by students, and doesn’t have all the amenenities of a normal hotel - but it does give you a warm and cozy dorm room, a place to do laundry, a really nice shower, and internet. It’s also only $35/per night. When I got there, not having showered since somewhere in Dawson, a shower was my first priority. Its kind of a community shower system - they have one big shower room per floor, and in that shower room are a bunch of private rooms where you can take a nice shower. They even have little sinks in the shower room, so its a one stop shop for washing off the grime, shaving, and becoming a relatively normal looking person. After the shower, I guessed that while I could probably get on the Wifi here and upload some pictures, if I had an Ethernet cable, I could upload all of my pictures. Trouble is, I didn’t have an ethernet cable.
So, I hopped on the bike and set out across town looking for an ethernet cable and dinner. I ended up at a Pita Pit for dinner, it was as okay. I had planned on finding some other restaurant, but they were closed when I got there, so I had to improvise. Then I stopped off at an office supply store, but they wanted something like $10 for a 10 foot cable, which I really didn’t need. I kept looking, and ended up at a small shop where I found a 3ft cable for about $2.00. Perfect. I went back to the university, plugged in my laptop, and started uploading pictures to Flickr at 101 MBit/s. I can’t even get speeds that fast at home.
The next major situation that needed handling after some time away was laundry. There’s the usual - underwear, socks, shorts, shirts; these were all handled nicely by the regular washers and dryers, which were free. But even better was this laundry room had a huge utility sink. Since its unwise to stick motorcycle gear in a washing machine, this was a welcome sight. My gear hadn’t been cleaned since before I had left, and given all of the rain, mud, bugs and dust I had bathed in on the way up, it was time.
I unpacked the laundry detergent I had been carrying since Dawson Creek, poured a little in the sink, added water, and waited. Once it filled, I swished my gear around a little bit and watched the water turn brown. Drain, refill, repeat. Five times. After the last one the water was turning to just a slightly murky shade of clear, so I decided that was probably good enough. As if someone had been thinking about this process when they designed the room, there was a heavy duty towel bar hanging in a nook, with a tub and a drain below it, and an HVAC vent blowing right on it. There does not exist a more perfect place to wash motorcycle gear, these Alaskans have it figured out. I threw my gear up there, and left it. At a later date, I returned and did the same thing for my sleeping bag.
Upon returning with my warm fuzzy laundry to fold it, I looked out my window and saw that there were far more bikes that had gathered outside. I went out to check and see who all was there. It wasn’t anybody I knew, but there was one guy from Seattle whom I talked to for a bit. He works for Boeing (His jacket, and the 787 stickers told me as much), and comes up this direction just about every year. His BMW has nearly 100,000 miles on it, he has another one on order, and he seemed to know every road on both sides of the border. He suggested that on my way back, I check out the Canol Road in the Yukon. He strongly suggested that I have least 400 miles of fuel range and a buddy since the road really goes deep into the backcountry. Hmm, that one might have to wait - I could do 250 miles comfortably, but I’d need to find a way to stow another 3 gallons of fuel somehow, and find a buddy.
The others that were there were fun to talk to - one guy had done an insane amount of research and testing on setting up his bike, and had lots of advice on everything from tire rubber composition to a filter for your BMW fuel tank filler to protect against bad gas. Another rider had discovered that his rear wheel bearing was failing in squeaky and eventually wobbly fashion, and was looking for a way to get it changed. He ended up putting the bike up on its centerstand and taking the wheel to a local guy who had a new one and only wanted to charge him $20 to put it in. Still another rider was another was changing his rear tire right there in the parking lot. This is one of the things I really enjoy about the community of motorcycles out here - they’re knowledgable, they can turn a wrench, they have all the wrenches with them, and theyre willing to take on projects just about anywhere.
Eventually I went to sleep, because I was exhausted, not because it had gotten dark, I was too far north for that.
The next morning, I gathered up my laptop and went for a walk. The university was not a busy place in the summer - there were a few students walking around, but not the number you’d expect during the spring or fall. I found my way down to the student union the appropriately named Arctic Java and got a cup of coffee. I sat there for a while and worked on more blog posts, and then made my way back to my dorm room. I wanted to get out of the room for a while, so I decided to seek out some better gloves.
