A war changed everything before the journey even began. Miles Dean had one plan — ride south to Costa Rica to visit a friend he played chess with in silence and ate Spanish food with at his table, a man he couldn't speak a single word to and yet counted among his closest friends. When the Contra-Sandinista war closed that road, he looked at a map, pointed north, and decided on Alaska instead — instantly, without hesitation, with three months of riding experience and whatever he could fit in his bags.