As The Curtain Draws Closed

Kurt Hamby and Rich Kuechenmeister, after 28 days, have re-entered the borders of Florida. Now just hours before arriving home, the adventure comes to a close.

I want to take this opportunity to thank Kurt and Rich for allowing me to share in their adventure, its been fun.

I have taken great pleasure in creating and maintaining this blog, as well as tracking the two thru both conventional, and sometimes unconventional means.
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Kurt procured a GPS tracking unit SPOT which facilitated most of the tracking, and all of what you, the friends and others have seen.
In addition there have been a couple of snags along the way with respect to communication and tracking...Lack of cellular service in Yukon Territory, limited echo response from SPOT on the Dalton Highway, etc.

The only serious issue along the way seemed to be a patch of muddy Dalton Highway where Rich executed a double lutz and landed in a ditch. Nothing seriously hurt though. Easily repaired with tape, bailing wire, and super glue!

As always weather has been a factor throughout the trip, bitter cold, stifling heat, and wind, which did little more than slow the two down.

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I want to thank all those who helped Kurt and Rich out along the route, both in front and behind the scenes.

Blackfoot Motorsports in Calgary all of the folks are great then and really made us feel at home with a special thanks to Jens Goermann who is the service manager and even brought out one of his techs to have him tell us the best roads to take on our trip from Calgary.

Artic Caribou Inn: Scott Bedford who took us on a tour of Deadhorse and made sure we got all the things we needed so we could hit the road the next day. He is in the picture with Rich of the Deadhorse sign.

Cycle Barn Lynnwood WA: Special Thanks to Kim Seely for taking care of my helmet and thanks to Bruce and Robin for thier help and of course a very speicial thanks to Dave Preston for greetign us in for service and to Marc Satterwhite for finding our tires for use.

DigitalGlobe Jeff Kerridge for providing use of their QuickBird satellite and some of the high resolution imagery.

National Weather Service Thanks to all those who helped with tracking OCONUS weather while the team was in Alaska. And for helping us with aerial spotting up and down the Dalton Highway.

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"Surprise, Agression, Speed"

End transmission

The Road Home...Home Stretch

On what appears to be their last day on the road before home, they greet the sunrise as they put rubber to the road. Conditions are very favorable for the two, as they prepare to see what I-10 has to show them today.
Only 300 miles shy of the Florida state line, their 800 mile trip will be spent primarily traversing Florida's panhandle, no doubt helping to motivate them to press on, and bring closure to this 12,000 mile expedition.
Based on their current progress we are projecting a 9:00 pm EDT arrival time.

At 200 miles into the home stretch the team pulls into a Bay St Louis Mississippi favorite, the Gator's One Stop on Hwy 603 just off I-10. Fuel and a snack and they are off again...

Noontime brought them within 100 miles of the Florida border at Pensacola, go go go!

12:30pm EDT
As they arrive in Mobile Alabama, clear skies and 86 degrees, a light breeze off the Gulf of Mexico, they are but 500 miles from their final destination...home.