Bear Attack!

Well, not exactly. It was more like the "Attack of the Rubberneckers!". At our first gas stop on the Alaska Highway in Wonowon had finished gassing and we enjoying a very nice homemade egg salad on thich wheat when to well outfitted BMW 1150 GS Adventures pulled to the pumps. The riders were dressed in full European looking riding suits with BMW flip up helmets, these were obviously serious long distance riders. Their large aluminun side cases are the ones you see on the bikes on the TV series Long Way Around (the show where movie star Ewen Mc somtning ride around the world with aTV crew in tow). Large German flags and a bunch of other stickers were plastered on the cases. What we didn't notice at first was the 90's era Taurus station wagon that came in behind the bikes.

The leader came over to us and started a conversation with us in very good but obviously German accented English. Asked us where we were from and where we were going... the usual biker ice breaker. We asked the same of him and before long the folloeing story unwound:

There were three German couples, not two as the number of bikeswould indicate. They had shipped their 3 Beemers from Germany to Alaska and were now riding south on the Alaska Highway. I foolishly asked if they were riding to the east coast and shipping their bike back to Germany. Oh no, we are going to ride the 101 down the west coast and then on to Baja California in Mexico. Their eventual destination: Terra Del Fuego in Argintina! The route includes a ferry from Baja to the Mexico Mainland, Panama City, ferry to Bogota. In Bogota they will store the bikes, fly homefor 3 months, fly back and continue on through South America... the whole trip consuming at least a year. Makes our month long jaunt look like a milk run.

The mystery of the 2, not 3, bikes and the Taurus wagon. Near Watson Lake, where a military man on his way to Wright Patterson had not only warned us of multiple animals near and on the road but shown us pictures on his digital camera, the Germans had encountered a bear near the highway. As the rider of the noe missing third BMW turned his head to look at the bear he struck the right rear case of the second bike. The impact sent both cycles to the pavement injuring both riders and their passengers. Emergency workers came and cut the riding suit from the offending rider and treating his broken hand and scaped arm. Both riders suffer either broken or seriously bruised ribs and the third bike was beyond immediate repair. Fortunatly in Watson Lake they found a "very clean and efficiently run" bed and brekfast next to the RCMP station. "It was so clean the owner made us remove our boots before we could come in." The B&B was of cours run by a German expat whould would also oversee the repair of the damaged 650 GS. The journey was continuing on with the Ford wagon ferrying the damaged rider two women. A side case from the damaged bike had replaced case destroyed on the second bike and all looked well with the exception of a few scrapes on the crash bars.

The other stickers on the bike indicated they had been to Africa. Two hyears ago the crew had shipped to Cape Town, South Africa and riden back home. We are such pikers.