Letting our Obsession Run Wild.

The Cycle of our Life.

Bicycling Monsters Danny and Steven:

The Alaskan Highway

 The following is a memoir or a chapter of a future book of a 2-week part of my 140 day, 13,769 mile bicycle-camping trip from  Florida  to  Alaska  and back.

The mosquitoes and ugly weather throughout Ontario and  Manitoba  were followed by miles and miles of quiet and peaceful prairie land, pretty at first but then the miles and miles of sunflower fields and scrub-like vegetation started to feel interminable. For over 35 days I had envisioned beautiful  Rocky Mountains  and wilderness untouched by the human hand. My Uncle, Danny Chew, and I continued pounding out the mileage on our bicycles and before we knew it we went from  Pittsburgh ,  Pennsylvania  to a gorgeously epic land known as  British Columbia .

 This majestic and sacred road would lead me to my destiny of bicycling from  Central Florida  to  Alaska . We had carried our bodies, bicycles, and 100- 125 pound bob trailers 36 days from  Pittsburgh  and over 3,800 miles. Not a thing in the world could stop us now as we set our sights on  Alaska . It would end up being 5,130 miles and 43 days after I left my home in  Longwood, Florida. And so here we are one province away from one of the biggest highlights of my 140 day trip of a lifetime.

 I imagined what it would be like to be in  Alaska , telling myself to be patient for it is still about 1,300 miles away. I have wisdom in my flesh reminding me that wherever I go in life that is really worth the while will take time and patience; and I knew that with time and patience good things will come. If it wasn’t for having to endure the seemingly never-ending flat farmland, then the beautiful  Rocky Mountains  wouldn’t have seemed quite as enjoyable. I know from my training experience that the more stresses I put on my body means the more euphoria I will feel when my long and strenuous goals have finally been reached. I kept telling myself that this would be the granddaddy of all euphoric feelings I have ever experienced in my entire life.

Closing in on the Alaskan Highway

            “170-clicks a day, eh?” The local Albertan asked.

“Yah, that’s what we’ve been averaging and we plan on keeping it up all the way to  Alaska ”, my uncle and I told the local Albertan.

“We saw a guy pushing a cart roll through here one time, he kind of reminded me of you guys”.

“Ha, that’s cool; do you know where exactly he was traveling to?” I asked.

“Nah, he just said he was traveling across the country but he had this big cross in the cart and told us he had some kind of message he was trying to spread”.

“Oh, interesting”.

The idea of my uncle and I being compared to some guy pushing a cart was quite amusing and belittling. We then thanked the guy for the fresh water he gave us and told him that we must be on our way; we had some ground to cover before we could sleep, and off we went. We a rolled into a small town just after the sun set in search of a water supply and a place to camp out.

            We scavenged up and down the somewhat dismal street when a pickup truck rolled up to us and a fresh Canadian voice spurted out and said

“Where ya’ll heading?”

 “ Alaska ” we responded. “ Alaska !” the old man replied in a daze.

“Yup”, we responded.

“From where?” He asked.

“ Florida ,” we told him.

“Holy shit ya’ll have come a long way.”

“Where ya’ll plan on staying tonight?” the old man asked.

“Well we were looking for some sort of shelter… do you know of any around here?” I asked.

“Well there is this one down the road but I’m not sure they’d wantcha’ camping out there, eh?”

“Do ya’ll wanna come stay at my place?” He asked.

“Sure,” we responded.

We knew that being offered a place to stay usually meant it came with a shower, meal, and whatever else was offered. We hadn’t had a good shower in quite a while and many of our clothes hadn’t been washed in about two weeks.

             We followed the man to his home where we unpacked our bob trailers and took showers. We then got our clothes washed in the laundry machine. We slept outside in a trailer of the home of Lynn and Alan Connell’s. In the morning we ate a huge oatmeal and fruit breakfast that  Lynn  prepared. We just so happened to be staying there and had the honor of seeing the final moments of the 2009 Tour De France. The epic music that played following the final stage of the 2009 Tour De France during the credits has continued to play through my mind ever since.

