Day 44
   
   6/10/01
   Mile 4121
   Near Kluane/Destruction Bay, Yukon
   
   No better name could there be for my location at the moment, as it
   adequately describes the destruction in my apartment in Houston.  For
   it was today that I got news that the flood there had destroyed my car,
   and many of my possessions.  It was a bitter disappointment, and I am
   trying to deal with it as best I can via emails and phone calls, but it is
   not clear at this moment if I will be forced to return.
   
   No oatmeal for me this morning; the mosquitoes made that a bit too
   annoying, cooking inside the tent is a no-no because it leaves food
   odors in the fabric that attract bears, and I'm a bit short on water anyway
   since the AAA maps were misleading again.  They might show a
   campground at a particular milepost, but when you get there you find that the
   campground is actually many miles down a dirt road.  Of course you are
   never truly short of water here - you're never more than a few miles from a
   stream of some sort, but I didn't want to take the time boiling it, so
   I just ate some of the biscuits I bought yesterday instead of oatmeal.
   
   I saw clouds of dust ahead of me on the road, and a sign that said
   "Extreme Dusty Conditions".  Well, this should be fun.  Gravel roads,
   off and on for many miles, made for a bone-jarring day.
   
   In Whitehorse I'd picked up a bottle of what I thought would be the
   answer to my prayers - Liquid Coffee Concentrate!  Unfortunately, this
   foul-tasting substance bore little resemblance to any coffee I'd ever
   tasted.  The bottle, methinks, must have been mislabeled.  I instead used 
   it for the intended purpose for which it was seemingly manufactured, and 
   poured the dark, oily liquid onto some weeds that looked like they needed
   killing.
   
   The mountains of Kulane are just to the south of me.  Jagged and
   snow-covered, they look like they would provide some interesting
   climbing.
   
   It rained again in the afternoon, neatly washing off my insect
   repellant.  It was too hot for a jacket, and the slight tailwind had
   the annoying effect of making my windspeed zero while climbing the long
   inclines to Bear Creek and Boutillier passes.  Thus there was no antidote to
   being eaten alive by mosquitoes.  Madness ensued.
   
   I am sick of rain.  It is a daily occurance for me.  It flooded a
   bridge, and my apartment, my car - it's a problem even when I'm
   nowhere near it.  There is no joy in Mudville.  And that's probably what 
   my living room looks like - mudville.
   
   On the plus side, the training is going well, and I've even developed
   a new muscle group.  This one is in my face - from maintaining a stiff
   upper lip.
   
   As usual, the Alaskan Highway is dead, dead, dead on a Sunday night.
   Not a single vehicle passed me between 9 and 10pm.  The road belonged
   to me.  I guess people take Sundays off - I've forgotten what that's
   like, having not had any this entire trip, save for the day I worked in
   Calgary.
   
   The road continued to get worse.  Along about 10:30, a car passed me,
   honking energetically as if to say, "Right on, biker!".  Five minutes
   later, I passed it.  Dripping transmission fluid, a pothole had
   claimed another car by gashing open the pan.  A few days ago, I was passed
   several times by an old pickup truck pulling a camper.  I later passed
   that same vehicle, and the entire axle had been sheared off of the trailer.
   
   Near sunset I heard a cracking of timbers and saw a brown shape moving
   in the woods - fear! - but it was a moose, not a bear.  I wheeled on
   for a while, then found a spot in the bush to pitch the tent.

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