Our last night at the cabin. I was going to miss the peace and quiet, and the view.

Also homemade is the "Mud Buggy", complete with moose winch. One bad-ass four-wheeler.

The guys we went riding with yesterday got a moose and brought it by in their homemade moose hearse to clean it at Michael's cabin, since he had hoses hooked up outside.

Here's the guys trying to pull out the Rhino. Three four-wheelers with winches and it still took them lots of trys.

And then they got a call that another neighbor had gotten his Rhino stuck and needed a pull out. That takes some doing...

Sometimes we'd stop at neighbor's cabins to see if they'd gotten/seen any moose, and for some hot coffee. Joe's cabin has a nice observation deck for moose spotting.

We saw quite a few moose, even a nice, big bull. Unfortunately, he had another season to go before he would be legal. But it was amazing to watch them in their native habitat, and to see just how huge of an animal they are. It was also nice to be out and see the other critters. This was a very curious ermine. When I made little squirrel sounds at him, he'd run closer to us, get a look, then run off. But his curiousity would bring him back...

The hills are covered with four-wheeler trails, which are usually pretty dry this time of year. However, this summer was much wetter than usual, so we were in a lot of mud most of the time. Above is one of the more defined trails.

Except for a few cabin-maintenance days, we ventured out most every day for some moose hunting. The area had burned a few summers ago, and torched most of the trees in the area. Even so, it was still beautiful.

The week spent at Michael's cabin was relaxing. Here's a view from the deck. On a clear day, the mountains across the Bay can be seen in the distance.

Riding into Anchorage from Palmer was almost a bit of a culture shock. It was the first 4-lane road we had been on since southern BC. After more than 2,000 miles of fairly remote roads, it was kind of disappointing.

After three 500-mile days in a row, we decided not to push on to Ninilchik that night. Rather, I should say that Michael wanted to keep going as he was excited to get to his cabin, but I wanted to be able to see the Kenai Pennisula in the daylight. I had driven it this time last year, but not on a motorcycle. And I knew I was in for a treat. In addition, I didn't fancy dodging bears and moose in the dark, as well as negotiating the 20-odd miles of rough gravel road up to his cabin.

So after 350 miles (which oddly felt longer than some of our 450+ mile days, maybe due to the weather getting colder), we opted to stay the night at a lovely bed-and-breakfast in Girdwood. Having a hot shower and plush bed with a view of Mt. Alyeska right outside our window was the perfect end to the day.

Stopping at Eureka Lodge was a treat: hot coffee and a full rack of ribs went down rather well. Outside, three Harley's (each hauling a trailer...) were parked while their owners were inside eating. Their mascot was left to watch the bikes (to the amusement of everyone coming-and-going in the parking lot).

View of mountains, trees, and flowers somewhere along the Glenn Highway from Tok to Anchorage. There were so many snow-covered peaks, and miles and miles of glacier-filled valleys along this National Scenic Byway.

The road from the border to Tok was by far the worst one of the trip. Most of it was torn up due to construction, and we were coming through on a weekend, so no road crew to direct us around the worst parts or make us slow down (doh!). And they left things in a pretty miserable state. On top of it all, it was night and it was raining. All of the potholes had filled up with water and water was shooting up our pant legs and down inside our boots. And being filled with water, we couldn't tell how deep they were...until we hit one so deep that had we been going any faster, it surely would have thrown us over the handle bars. At least it served to make us slow down...

We passed through Whitehorse, the largest town in the Yukon. After checking out 3 of the 4 motorcycle shops in town and having a late breakfast, we headed on to Haines Junction. Here we ate some sandwiches and bought a few more since this would be our last town before Tok, AK (almost 300 miles).

Riding along Kluane Lake was spectacular. Disclaimer: my Kluane Lake pics didn't turn out very well since the weather was overcast. So I pirated this one above off of the internet.

It's a beautiful ride out of town this morning along Teslin Lake. It's an immensely long lake...we started out halfway along it and even then the part we rode along went on for 30 miles.

Today we make for Tok, Alaska. It will be another 500-mile day...most of which will be through pretty remote country.

Most mornings start with a helmet-cleaning...seen here: the pain inflicted from having too-short of a windscreen.