             After leaving Lynn and Alan Connell’s home we forged on heading west towards  British Columbia . The prairie land finally started to get hilly and I could finally see decent sized mountains off in the distance for the first time since the  Appalachian Mountains  back on the first week of my trip. With my sights on  British Columbia  I hammered a 1 hour time trial and for the first time rode over 20 miles and rode about 6 miles ahead of my Uncle. Shortly after this my eyes became dazed by the  British Columbia sign. I circled back and rode with my Uncle into  British Columbia  heading towards  Dawson Creek  .Riding off ahead of my Uncle and circling back became a daily routine as I continued to become a stronger cyclist while my Uncle stayed about the same strength.  

            In  Dawson Creek  we stopped at a Wal-Mart to pick up the usual grocery supplies such as oatmeal, cookies, pasta, marinara sauce, chips, Gatorade drink mix, and a seat pad. That night we camped next to a community center off an unpaved road about 18 miles northwest of  Dawson Creek . There wasn’t a good water supply there so we cleaned our bodies with a water bottle, paper towels, hand sanitizer, and cleaning wipes. Not having a fresh water supply was not unusual for we had to deal with that kind of bathing situation many nights in the dry prairie land in the middle of  Canada . The next day we were on our way heading north on the Alaskan highway.

The Alaskan Highway at Last

The first 40 miles of the  Alaskan Highway  heading north out of  Dawson Creek  had absolutely horrible traffic. What would you expect when your biggest highway is only  two to four  lanes and hundreds of miles away from large urban civilization? I became especially frustrated with the big trucks that would sometimes blow by us with only a couple feet of space. Luckily the traffic died down north of  Charlie   Lake . Near  Charlie   Lake  we met a guy named Thomas Laussermair who was traveling via recumbent bicycle from the tip of  North America  to the bottom tip of  South America . We stopped and chatted and got a few pictures and exchanged information.

We continued heading north and ended up camping out off a tiny dirt road about 50 miles from the nearest town. That night a strange car with a suspicious character pulled close to our campsite. We went about our unpacking procedure which consisted of unpacking our bob trailers, setting up the tent, cleaning our bodies, tending to our crotch areas, and switching clothes. I suggested to Danny that we go up to talk to the guy so we did and he turned out to be an ok character. He said he was heading south on the  Alaskan Highway  towards  Dawson Creek  and spending the night here. So we continued on with our business and ate our pasta dinner and went to sleep in our tent.

 The next day we were off heading north again and the beautiful rocky mountain views started to pick up. After about 112 miles into the day we turned off the Alaskan highway to wander through some abandoned R.V. park. There we managed to find a guy who had 5 gallon jugs of fresh river water which we asked if we could have some. His name was Daryl and he gave us water and told us about a place we could camp 5 miles down the road. So we headed there.

“Hey what do you boys think you’re doing here?” The local redneck asked. We told him we were heading to  Alaska   and he was simply dumbfounded in amazement.

“O. Ok, well we own this area”, he said jokingly. The local redneck and his boys ended up leaving shortly after we set up our camp area.

 The next day, Day 39, led us through  Fort Nelson ,  British Columbia  in which we had a big grocery store stop. We sat outside the supermarket and downed bologna and cheese sandwiches on white bread. To wash it down we split a gallon of chocolate milk. We left the supermarket bloated and continued heading north and west on the  Alaskan Highway . Being bloated wasn’t too pleasant for the first hour then after we started to feel better again.

 The next day brought about breath-taking views and gorgeous scenery next to the epic  Summit   Lake . That night we camped in what we initially thought was an abandoned campground. It ended up being not so abandoned after all, for some asshole came out and told us to stay away from his water hose. We told him the sign said Campground. “wah wah wah, stay away from my water hose”, I murmured as the asshole went back into his office dungeon. Something common for my Uncle and I to do throughout our trip was to make up fake names for people met as well as imaginary characters. We simply turned this guy into the “Muncho Lake Asshole” for we were near the breath-taking  Muncho Lake . We camped out there anyway and sped up our departure procedure the next morning.

Liard Hot Springs

After 47 miles into day 40 we stopped at the historic Liard Hot Springs and headed for the hot sulphur springs inside the park. We didn’t bother checking if there was an entry fee to the park and rode our bikes right back on the boardwalk that had a sign that said “no bicycles”. Before heading back on the boardwalk to the  hot springs , Danny and I looked at each other and said “fuck that sign!” Were not about to leave our entire luggage back in some stupid parking lot area. While I was swimming and Danny was cleaning his bike because “O wah wah, I don’t like salt water”, some ass-hole tourist said “no bicycles back here”. He ended up complaining saying he was going to complain to his boss but nothing ever happened.

