Alaska To Argentina by Motorcycle | [ Part 14 ]

Welcome to episode 14 of my Argentina to Alaska 500 day motorcycle trip. In this episode, I've made it all the way up from the tip of South America to the top of Alaska. I'll do a quick loop around the state, deal with snow and sub-freezing temperatures, and finally head home to El Paso, Texas to complete my 500 day adventure around the world. So here I am in Dead Horse, Alaska. I finally made it after a long haul and I want to introduce my favorite Alaskan slash oil rig kind of guy. Call me John Boe and man, it's great to see how it's been. It's been a few years and not everybody runs to Prudhoe Bay to see me. So yeah, we got to hook the guy up right. The glasses are for some sort of safety standard. Don't freak out, nothing's wrong. So this is John's big rig thing. That's right. This is what he drives. This is what he does here. Didn't quite make it to the Arctic Ocean, unfortunately, because stupid oil companies. Even though you're escorted, you can't do crap. So I'm going to touch the river that spills into the Arctic Ocean. Oh, that's cold. I'm going to touch the water, taste the water. I can't think of anything else to do. Seen the Northern Lights, Salt Flat of Bolivia, Iguazu Falls, jungles of Costa Rica. As John said to me today, he said, such a young guy, so much accomplished, so many things seen, so many things done. That's a big compliment, you know? He was parading me around with all his friends, bragging about me, so it was kind of cool. Say happy birthday to him. Thank you. 25 years old, rode down to South America twice, and then he just went from South America to Prudhoe Bay this year. I came up from the tip of South America now, so this is easy. Journey's actually raising money for charity, and if y'all have time, be sure to check out the webpage. It's called expeditionsouth.com. It has the whole venture on there if you guys want to check it out. And they just told me that the roads have been flooding and the passes, again, frozen and stuff, so we'll see how that is. If it's passable or not, because getting here was the tough part, getting back is going to be the hardest part. The bike is absolutely atrocious. It's getting in the radiator, it's making the bike overheat. The panniers here are just completely covered in crap. You can't even see the license plates. While I'm gassing up at the... This is going to go on the blooper reel, because I can't even say, when gassing up at... It's been a long day, that's all I can say. It's probably the first time where there's an unattended gas station, and there's quite literally nothing or anyone around. Credit card machine inside, and there's absolutely nothing or no one observing this thing in case something happens. So, life is good. I'm going to go try to stake out the northern lights tonight, too. If I get the lights and everything, it's just going to be an amazing birthday for me. Although, I'm alone. I have nobody to share it with. It's still pretty unique and quite nice. So, my friend from National Geographic gave me some food he was camping with. What's on the menu today, you may ask? Freeze-dried chicken from a camping pack. Not yet rehydrated. It tastes like jerky. It's pretty good. One of the most amazing things that happens to you on such a long journey, you know, months or weeks or whatever, is you start to appreciate the little things in life. And in this case, it's riding all day, being super cold, seeing barely but no one, basically cooking yourself a little cup of soup, a hot cup of soup, that all day you've been just thinking about making it and drinking it and enjoying it. Almost like winning the lottery. Even though I don't know what winning the lottery feels like. It's the most amazing feeling to have something so small, be yet so gratifying and satisfying. Everything that you could possibly need at this moment. Talk about living in the moment, but the power of soup. It's like a main lobster dinner for me. It's morning. And apparently, it snowed quite a bit last night. Really, really bad for me because I don't have snow tires. Nor should I be here at all, because I'm pretty sure the path is frozen now. I don't know if I'll get out of here. Oh, and also because my tent's not waterproof, I had to use the motorcycle cover as my waterproof thing. So I had low hopes and the bike actually is starting, but it didn't. The bike started barely. I am quite literally in the middle of nowhere, because last night I tried checking out the lights and I said I'm going to go out to the middle of nowhere. But no, I had a freaking snow. Whoa, man. I was really worried. I'm enjoying this beautiful view. I'll tell you that the path wasn't as bad as I thought. It actually, this part of the mountain, no snow or no rain, so it's not as slushy as it was coming up. It's pretty easy. Bad thing is that my front fork on my bike is leaking oil, which means the fork feels busted, which means the shots are pretty much shot out. So I have another 400 miles to go. Hopefully, I'll make it before that blows up on me or does something bad. For the people who don't know, there's this thing called the Alaskan Pipeline, which is this cool looking thing here, and it runs all the way to the center in the heart of Alaska from Prudhoe Bay all the way down to Fairbanks, I believe, not further. Today's favorite sign of Alaska is please do not climb on the pipeline. Just coming back from the Arctic Circle. It's been very, very cold and I'm literally just freezing. I've been driving for about three hours and just so freaking cold. Side of the road, hitting up some water with my little camp stove and it's below freezing right now. So with the windchill factor, it's worse. You know, that's the sacrifice I get for traveling to Alaska in autumn or September. It was completely worth it for those amazing northern lights, which was just fantastic. Blew my mind. Paying for it now and I will be paying for it for the next week, week and a half as I get further down south to the States. Onward. Onward, we gotta push on. Well, I gotta push on. Who's we, right? Me and the bike, right? So one of the disadvantages of being very cold and hungry sometimes is that your brain and your body just don't mix well or function well. What do you do? You drop your freaking food on the floor because you're just stupid. So today's lunch is on the floor. It was supposed to be really good, but I guess I will never find out. So sad day for Alex. Fail on lunch today. Today sucks. Bye.