Vancouver was great, of course the air freight people had lost Thelma - apparently the pilot had taken one look at her and said she couldn´t go on his plane - and no I am not joking. After many phone calls across the Atlantic, in between getting up at 3.00am to watch the World cup football matches... she arrived 48 hours late which wasn´t too bad.
I just missed Grant and Susan when I popped round to see them - maybe another time, another continent you two.
I set off pretty quickly and rode almost non-stop up to Anchorage - 2500 miles away, I had to get there to meet Siobhan off her flight from England. Siobhan rode her Africa Twin to Australia a couple of years ago and now lives near me in Cornwall, where we re-live our travel stories, no doubt boring everyone around us in the meantime.
The ride through British Columbia and the Yukon was beautiful, though it did rain every day. I saw my first bear 36 hours after leaving Vancouver at which point I decided I had better stop rough camping on my own. It was the start of quite a few bear sightings and each time I got more scared.
The Cassiar Highway (BC) was a particularly memorable road - quite a lot of dirt track and with some terrifying metal grid bridges which just make you feel out of control. After the last one I found out that you are supposed to ride fast across them... of course I had been going slowly and cautiuously.
I reached the airport two hours before Siobhan´s flight was due in - not bad considering the distance I had covered.
Luckily I have friends who live in Anchorage and we stayed with them as it is quite an expensive place to stay.