  That evening we stopped at a local diner that sold bottled drinks for about 6 times the price of those sold back home in  Florida . We insisted not to pay 6 dollars for a bottle of water so we asked for tap water. “O it’s fresh glacier water, the best you can get”. O bullshit we thought. I could drink water that someone shit in and it would probably taste better than this. Yuck. Even with many packages of Gatorade mixed up in the water it still tasted nasty like sulphur-rotten eggs. We ended up deeming the  Alaskan Highway  tap water as “Shit-Water”.  The next morning I got diarrhea and stomach sickness due to the disgusting water. From that moment on we decided not to drink that nasty water anymore. So we started a new routine which meant we had to go up to R.V.’s and ask them to fill our bottles of water up. Most of the time the people in the R.V.’s gladly filled up our water bottles and often threw in extra snacks.

Tickie Hayes

            The next day we stopped at a “Superfoods” supermarket in Watson    Lake  to stock up on groceries. Oatmeal, pasta, cookies, ketchup chips, fruit punch drink mix, cans of beans, cans of veggies, and other snacks. We got a price discount from the cashier which we had managed to do a handful of times on road through  Canada . While we were packing up our food into our Bob-Trailers a lady named Tickie Hayes introduced herself to us and offered us a place to stay in Haines Junction. This was about 300 miles away in the direction we were heading. We gladly accepted and she said she would have good meals waiting for us. Free food meant we wouldn’t have to buy our own food at the supermarket leading up to her home. Whenever we could get anything for free we readily accepted it. We tried to limit our budget to around ten dollars a day each. We did not pay for lodging once in the 47 days from  Pittsburgh  to the Alaskan Border. The majority of our expenses were on food and bike equipment.

The next day we crossed the Continental Divide, the dividing line in which a river outlet flows east or west. Here on the  Alaskan Highway  it was a pathetic elevation of only 3,000 feet. The continental divide in  Colorado  on U.S. 40 is over 11,300 feet at  Berthoud   Pass.   Ten miles later six men from  Czech Republic  stopped their van and took pictures of us and gave us snacks. Most of them did not speak English and we thought some of them could have been homosexuals. Regardless of their sexual orientation they were certainly generous and friendly for they gave us chocolate bars and soda.

 Day 44 was nice until my front derailleur snapped off causing me to not be able to shift gears in the front chain ring. That night the temperature dipped into the upper 30’s and the next morning was also cold. The next day we went through  Whitehorse  which was the biggest town we’ve been through since  Prince Albert , some 3 weeks ago. I had insect-bite like appearance on my left arm and had been worried about it for quite some time. I decided that I wanted to get the wound checked out and went to a local walk-in-clinic to get it inspected. Not being a local to a doctor in  Whitehorse , they wanted a $60 fee which I refused to pay.

 We left  Whitehorse  after picking up a few groceries and continued on towards Haines Junction and the home of Tickie Hayes. Before leaving we tried calling Tickie Hayes to let her know that we would be arriving at her home later that night. Around  8 pm  I had a flat tire which took us about 30 minutes to fix. At this point we knew we would arrive late at Tickie Hayes’s home. We were closing in on  Alaska  and knew we had to make it, for camping out somewhere means we would miss a free night of indoor lodging.

