It's Katrina & Elyse's birthdays and we leave as one big peloton around noon to set us up for the border race. I don't know if the people lined up at Canadian Customs knew who we were, or if they just thought it was cool to see a big group of cyclists out there, but the drivers and passengers of the 20 or so cars, trucks, and RVs were yelling, clapping and slapping our hands as we rode by. It was so cool that we got to celebrate this big event with an audience, some of whom were from Texas. Vitek somehow got mixed up in the loose gravel in the ditch and busted ass, face first, into the rocks. When I stopped he was fine, but I hung back and was not able to catch the peloton for the final sprint to the border sign. Our team (Coastal) took 1st-10th places. We took a million and one pictures at the big Alaska sign and the sense of accomplishment was pretty great. During our photo op a woman came up and rudely asked for us to move so she could take a picture of the sign without us in it. Impatiently she said, "I drove 3000 miles to get here and I want a picture!" We all kind of smirked and one of the guys popped back, "Oh, well we've been riding our bikes for the last 65 days to get here, over 4000 miles, so you can wait!" Not long after we passed American Customs we stopped at a gas station/gift shop/cafe and there was no doubt we were back in America. The place had fountain drinks, regular priced candy bars, a flat screen playing ESPN in HD and waitresses talking about watching Nascar earlier in the morning. It was a nice change from the $2 canned cokes and $2 candy bars in Canada.
Amy and I rode the rest of the way in together and stopped to talk to a woman just outside of town who raises and sells Huskies. It's pretty empty out here. Since she's the Principal at the school of 40 kids--K through 12th--the rundown single wide trailer with holes in the walls and ripped up flooring, that requires a bucket of water be poured in the toilet bowl for it to flush, is passed down to her by the school rent free. The water in Northway is not drinkable so they make weekly 60 mile trips to Tok and haul water back home. She's only a few hours shy of her Ph.D. but in a year, her 17 year old son can make what she makes in salary as a flagger for the road construction crews. The place is a wreck, "but there's nothing else out here," she tells us. Amy and I get into camp & get in a quick shower before the store closes [which would turn out to be my last shower before getting to Anchorage]. The mosquitoes are unbelievably bad tonight and I'm not feeling well so I cut out early. I'm kept awake, however, until almost 3 am by a combination of coughing, a runny nose, and my teammates who are drinking and yelling long into the night.
