Back in the states!

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Wow, the last 2 days were simply amazing. We waited all day yesterday, with no sign of motorcycle parts as of 7pm. The visitors center in Dawson City closes at 8pm. We hadn't heard from Adrian yet either. Derek and I were starting to make plans for today, and weren't too thrilled with out options. I decided to go to the grocery store at about 7pm, and I was going to get some food before they closed. I planned to check at the visitors center one last time right before they closed.

While I'm browsing around the grocery store, Derek comes rushing in and says "They're here, let's go!". In a somewhat confused tone of voice I said "Who brought them?". He says that Adrian just rolled into town with the parts. Just like that, our prayers answered. And what an amazing feeling it is!

So I rush back to camp to get tools around, knowing we have plenty of daylight available throughout the night. Oh the advantage of so much light in the summer time. Everything goes on the bike just fine, and no more oil leaks. Great success! And immediately I notice how nicely the bike cruises with the 16-tooth sprocket. We decided to camp in Dawson one more night, because we already paid for the campsite and because the border crossing closes much earlier than we would make it there last night.

We got up bright and early this morning, cooked some breakfast, and off we went. The KLR lacks torque with the new sprocket, but mileage is about 3mpg better and cruises much nicer. I think it is a good tradeoff. At Tok, Adrian decides he doesn't want to come north with us because of time constraints. That was a bummer, but you gotta do what you gotta do sometimes. So he heads south, and we continue north.

Derek and I arrived in Fairbanks a short while later, and had plans of getting him new rear brake pads. He is nearly at metal on metal. So we go to the Suzuki dealer only to find they are closed! But there happens to be a worker just leaving the building who feels sorry for us and lets us in. Derek goes in to find out they don't have the pads in stock and none are on order. How crazy is that? The earliest they will be in is Wednesday, and we don't want to wait around that long. It looks like they will have to wait until Anchorage. He will just not use the rear brake. That's not a big deal because the rear brake makes the bike squirrelly on gravel anyway.

I had called Linda Emmert earlier today, and she said we could come over for dinner and to spend the night. How exciting is was to be able to sleep in a bed! Linda, Liz, and Todd cooked us a wonderful dinner including salmon, salad, applesauce, rolls, mashed potatoes, ice cream, and coffee. Wow, life doesn't get much better than this if you ask me! It was such a pleasure to meet these folks, and we had a great time sitting and chatting for a while. We were even offered another dinner and night's stay tomorrow if we want to. I think we are going to take them up on it, and just hang out in town and take care of some errands tomorrow. Oh, and we have a big breakfast coming our way in the morning. We told them it isn't necessary to do all this, but they insisted they enjoy doing this stuff. So we'll take it!

I just love how welcoming the Emmert's were, and we are very blessed to have some great hosts.

Ok well I'm tired, time for bed. I should have more tomorrow night...

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