            We should have known by the name Tickie Hayes that something wouldn’t work out in our short experience with her. We did not get a clear address of her home 3 days ago when we met her at the “SuperFoods” store so we had to guess which house was hers. First we went to a guy that must have had about 20 different dogs in his yard. He also seemed like he had some kind of mental retardation for his directions he gave us were horrendous. “Ugh, go down the road that way, up over the hill, you’ll see a barn house, keep going turn right. Wait no I think it’s left. Hold on let me go check.” Ok. “Forget that advice” I told Danny. “Let’s keep heading west a few miles and ask somebody else.” Next we traveled up some long driveway to a small home. Some dog came chasing after us followed by a guy in underpants. This guy seemed quite alarmed with our presence. After we told him what we were doing he calmed down. The third house didn’t have any people in it which made us frustrated and insecure feeling like we’d never find Tickie Hayes’s real home. The fourth house however, was Tickie Hayes’s home. We rolled up a long driveway and went to the door of Tickie Hayes currently remodeled home. It was about  12:00a.m.  Pacific Time, about 2 hours after the sun had set. Her 15 year old daughter Morgan answered the door and seemed a bit shy. She then called for her father who came to the door. He almost seemed reluctant to let us in but we told him the story with the flat tires, no cell phone coverage, and going to multiple different homes so he let us in. We were hoping to get some dinner for we always usually eat dinner after were done riding for the day. We did not get any dinner even after trying to hint that we were hungry. Danny didn’t bother to eat any of our own food supplies but I had to eat something so I ate peanut butter and jelly, some of the only food I had. We slept in an empty room that was getting cleaned out. Tickie Hayes and her husband were staying in another home in their property right near by. We ended up getting to sleep around  2am .

The next morning we awoke around  9am  to find that we had the house to ourselves. I put the clothes in the dryer that had been cleaned in the washing machine the night before. Then Danny and I wandered around the home and property trying to find Tickie or her husband. After failed attempts to locate them, we decided to fill up our mini gasoline canister with Gasoline. We searched around the open garage and found gasoline next to some tractor supplies. “Not feeding us dinner and abandoning us in the morning, what the Hell!” I told Danny. Well show her, I thought to myself.  Next we headed for the kitchen.

 Her kitchen had tuna fish, boxes of macaroni and cheese, eggs, chocolate milk, bread, and much more. Our eyes lit up when we saw all this food. We were hungry. I started cooking up eggs while Danny picked out boxes of macaroni and cheese, tuna fish, and yogurt. I set the table and served Danny and me the eggs. We started digging into our huge delicious breakfast when we heard a car roll up from outside. Danny and I glanced at each other with “O shit” expressions on our faces. “Stay calm” I told him. Tickie Hayes came in and flared up at us. “This is my personal kitchen space, what the hell are you guy’s doing in it eating my food”. I explained to her that we eat thousands of calories a day and that she had promised us good meals. She didn’t seem to care over my pleas to let us keep eating. She told us to get out. As she was saying that I quickly shoveled a few more mouthfuls of eggs and got a few big gulps of chocolate milk in. As we were trying to shovel down our food she screamed at us and told us “Get out or I’ll call the police!” Danny and I got out and headed back to our luggage. “We gotta do the express pack up version, not no four hour routine” I said. “Yup” Danny responded. “Shit we don’t get to write in our journals before eating” I said. “Nope” Danny responded. “Damn, we’ll have to put sunscreen on down the road” Danny said. “Ya, whatever, lets just get a move on shall we?” So we packed and while doing so, Tickie got my sleeping bag out of the dryer and threw it on my luggage. Tickie Hayes turned from the nice lady at the supermarket to “Tickie the Prickie Bitch” overnight. I apologized to Tickie Hayes before leaving telling her about my cravings for home-cooked meals that I’ve been having. I told her about feeling homesick being 5,000 miles away from home. This lightened her mood a little bit and we finally got the hell out of there around  11:15am . The last thing I wanted to have happen was to have some bitch we meet mess up or delay my arrival to  Alaska . I had come over 6,000 miles from the time I left my home in Longwood  Florida  and was not going get it delayed now.

That day it felt better and better as we got further and further away from the home of Tickie Hayes. The beautiful  Rocky   Mountain  climbs eventually took our mind off the situation later in the day. Danny and I later laughed hilariously about the whole breakfast scene incident and began re-enacting the scene to each other. Quite fun times, my uncle and I can have when we re-enact scenes. Not to mention our moniker names we made up for the people we meet as well as ourselves for the trip. I was Bartholomew Fudgetrain and Danny was Winston Fudgetrain. Later that day we stopped at a rest area along side the road to ask a couple of hot sisters from  Alaska  for water. They gladly gave us water and they were super impressed with what we were doing. Along with water they gave us almonds, first aid materials, and some fruit. Rachel and Maryann were their names. We told them our fake names Bartholomew and Winston Fudgetrain which they found quite amusing and interesting. Meeting these two hot and nice sisters reminded Danny and me of one of the key life lessons we learned throughout our escapade to  Alaska . This is the ideology that the good people will out weigh the bad ones. The goodness these two cool sisters put into our trip totally outweighed the negativity and corrupt existence of Tickie Hayes. We were moving on and finally only one day from  Alaska !