I started with two pairs of gloves on this trip. The first were a summer weight, no waterproofing, and lots of venting - appropriate for anything above about 60 degrees. I had also brought a pair of winter gloves, which were insulated and somewhat water resistant. But, in my riding so far I had found the limits of their waterproofing and their insulation. I had spent lots of time in wet, but not rainy, damp, conditions. And my hands got wet every time, and then then they got cold. If it was just chilly, my hands would warm up, then get too warm, then sweat, then end up cold all the same. There was really just a narrow range of conditions with these gloves where they worked right, and I hadn’t found it yet. Often times I found that my summer gloves were better suited to wet conditions since they dried off much faster. I looked at the map and found a BMW dealership here in town - surely they would have a selection of great gloves for Alaska riding, right?
I got there, parked my dirty old bike out front, and wandered inside. As usual, all of the gear was expensive, which is normal for a motorcycle dealership, doubly at a BMW dealership. The lady there was helpful; I told her what I wanted and she suggested a few pairs to try on. I found some that fit well, but the prices were high, so I really wanted to make sure they were good. Out came the phone, where I googled the gloves, and found not only that they suffered similar problems to the gloves I already had, they also tended to fall apart. Those ended up back on the shelf. I tried a couple more and never found anything I felt I would be happy with, usually the fingers are too tight, which leads to poor circulation and you guessed it - cold hands. As a last resort I found a set of glove liners and went with those, maybe they would bump up the warmth of my summer gloves a hair, and maybe help my winter ones too by wicking away sweat. On my way out I checked out a few motorcycles they had for sale, all of which I liked, and then headed back out the door, vowing to come back after I win the lottery.
Continuuing on my shopping spree, I stopped at REI for another GoPro battery and a stuff sack and Home Depot for chain lube, washers and anti-seize. Back at the dorms, I spent some time replacing a couple of washers that had been missing on the bike and tweaking the heat shield on the exhaust a little more. One of the fun things about a single-cylinder engine is that there’s always another fastener to tighten (or replace).
One of the things that plagues most travellers is that of storage space. You’ve always got more stuff than you have storage, and even if you can get it all to fit, it can be a royal pain to get it all packed away. Ever since I had discovered the deficiency in my luggage racks that causes them to vibrate off the bike, I had no choice but to fill them with the boxes already attached to the bike. On the right side of the bike this is no big deal - the angle of the bike on the sidestand makes it easy. But that same angle on the other side of the bike causes items to fall out of the box. Think about trying to pack a briefcase that is floating about a foot off the ground, with the lid opening toward you, and angled toward you. Its uncomfortable, at best. It turns into a game of carefully stacking things inside the box and hoping they don’t come tumbling out.
The only real way to alleviate this is to have less stuff. So I dumped it all out in my room, and dug through every item and asking some questions:
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Do I think I’ll need this?
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Have I needed this yet?
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Does it (still) work?
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If I need it - and it works - is it worth the space it takes up?
In the end I ended up with a small pile of stuff that I really didn’t need to keep. I should have taken a picture. In there was definitely several pairs of socks (I had bought several on the way up trying to solve a chaffing issue with the top of my boots), my GPS unit (after updating it right before I left it had begun to randomly freeze up, and kept getting worse - Now it was just taking up space). I loaded all this up in my top box, and took it down to the post office. After purchasing the smallest amount of packing tape they sold (several yards more than I needed), and four trips to the counter to be rejected by the medium-helpful clerk, my box was on its way to Iowa. I also threw in some of the more delicate stickers and other souveniers that had a good chance of getting destroyed as the trip wore on.
After that I tackled another bike project. Over time, the bearings in the headset of the bike get worn and the whole thing begins to work its way loose, which turns into an unsettling wiggling sensation every time you stop. This is especially true if you’ve got it loaded up with a bunch of junk and you’re rattling your way down dirt roads. Fortunately, this is easy to tighten up in a few minutes; if you have the right tools. I did not have the right tools, and I’m pretty sure I’ve never had the right tools. But, I did have the universal tools - a pair of channellock pliers and a beefy pair of vice grips. Between the two of them and my set of allen wrenches, I removed the handlebar, loosened the nut holding the triple clamp together, tightened up the adjuster, and retightened up the nut. It was a triumph of tool abuse, especially since I didn’t round anything off, didn’t break any tools, and only squished my fingers once or twice.
I hadn’t originally intended to stay another day, but I was still waiting on word back from a last minute call to my Mom’s cousin, who lived in Fairbanks. I was hoping to meet them and say hello. Since it was going to be a while before I’d be back in Fairbanks again, I thought I’d hang out another day just to be sure. After several conversations with other riders about rear tires, I decided that I really didn’t know how many more miles I would get out of my tire. It wasn’t dead yet, certainly not down to the wear bars, but it was a little beat up from gravel well below the standards of the guys on BMWs. I knew it had some miles left, but I to make sure I wasn’t going to be in the middle of nowhere without a tire if it decided to start launching chunks of rubber. Its not like every corner gas station sells motorcycle tires. I called around town and found my way to the Alaska Fun Center, where I found a brand new tire for a pretty reasonable price, as well as the location of the best Thai restaurant in Fairbanks.
