Anchorage to Big Bear CG -Day 17

07.17.12 Day 17 Anchorage to Big Bear CG 71.17 miles, 962.47 trip miles 12.8 avg mph, ? max 5:32:29 ride time All pavement Mostly sunny. 70’s Days of rain: 7 As I mentioned I didn’t sleep well last night. My stomach and tired legs reminded me all day of this. My poor belly either felt full or empty and pretty much was in discomfort for most of the day. The day was supposed to be short and easy. The riding would have been easy to anyone with half a nights sleep but it wasn’t. The day was long and the miles were tough for me mentally. I really didn’t want to be on my bike at all today. I got up at 8 am and Laura cooked us scrambled eggs, bacon and toast. After some debate Laura decided to go to work and not take the day off with her mom. We all drove Laura to work where I said goodbye and thanked her. Mike and I packed up and left sometime later. We went to a few stores, had lunch and bought a small amount of food. At the bike shop I ran into an old co-worker Harrison from Gregg’s Cycle. We took a bike path Laura told us about out of town that took us to the coast. It was amazing. We rode along the coast for some time before we headed inland and into traffic. We worked our way through the south end of Anchorage until we got to the Old Seward HWY. It lead us to the new Seward HWY and high speed traffic. Luckily we found a bike path that followed the highway. By this time I was ready to stop but our day has other plans for us. It would be another two hours before we stopped. Dinner was made a Bird Point where we had planned on staying but there was no camping there. We talked to multiple people about where we could stay but got no definite leads. We rode another hour plus and ended up doing 70+ miles when we planned on 45. The positive is we’re super close to the ferry now. We changed our route and we are now going to Whietter, where we’ll catch a ferry to Valdez then take Route 4 to Route 1 and Tok as planned. It’s a 5+ hour ferry ride and should be beautiful. The two tough parts are we have to catch a ride with someone through a mile long tunnel because bikes are not allowed and the other is the ferry costs $102 person! I hope this post reads well. I’m so tired it’s hard to think more than a few words ahead. Night all. Glove count: 36 Tie Down Count: 102 Scatman