One of the Best day’s of my entire life

            “Move along, move along like I know you do. And even when your hope is gone. Move along, move along just to make it through.” These words played through my mind over and over on the way from  Pittsburgh  to  Alaska . I did not bring any music player on the trip to  Alaska  so all I had was a memory of these motivating lyrics by “The All-American Rejects”.

            Day 47 started off the same as always, packing up our tent, eating a huge breakfast, writing in our journals, and packing up our bob trailers. After 27 miles we stopped and got carrots, cheese sticks, and water from a couple from Wisconsin traveling in an R.V. 80 miles into the day we passed the Canadian Border Patrol Station which told me that the big beautiful sign that I’ve been dying to see is almost a reality.

            We had to deal with a 10 mile section of gravel before the road turned paved again closing in on the border. With a couple miles out I saw some signs in the distance. A mile out and I saw the signs turning from 100 kilometers per hour to 60 miles per hour. With a few hundred meters to go, the reality of the situation began to sink in. I read the big beautiful words “Welcome to  Alaska ”.

            Danny and I got off our bicycles and I demanded that we get pictures. I took one of him, he took one of me, and then we had some tourists get some of both of us. I wanted to hug my Uncle like he was the last person on the entire planet. I had done it, but more importantly we had done it. And throughout all the times I wish there was someone else instead of my Uncle on the trip, I was now here with him and wanted to make this moment last forever.

            All of the bad feelings in my life seemed to just fizzle away. This was a high feeling like none other I have ever experienced in my entire life. It felt like I didn’t want to be anywhere else on the planet. A feeling like absolutely nothing else in life mattered. Like any possibility of anything negative that ever happened in my life suddenly just disappeared. I thought about the 12th grade year that dragged on and on. I thought about the talk about the big  Alaska  trip after graduating High School; the dis-belief that other high school students gave me; the separation I felt from other high school students; the individuality and liberation I continued to practice throughout the 12^th grade year; the inspiration of the book Into the Wild and Christopher McCandless.

            If things couldn’t get any better the next thing that happened simply put the icing on my euphoric moment. My parents rolled up in their rental van from  Anchorage , Alaska ; just as we had planned after talking to them on the phone 3 days ago. It was picture perfect, like a scene from a movie. It was so euphoric and enjoyable that I had a strange feeling like something was supposed to go wrong and darken my spirit and mood. Not this time though, everything worked out as planned. All the shit we went through to get myself from  Florida  to  Alaska  via bicycle now completely paid off. It was worth absolutely ever second of it.  I walked up to my parents and hugged each of them. 48 days ago they had watched as my Uncle and I set sail from  Pittsburgh , PA.   Like a mother bird watching her son flies off into the night sky. Now we had made it to  Alaska  and I began to shed tears, Real tears that came from deep inside the wisdom in my flesh; tears of joy, triumph, and absolute accomplishment. For the first time in almost 2 months I enjoyed a nice  United States  fast food meal from Taco-Bell. Danny and I sat inside the car as we ate our meals and felt absolutely amazing. It was the most tasty fast-food meal I have ever eaten in my entire life.

            After about 30 minutes of glory and euphoria we then crossed the official state border of  Alaska  .My parents followed in their mini-van as Danny and I rode together into the gorgeous red-orange Alaskan sunset. The feeling of joy continued to build like a stairway up an endless mountain of euphoria. I kept thinking to myself that my trip to  Alaska  was no longer a dream, a joke, or a thought. The reality of my  Alaska  dream slowly began to sink in as we rolled into  Alaska . Perhaps this meant more to me than to anybody else on the planet. Not one person in high school pressured me to make this trip and no one told me I had to do this. This triumph was for me and I finally unleashed the pride and individuality within. There was no big $1,000,000 prize waiting at the Alaskan border. This was my ultimate dream and my destiny. Today I accomplished my destiny and proved not a thing to anybody on the planet, but myself.

