Michael J. and Mike Fox, Texans

A few posts back I promised to introduce Alaska Highway personalities.  I have been sidetracked.  But, now that I have survived the ride back down the road and am in a comfortable room in Dawson Creek, I shall pick up that theme.

My first night on the highway was spent at the public regional campground known as Tetsa River Campground, at Mile=347, KM=558.  It was a wilderness campground, meaning outhouses, but no running water and no showers.  I had stopped there because I glipsed its sign as I was riding through a particularly nasty stretch of newly laid loose gravel of several Km in length, and having ridden 347 miles I was already tired and looking for a place to stop.  I met the caretaker, a happy and hospitable gent who lived in a camper trailer.  He offered me a jug of filtered water from Fort Nelson, and showed me to site 6, which had a grassy area in which to pitch my tent.  As it was to be a one-nighter, I pitched my mountain tent, the 1968 Gerry Year-Round that I had had since new.  (I joke that it is the only house I was allowed to keep following my divorce, in 1972.) 


As I was preparing to eat my beef jerky and trail mix dinner, two fellows pedaled in on a sit-down bicycle, replete with a trailer full of camping gear, and a similarly man-powered tricycle..  They settled in Site 7.  I soon learned that these intrepid adventurers were Michael J. Fox (not the actor), 62, and his grandson Mike Fox, 14.  They were from Texas, and were riding the Alaska Highway in celebration of young Mike's graduation from the eighth grade.  He is a big, strong boy, and hopes to play football in high school.  I told him I could think of no better way to get in shape than to do what he and his grandfather were doing.

Such men make us motorcyclists humble.  I have taken to calling out "Respect!" to the bicyclists I pass along lonely mountain roads.