Spring 1997 - Cincinnati to Yukon
Journals - 15 May 1997
Day 45 - Near Iron River, MI
15 May 1997 (snow flurries/drizzle/sun [a wee bit]; still cold; mileage =
29.6) -- A - Chris got up and it was snowing! I stayed in bed long enough
that the small amount of accumulation had vanished by the time I got out of
the tent. We got out into the Nelson's garage and had our breakfast in
there and loaded the bikes. Chris got our down shoes and jackets out and
they were real cozy-warm-like! We left around 10:15 -- the tent and fly had
actually dried in most places -- it was an amazing thing! We knew we had
immediate hill climbing ahead of us and right we were. As we were climbing
one, a guy parked asked us if we were going to Alaska. Wow! He wanted to
know if we'd lost our dog. Uh oh! He'd heard on the scanner that a couple
riding bikes to Alaska had lost their dog and he was at the Escanaba
shelter. We thought for sure it was Blane! We planned to find a phone and
call the number R&A had given us to try to get the message to them. Only a
little while (and a few hills) later, we caught up to them and they hadn't
lost Blane! Another couple doing the same thing or just some confusion
somewhere? Hard to imagine a 3rd couple on the same path! R&A were having
trouble, though. Their rim had broken and they were loading everything into
a guy's trunk to go to a bike store. We caught up to them again because
Chris found their water bottle on the side of the road and wanted to return
it. He wanted to go talk to them anyway, but I was fearing they wanted us
to leave them alone. X - Their bottle must have jumped out in the car ride.
I asked a UPS man where the bike shop was and got excellent directions and
we met them again. Andy said Robin was at a laundromat waiting. We needed
to do laundry, so we went there. R&A had to leave soon after, since they
found a rim. We did laundry, then went grocery shopping for a light meal.
We rode a bit more into the woods and stopped for camp. While we were
looking for a place to hang the food, April spotted a cute critter. It
looked like a bear cub and didn't notice us. We were kind of worried. I
thought it was a wolverine since it had a triangular face. It was looking
in some logs for food when it saw us. It ran away. We ate pb&j, then boiled
H2O for cleaning the bike engines.
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