The front sprocket was badly hooked. The chain was had a lot of flex in it and had worn all the way through the chain slider and made 1mm notches in a weld on the swingarm. Cosmetic, fortunately, but I needed to have something there to prevent further wear. I cut part of the slider off the top half and shimmed it under the worn part on the bottom. I wasn't sure whether I'd be able to find a replacement sprocket in Anchorage, and since I was already on the Kenai I figured I would stop in Whittier and see about the ferry straight to Bellingham, WA.
This would be a good place to rant about the Kenai. It is pretty, but it is an awful place to ride (by comparison to the rest of Alaska). Granted, it has many beautiful things to see. It is also the playground for everyone in Anchorage, so the beauty is smeared with tens of thousands of trucks, RVs, and cars. (In and around Anchorage I noticed that the boi-racer/ricer fad has not died out, and the aggressive drivers are complimented by an equal number of incompetents who use the brake anytime they approach a curve of any radius--say at 65mph on a nearly straight highway.) In all fairness, it a matter of expectations; people need somewhere to go and play. So if you have a destination, go there, get off the bike, and hike a glacier or catch some fish. If you expect the journey to be the destination, stay clear of the Kenai or just get used to studying the back of an RV for a few hours.
Be that as it may, the other thing I've found on the road is that it's impossible to make a bad decision. Every bad thing that has happened, every mistake I've made, somehow manages to take a good turn. If you keep positive, talk to people, and try to make something happen, you'll find a way.
So back to Whittier. Whittier could not be shittier. It's a stop for cruise ships and the ferry and nothing else. It turned out I could get on standby for the next ferry, leaving Monday, if I showed up Monday morning. I could also head up to Anchorage and try to make something happen, assuming that the chain and sprocket would make it up, and back if necessary.
With all the mechanical issues to deal with in the morning, I had skipped breakfast. To make any kind of decision, I needed to eat. Whittier's dining choices are touristy halibut fish and chips and Chinese. For consideration, Kenai had the biggest salmon run on record this year. The peak was around 270,000 fish past the sonar in one day. If I was going to eat fish, I wanted fresh salmon.
I went to the wharfside fish shack and they sent me off to the grocery store for a bag of charcoal. As I was buying charcoal, a nice fellow overheard my conversation with the cashier and offered me a pound of Coho salmon fresh off his charter boat. I got two fillets and a belly cut. He wouldn't take any money. I then went back to the fish shack and got another pound of Red salmon, some tin foil, and salt and pepper. I made foil pouches for the fish, got the coals hot, and grilled it all for 10 minutes, not a minute more. It was delicious and I ate it all. Wasn't hungry again until the next afternoon.
Some gratuitous schlieren.
I decided to track down a sprocket and rode out to Anchorage that evening. The one unique thing about going in and out of Whittier is that you go through a 2.5 mile tunnel right through the mountain.
The campgrounds immediately outside Whittier had a bad bear problem. The information board had a guestbook that looked a little too busy for my liking.
I rode out of the Kenai and back up to Anchorage to see what was available.
Cheapest choice seemed to be Motel 6, but they quoted me $140 a night. I must have looked a little helpless as I tried to figure out what I was going to do because the receptionist helpfully suggested that if I've been camping for a month I could just camp out outside the motel. The parking lot was adjacent to some wetlands, so I set up my tent, threw the sleeping bag on the ground, and fell fast asleep.
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