I still had some time to kill before dinner, so I roped the tire onto the rear rack of the bike, and headed to the Fountainhead Auto Museum. One of the things I decided for this trip is that I wasn’t going to spend too much time exploring places that were easy to get to by airplane. I really wanted to find the far out, dirty, less travelled areas under the assumption that when I go back again someday, it probably won’t be on an oversized dirt bike, and it’ll probably be with other people. So, I didn’t really spend much time seeking out things to see in Fairbanks. But, I had seen a bus with the Fountainhead museum sign on the side, and I had some time to kill, so I decided to check it out.
As it turns out, the Fountainhead museum has 70 cars, 67 of which run, and the newest one is from the 1930s. Their focus is on the early days of automotive history, when the overal form of cars wasn’t quite as settled and there were still wild variations in every aspect of automotive design. The oldest one, for example, has an 8-stroke engine - which means that in the course of making power, each piston makes 8 trips in its cylinder. As a contrast, cars today are 4 stroke. Also, it runs. I wandered around the museum for a few hours checking out all of the crazy cars - they even had a couple of electric ones. It was really well put together and they even had a shop in-house where they restored vehicles for display. It had glass walls so you could look in and see what they were doing.
Once I had completed my trip through the museum, I dropped my tire off at my dorm room, and went out for dinner at the Thai place recomended by the people at the Alaska Fun Center. It was downtown, which really felt weird after having been out in the boonies. I had to remember what one-way streets are and find a place to park where I didn’t think I’d get towed. I ended up sharing a parallel parking space with a Honda Goldwing. The Thai food was good, but it wasn’t amazing. I think I was a little early to hit their peak as I was one of about five people in a restaurant that probably seated a hundred. One of the interesting things about Fairbanks is that they’ve got a ton of Thai food, due to the large number of airmen at nearby Eielson Air Force Base who marry overseas and bring back Thai wives.
When walking back to my bike, I heard some music. I looked around a bit and found the Golden Days street fair, so I walked over there. It was mostly food, arts, and crafts - and I had just mailed a bunch of stuff home, so I really didn’t do any shopping. But, I DID find a booth selling Kettle Korn popcorn, which is something I am completely unable to pass up. I got my bag of popcorn and sat on the curb just watching and enjoying whatever music happened to come my way. I also noticed that all of the cars that the local Dodge dealer was giving away were already equipped with power plugs coming out of the grill for engine heaters. I guess thats standard equipment up here.
The last stop, that turned out to be much more interesting than I expected, was a stop at Fred Meyer. In the course of digging through pictures, I decided it would be a good idea to pick up a larger memory card for my GoPro. I had brought several 32GB cards, but anytime I recorded video it was really easy to fill those up in a hurry. Nothing like trying to find pictures to delete on the fly. Fred Meyer turned out to be one of the biggest stores I’ve ever been in. It was a grocery store, a clothing store, an outdoors store, an electronics store, and who knows what else, all under one, big, roof. Think of a super Walmart, except bigger. Or at least, it felt like it. I found my memory card, and saw a super cool old Dodge in the parking lot.
The next morning, I got up, packed up, and headed out, with only one important stop. As part of the Golden Days celebration, the local Kiwanis club was making sourdough pancakes every morning. I had never had sourdough pancakes before, but sourdough up here is really good and I wanted to check it out. I was the last person in line, and so they gave me a couple extra pancakes. They were delicious; from here on out sourdough pancakes are the only pancakes for me. Unlike regular pancakes, they aren’t just sweet - they have a much more interesting flavor and they’ve also got some structure to them.
As I was sitting there, I got to talking with a couple people. They could see my bike outside, and all the stuff on it, so they wondered what I was up to. I gave them the general layout of the trip and told them a bit about my experiences. After they had wandered off, a guy came up to me and said he had overheard my saying that I had started in Iowa, and was wondering where specifically I came from. As usual I said “well, a town north of Sioux City”, since most people don’t know the smaller towns of Iowa. He said, okay, where exactly?, so I told him Alton. He smiled and said he was from Sheldon, IA and was up on vacation. Sheldon is my Dad’s hometown and only 20 miles or so from Alton. Its a small world!
After I finished my delicious pancakes, I mounted up and pointed myself at the Parks Highway, and carried on to my next stop, Denali National Park.
