We headed out for the glacier this morning after making a cup of coffee in the kitchen of the Hostel. It was a new paved road most of the way and they were paving the rest of the road.
Paving X
This area gets a lot of traffic as we noticed in the morning with all the Mercedes Benze busses picking up people for daily tours. There are a lot of them around here. When we got to a traffic stop on the way to the glacier I pulled out and passed about a ¼ mile of busses and vans full of people going to see it. Jim is so kind and considerate he never thinks of doing that sort of thing. I however am always looking for the opportunity to ‘get the jump on ‘em.’
I took this photo of the glacier from a distance to give an idea of the size and scale. It is 14 kilometers long and about 50 meters high at the base where it calves in a lake. There was a nice rainbow over it.
Glacier rainbow X
Jim found that lighting a smoke in the fierce wind coming off the glacier was somewhat difficult.
Jim smoke X
We rode on up to the viewing area and it is all set up just like all the parks in the USA. I felt like a sheep in a chute here and tried not to piss on or stomp on all the NO signs. I think they must have gotten professional help from our park service for ideas on NO signs.
Sheep Chute X
Oh, I found some flowers in bloom for my flower friends. It is late season down here and the rose hips are starting to turn red. Soon there will be snow down here, so we gotta hurry and head back up north.
Wild flowers X
Here is the calving ground of the glacier. I could see and hear them when they fell.
Calving ground X
I have to get one of me in here with the glacier in the backgroud.
Dog glacier X
We headed back to Ruta 40 and made it to a little town (Rio Turbio) and found a couple of rooms in a house on the edge of town. I had been thinking about my windshield broken bracket problem for many miles and after paying for the rooms i went out and started fixing my problem. I decided to make two new brackets out of some of the wire that we wrapped Jim’s saddle bag on with. I knew there was an extra length I left on the wrap so I cut it off and made the new brackets. I think they will do just find until I get back or find someone to make a new one. It may be one of those temporary permanent fixes I am so famous for. It was fine when I was headed into the wind when ridding, but when I stopped with the wind from the rear, it would almost rip the shield off. I think I am good for now.
Windshield repair X
Jim says that if you get inside the house you cant tell if the wind is blowing. Well, out on Ruta 40 today the wind was noticeable. I could feel it blowing the bike sideways when it came from the side and I was on gravel. Mostly the wind came from the right side and I would travel in the extreme right side of the road so when I got blown over, I still had plenty of road to ride on. The gravel piles between tire track lanes makes this an interesting ride. We came across several places where they are paving more sections of Ruta 40. This road will be just another paved highway soon. I am glad I was able to experience it in gravel. When I went to Alaska in 1969 the Alaskan highway was still gravel. I went up with my Harley and sidecar and I am glad I had the chance to do it before it was paved in the oil boom several years latter. We don’t have much more of Ruta 40 to do in gravel.