            What were my fellow high school graduates doing now? What were my old boring friends doing now? What were my high school teachers doing now? What were my high school coaches doing now? Where were they now? What have they done in the two months that I’ve been gone? Whatever was going on in anybody else’s life right now, well absolutely none of that seemed to matter. I didn’t seem care of the whereabouts of anybody else on the planet. All that seemed to matter in life was just being here in this moment of euphoria. Here in this beautiful tranquil wilderness of Alaska; The Great Frontier; The Last Frontier; the last hope for freedom and complete solitude for wild animals like bears and coyotes.

            I began to think about all the nights it took for Danny and me to reach this goal. I thought about the first time Danny raised my hand when I completed my 1^st 100 miles; to the first time I completed my first 200 miles. Then to the great start of the trip to  Alaska including my new biggest cycling week of 1259 miles from Longwood , Florida  to Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania . Each one of those times Danny was with me holding my hand loudly and proudly in the air. Now he was with me in the greatest fulfillment of my entire life.

            I kept thinking about what drove me to this moment. Those words to my favorite song by the “All-American Rejects” continued to play through my mind. “Move along, move along like I know you do. And even when your hope is gone. Move along, move along just to make it through.”  Those words played over and over in my mind throughout the entire trip. From the  Blue Ridge Parkway  in  North Carolina  to the peaceful mountain climbs of  West Virginia . The Rolling hills around the mosquito infested  Ontario  and  Manitoba . From the plain and simple prairie land throughout the central part of  Canada ; to the majestic and beautiful  Rocky Mountains . For every good moment there was a bad one; but we always seemed to find a way to make the good ones outweigh the bad ones. There were times in which I never wanted to be separated from my Uncle and times when I wanted to strangle him. There was a time we woke up to 35 degree rain and still forged on through the horrendous weather to ride over 100 miles. O how I wished I was back home riding around warm and sun shiny  Florida . I remember every big ride I used to do each Saturday in my final months of high school. The waking up to Lady Gaga between  4am  and  6am  and riding out to the  Gulf of Mexico  and back.

            We met many different people and learned a little bit from each person. From the friendly people to the not so friendly people, each person had something to offer and I gained a little bit of insight and character from each person I met. Ultimately, no one person was really a bad person; deep down I am glad we met all the people we met. Our experience with Tickie Hayes did not turn out to be the greatest, but I know that underneath our bad experience with her lays a kind and helpful human being. One day I shall go back to meet the people that helped my Uncle and I on our journey to  Alaska . Every person we met came in and out of our lives within a day or two and I took a little bit of knowledge and insight from each one. Still to this day, people will come and go, campsites will come and go, weather will be pleasant and horrific, but one thing will stay the same; that is the bond and companionship My Uncle and I have for each other. I had my goals dead set on  Alaska  and I knew I could count on my Uncle to get me there.

            All those moments, everything put all together to make this one moment possible. None of it could be skipped over. Hitch-hiking, driving, or taking a plane wouldn’t have made any of this quite as gratifying. It was 54 days on a bicycle to get from my home in  Longwood ,  Florida  to  Alaska . Each one of those 54 days was distinct and each one had a unique event that took place. Each one of those days will always remain in its place for eternity. Each day came with distinctive memories, roads, people, struggles, high times, fun times, good weather, and bad weather. Everything that happened during those 54 days allowed me to experience this one absolutely amazing day. And the memories will continue to build like climbing up and endless road on a mountain of euphoria. No short-cuts, no taxi rides, just riding a bicycle and becoming at one with the road. Not only at one with the road, but my uncle and I became at one with our life, with our experience, and with each other. We had made it together to  Alaska  and we shall remain true companions forever and ever.

What happens next?

My Uncle and I rode around  Alaska  for two weeks getting spoiled with hotels, cabins, and good meals. We then were left on our own again and rode back to my home in Longwood ,  Florida . Completion of my trip was 140 days and 13,769 miles. Starting  June 5, 2009  and ending  October 31, 2009 . All in all it was the absolute best time of my entire life with unforgettable moments. Transforming my discipline, sense of adventure, resourcefulness, and appreciation for things taken for granted in normal life. After the trip was over my Uncle said about me, “He started the trip a boy and ended the trip a man”.

 “If the miles behind me could be put into words before you, you would feel my efforts, my struggles, my desires. Most of all, you would see my joy.”