Alaska to Mexico!

So there I was, mooning the wind. 

I know that sounds pretty rediculous, but there I was nonetheless with my butt-cheeks out flapping in the Canadian wind, red, white, black and blue  like a flag claiming a new land.  What exactly was I thinking when I up and decided to ride my bike from Anchorage down to Tijuana Mexico?  I mean seriously, I had just undergone major knee surgery just a year prior, and then I went and made hamburger out of my shoulder, but then there I was, in the middle of the Yukon, crippled, yelling and shaking my fist and the wind,  finally bearing my blessed behind in a final expression of disgust.

Meanwhile, my 15 year old brother watched from the side of the road–too tired to participate with my colorful display out in the middle of the desolate Canadian highway.  How had he been roped into this mess?  Oh, thats right.  I booked his ticket up to Anchorage without much more discussion than, “Hey!  You wanna ride bikes with me from Anchorage down to Mexico?”  So if he died out there, his blood was on my hands.  Dad would be PISSED.

Wait, HE’s the one to blame!   My dad wass the REAL reason for my grief.  He was going to meet us in Vancouver to join us the rest of the way to Mexico…  He’s the one who booked his ticket into Vancouver only 32 days after we would fly into Anchorage, thus making me and my brother have to average 75 miles per day to meet up with him!  75 miles per day!?  Through THIS terrain!?  You’ve gotta be nuts!  That is the same pace as the Panamerican Highway World record holders for speed!  We aren’t atheletes!  I was a cripple, and my brother was the official token “fat kid” at his school!  And somehow we’d found ourselves in the middle of the last great American frontier, completely unsupported, on our bikes.

After a week strait of brutal headwinds through the Alaskan and Canadian rockies, with freezing rain and miles of gravel roads, I couldn’t see how we could possibly make it to Vancouver in time.

So there I was in the middle of the Yukon.  With my 15 year old brother.  With two bikes full of camp-gear.  Mooning the wind.  And I was having the time of my life.