Bye Sydney...Hello Anchorage...

After 14 hours to LAX where I did not sleep a wink, we arrived at a stale smelling LAX for a 3 hour delay before our 5 hour flight to Anchorage.

It was really the worst flight I have ever done, the 14 hours to LAX wasn't so bad, I managed to fill it up entirely with movies. By the time we got to LAX we were on a circadian time of 2:30 am or so, and I was just hysterically tired. LAX is probably the grosses airport I have ever been in. Everything was just grubby, and it was hot and just 'stale'. I know its a huge airport and everything, but a counties airport is kinda like having someone over for dinner... You want to make a good impression right? 

I managed to grab about 3 hour restless sleep on the Anchorage leg, but I was lucky enough to get put in a row of seats that don't recline, and stuck behind a row with two grumpy kids. I needed the 3 hours of sleep badly, regardless of how uncomfortable it was.
(pro-tip - never select a row in front of the emergency exit row- the seats don't recline as they would block the exit. NB - I didn't pick this seat.. It was auto allocated when we checked in and we didn't get to pick a seat).

The landing in LA was weird, we knew we were descending, but we flew into cloud at about 15,000 feet, and the next thing we knew there was a bump, and we were rolling along the runway. took us completely by surprise.

Our arrival in Anchorage couldn't have been more different, The last  15m of the flight was amazing, we flew over some amazing scenery, and I took a metric shit-tonne of photos out the window.

Due to the seating debacle, poor Megan was sitting 5 rows up from me, but didn't have a window to look out of, whereas I had two!

North of the Wall!!

Some serious terrain down there

We arrived at anchorage about 3pm and were picked up after about 25 minutes by the hotel shuttle.

Even on the ride home, we realised we were in an amazing place, there are mountains with the last vestiges of Spring snow still on them all around the city.

We checked in, dumped our stuff, washed off the gross plane funk. and headed out to get some dinner. It was about 5pm, and we walked around the corner to a place called 'the moose's tooth' which was supposed ot be a micro-brewery and pizza bar. After a couple of pizzas and some house beers, and wishing we hadn't actually gone there, we went for a walk round town after dinner.   

Looks good - but wasn't so great

It was 6pm, but to look at the sky, you would say it was about 1:30pm, the sun was still that high in the sky.

We walked around a bit an eventually found our way to Walmart for supplies. We had to buy some essentials - (Chips and Jerky obviously!!). We walked back to the hotel room and watched some TV and tried to make ourselves sleepy.
We stayed up as long as possible, roughly 8pm, before catching a few  hours of restless sleep until midnight, then awake again till 2:30am and then slept restlessly till 9am, missing breakfast!



  

Anchorage at midnight

After some cereal in our room, we caught a cab to go and pick up out bikes.
For once something had gone our way and the bikes were actually here and cleared before we were. The shipping Agent was kind enough to let us un-crate the bikes in the car park and even chuck the crates in their dumpster.

Everything was going great, until we actually opened the crates and saw what a fucked job Procycles had done crating the bikes. They are covered in scratches where things were not adequately packed, paint has been rubbed off, wheels scratched and they had also taken BOTH front wheels off the bikes!! we were expecting to have to do Megan's bike, but not mine as well. Anyways, next time (if there is a next time), I will be crating them myself

With some help from the Agents, we managed to get both front wheels on, luggage attached and ready to ride in about 4 hours. we rode them back to the hotel and ferried the luggage back to the room where we proceeded to disgorge it's contents over the whole room making a proper mess.

Some work needed to be done

All ready to ride

I spent the afternoon organising our kit, attaching our helmet cameras, adding new headsets, and seeing if I could actually fit everything I had brought with me on the plane into the motorcycle luggage. Looks like I will have a small amount of stuff strapped to the outside of the bike unfortunately.

Being in good spirits, despite the damage to the bikes, we decided to go out down town to a place called the Glacier Brew House. We took a cab, and found the place busy with about a 45 minute wait for table service. We ended up just eating at the Bar, the food was great and so was the beer, probably the best beer I have had from any micro-brewery, and I have seriously lost count of the shitty micro-breweries I have been too. All the beer from these places seems to always taste of wet Labrador. I don't know what they fuck up to make it taste like this, but they ALL seem to be able to do it consistently.

cool ceiling

The house beer taps

Pretzel and ale fondue - Yum!

We had a great time there, and met some interesting characters at the bar, I got talking to an ex-ranger who now did debt collections for two bookies in Vegas. He had some awesome war stories about Iraq, Fellujah, and some on American soil. Most of the good ones involved working as a contractor for the military to bring into custody special ops guys who were wanted for federal crimes committed while on leave. He showed me all his bullet scars and had apparently been hit with a baseball bat 4 times that morning.

We also a wildlife photographer couple who had driven a giant RV up from the lower states to spend a couple of months taking photos and travel writing, they had lots of good information and tips. They were also considering driving the Dalton.

We got a cab home at 10pm, which looked like about 3pm when we got outside, and had another night of disturbed sleep. The light outside seems to really fuck you up on top of the Jet lag. You seem to go through waves, nodding on the couch one minute, and then wide awake 20mins later. It seriously only gets to something you could say sunset at about 2:30am

The TV has been interesting, most of the ads are about food, drugs and rehab centres. and then some more about food just for a change.

We went back to Walmart today for more supplies, but his time for stuff we actually need, Some dehydrated meals and most importantly - Bear Spray.

The gun Aisle at Walmart

Hand gun with your Cool Ranch flavour Doritos sir?

Bear spray - with holster :)

Were going for a little shakedown ride tomorrow, to the Alaskan Conservation centre to see some Bears, Moose, musk ox and Caribou