Anchorage

Mac from Birmingham

Eagle River Pass

Anchorage, Alaska is far far away. After three flights and many time zone changes we landed just after midnight. It's easy to understand why Sarah Palin quit Alaska. It just takes too long to get anywhere else. The closest modern city is Moscow.

I retrieved my bike from the shipping company in the afternoon. The pony-tailed Hawaiian who uncrated it with me wished that he could join our trip and he wondered if he could call in sick for five months. Sorry Kalani they'd catch on at some point!

I then rode over to the customs area of the airport and watched as the 17 big BMW's were uncrated. They're mostly new, completely kitted out with panniers, knobby tires, and GPS. At an average cost of about $20,000 they're completely road-ready. It comes out to about $350,000 worth of motorbikes. It's going to be hard to get through the poorer parts of Latin America without being noticed.

This city of Anchorage is a natural paradise. Salmon the size of toddlers lurk in every body of water. The city is essentially a huge bowl with one missing portion. The bowl's sides are formed by tall forested mountains which send perfectly clear snow melt down hundreds of streams and rivers into the open portion - the Gulf of Alaska. Fleets of pontoon planes skim over the waters and lightly touch down, only mildly disturbing the King and Coho salmon beneath.