Day 10 - Fairbanks to Wiseman

I first heard the banging of a drawer. The sound of someone callously rummaging through bags. The lights were on outside of the room but I was not sure what time it was. I couldn't quite move and was not sure if I was awake or still dreaming, a feeling of helplessness covered me like a blanket. I wondered what it was that I was experiencing but before I knew it I had drifted back off and lost the specifics.

I checked the time in a cold sweat expecting to have overslept. Clearly I missed something but it was actually pretty early still. I may have been tired from the day before but somebody was in the room. I look at the pile of everything Tiffany and I own for the next couple weeks but it looks as I had left it last night. But I couldn't help but go through it to make sure. Were we robbed? Was I dreaming?

Day 9 - Anchorage to Fairbanks

The morning came and the alarms kept coming. They wouldn't stop. No matter how much we ignored them. We only had one free day and I had already gotten used to it, how that's possible I don't know. Fortunately our day was short compared to what we've been through, but I still wasn't looking forward to packing the bike up. Not yet.

We ended up getting a late start. In fact, it felt pretty awkward getting the bikes packed up in the morning. We had been at this already for a whole week and here I stood in front of the bike disorganized, wishing I was back in bed. It felt like Day 1, that seemingly random morning at home getting ready for a month long journey, and all of a sudden I had to relearn everything I knew about packing the bike. Not much had changed but things felt different amid all of the chaos.

Day 8 - Burn day in Anchorage AK

Eddie and I were exhausted from the nearly countless miles now behind us. The hotel room looked like the victim of an earthquake or a tornado, possibly both. Tiffany was still trying to work out how to pack and get the remaining things taken care of before we took off. I had a list of things I needed from our one week marathon run up to Alaska.

But above all, the laundry was at the top of the list.

Day 7 - Whitehorse YT to Anchorage AK

 
The alarm was set early... and early it came. It was still dark and I think a few of our roommates had crawled into bed just a few hours before. To keep the alarm (my cell phone) close by in order to turn it off quickly, I somehow had managed to fall asleep with it right next to my ear, so I was treated to an explosion of alarm tones and vibrations in my ear when it went off. I tried desperately to stay quiet but the silence was broken when I hit my head on the ceiling with a dull thud. There really wasn't any room between it and the bed and I begin to think of the night before our first day.