Mayhem at the Arctic Circle!

It definitely feels like some sort of accomplishment to reach the Arctic Circle! Spirits are high with talk of the ride, and the distance we've covered, sprinkled with wide-eyed talk of bears and what we need to do to avoid becoming a bear turd.











Sorry Tom, I guess we got here first, I don't see your initials.

You will meet Tom later.





Yup, my pulse is steady, I'm ready to go on stage now and do my impression of the Lord of the Dance!







I like this picture so much that I made it my Smugmug bio photo. I think it will attract the chicks









Although, this was a close second







Check out the mileage at the Arctic Circle, creepy, hmm?









Here are two hardcore bikers that left Tierra del Fuego 18 months ago on bicycles! Petra kommt aus Der Schweiz und Dirk kommt aus Deutschland. They are on the tour to raise awareness for Doctors Without Borders. Check out their webpage at http://www.pipdip.de/index.html Two great people and it was a pleasure to meet them.







But while we were standing around talking, there was a slight noise to our left that interupted us. WTF could that be:















The wind blew one of the KLR's over into its neighbor, knocking it down, too.

Funny thing was, when the bikes fell over, the owners simply casually strolled over as if this was a daily occurance. We were more excited than they were!

One more:



I wish I had a way with words, but they escape me like my hat in the wind. At the moment I'm reading Ghost Rider, by Niel Peart, and on page 65 he describes the Top of the World Highway much better than I ever could.

"I rode down to the Yukon River and caught the ferry across, then headed up to the "Top of the World Highway." I had been skeptical about that name, thinking maybe it was another northern exaggeration, like "highway" often was, and by "top of the world" they only meant so far north, but the hyperbole was justified.
The narrow paved road twisted along the top of a high ridge with sweeping views on either side, looking down steep green mountain slopes and far off to distant ranges of purple and gray. It truly felt like the top of the world, and I decided it was one of the most spectacular roads I had ever travelled. Banking smoothly into the corners with the revs up high and the bike down low, looking ahead through the turn for the proper apex (and occasional scattering of gravel), I reflected that this was more like the sport of motorcycling, as opposed to the "survival course" of something like the Dempster. (Though I must confess that having made it all the way to Inuvik and back, I felt a little proud. In a foolish sort of way.)
The paving gave way to graded gravel near the Alaska border, where I stopped at a temporary-looking, prefab building (a seasonal, summer-only frontier) and switched off the engine to talk to the friendly officer. Riding away with a stamp in my passport reading "Poker Creek, Alaska," I had finally managed to visit all 50 of the United States."