The PacMule- North Carolina to Alaska

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One little cylinder, one big continent!

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Click Here  for the latest video compilations.

  "But especially he loved to run in the dim twilight of the summer midnights, listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs of the forest, reading signs and sounds as a man may read a book, and seeking for the mysterious something that called -- called, waking or sleeping, at all times, for him to come."
- Jack London, The Call of the Wild

Planned Route
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Some books are required reading.  Some are sought out.
 
The stories and poems that captured my youthful attention and imagination were those of  wilderness and adventure.
Jack London, Robert Service, Hemingway, JFCooper, Twain, and even Willa Cather, and Laura Ingalls Wilder.
 
Their words took my mind to wonderful places but left my bones at home.  Their inspiration did move me to hike and camp and fish but all actions were micro-adventures..  The annual venture to points west with some of my closest friends only whets my appetite for what lies north.
 
I'm not sure what constitutes a midlife crisis.  Seems it is supposed to include an expensive sports car and struggle to gain what one once had in high school.  I don't want to go back there.  Didn't like it much the first time.
At this point in my life I can afford to take the time, kids are old enough to remember what I've taught them, and my bride sometimes enjoys the peace when I'm gone for a while.   So what if it happens to be at my life's mid-point.  My motivation is not to prove anything but to experience the pictures painted by the words of these inspiring writers.
 
Fixing up a ten year old bloated dirt bike and overloading it with a first time backpacker's idea of necessities then pointing it northwest and expecting smooth sailing is a little much to ask.  Coming home in one piece with a smattering of new relationships, pebbles from many streams, a deck of memory cards (filled with vain attempts to capture in two visual dimensions what  my senses as a whole experience), and a view of life skewed a few degrees, is success.  Twelve thousand miles- some on highways, some on remote two lanes, some on dirt roads in various stages of maintenance- will pass under my bike.  I hope to remember every one. 
 
Let's see what the big deal is with Jack London's Yukon.

Red Creek Crossing, Dempster, Yukon
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2010