Ride to Rika's Roadhouse

This afternoon, right after church, a small group of us headed for Rika's Roadhouse near Delta. I have never ridden my bike in that direction since it is kind of like riding on the freeway. Not really enjoyable. Through town, then multi-lane divided highway until passing the entrance to Eielson Air Force Base then two lane for the rest of the trip. Not too much traffic but, as you can see in the first picture, we started out in a light rain. Once we passed Eielson, the skies cleared up a bit, no real bright sunshine but not wet either. Some turns as the highway wound along the banks of the Tanana River. Past Harding Lake, Birch Lake and Quartz Lake to the turnoff just past the confluence of the Delta and Tanana River. We had a pretty mixed group with two Goldwings, a KLR, a Yamaha cruiser, a Harley and my old BMW. The two Goldwings and the KLR were two up.

This is Rika's Roadhouse and it is set up like a museum now as opposed to an actual roadhouse with a number of touristy displays in the out buildings and the main building is now a museum. In all the years I've been up here, this is the first time I have ever stopped here. But the real reason we stopped here was for lunch. Then again all our trips have been to somewhere for lunch. Prices were pretty high, which is sort of typical for these touristy places that the tour busses stop at but the food was pretty tasty. Crab bisque, strawberry rhubarb pie, coffee and a ham sandwich on whole grain bread. $17! They are pretty proud of their food...

Since the roadhouse is no longer used for food service, there is another new building set up for that. We pretty had the whole place to ourselves for quite a while until a couple of tour busses came in dislodging their loads. Since we were the only one there initially, we kind of spread out with riding gear and helmets taking up a number of tables in the restaurant. When the tour bus crowd came in, we took that as our signal to head back on the road. Not because we don't like tourists but we figured that they probably would like somewhere to sit down,

We headed to the gas station across the highway and topped off our tanks and here, I made a mistake. I took off without lifting the side stand. That threw my balance completely off when it hit the pavement and down I went. Only a one mile per hour fall and more embarrassing than anything else. Since I'm not supposed to lift anything really heavy, like my bike, several others came and helped. No damage, no injury to anything except my pride. We then headed back to town. All in all, a great trip, 194 miles, and my right hand never went numb from tightly holding onto the throttle grip. The new springs were worth ever penny and I should have gotten them sooner. No funny vibrations indicating fuel starvation and the engine sounded wonderful but I did notice that my oil pressure light wasn't working. With an old bike, there is always something that needs fixing. I noticed that the additional front facing lights really add to the visibility of the bikes. Something I should probably consider. I also liked the flashing LED brake lights. They really stand out. More farkles....