Fail (although not "epic fail")

We've decided to turn back. We're OK. Nothing's really amiss, we're just too weary at this point.

2-up + camping + deadline don't mix. Especially the deadline part. The biggest mistake was saying we'll be in Anchorage by next Sunday. It sets a goal that's hard to meet and to top it off it's completely inflexible. We've been pulling days that are longer than we want. I (George) am getting burnt out. We're not able to spend any time enjoying the places we've gotten to. At this point it just seems like good time after bad.

It's like the saying good money after bad. Except time is more valuable than money. By far. I don't want to drive to Anchorage for the next week getting myself even more burnt out, only to have to retrace my steps to get back home. That's an additional two weeks that I won't have and won't enjoy.

We got to this point by trying to make the run from Stewart to Watson Lake in a day. It was frustrating. To top it off I slightly bent a rim in some construction. An added kicker is that Yukon Yamaha's service department isn't even open on Saturday -- which is why we were racing to get there. If you've been looking at the Spot page, you've probably seen us high tail it from one end of the country (countries I suppose) to the other in no time. You've seen some long days.

We haven't had time to stop and smell the roses. We haven't had time to just sit and enjoy camping. We haven't had time to stop at roadside attractions as much as we would have liked to. It all boils down to time. The passing of time. The race against it.

Before we left I was joking "Oh, I'm just dropping Jenn off at the airport -- in Anchorage -- and coming home." The joke became the reality.

We're going to pick up the tires that we mailed to Whitehorse and mail them back. (Actually, I'm going to offer to sell them the pair -- they can re-sell them for $350-450 CAD -- They're only worth $150 to me now)

Things learned thus far:

• If you want to to long-distance touring with camping, you probably don't want to go 2-up (especially in the case of going to Alaska since you need lots of additional cold-weather gear for two that you wouldn't need otherwise)
• Don't have hard deadlines -- it just makes things turn into work
• National parks -- the popular ones -- are like driving at rush-hour. Not fun.

At least we made it to Alaska... for a few feet at least. :-) Hyder, AK -- the southern-most road reachable city in Alaska. In the strictest sense, we drove to Alaska. heh.

Signing off for now...