It was time to get some of the other buildings from the old site to the new site and I ran over there to get some pictures of the setup planning/execution. This first picture is of the new road the Rail Road was building to facilitate the moving of the one 2-story section of our building. They were really taking their time. Perhaps they had to rush off on an emergency call somewhere…they never told us…because they just stopped working on it. After a couple weeks of waiting, our mover finally gave up on them and this road and choose his own route to move the building.
The new road.
These were the only sections of the building left on this property. They housed the main offices for Ice Alaska and upstairs had a couple of apartments. The CEO & his wife used one of them occasionally, and during the ice carving events, continuously in order to be close to the action. With so much to do, and thousands of decisions needing to be made, it made sense for them to be right there on the property.
Waiting...
After having spent 5 summers and 3 winters here, I was having mixed feelings about the move. But it was for the best because now they own the new property and won’t have to deal with the Rail Roads capriciousness. But, and I told the CEO this many times, Ice Alaska had a 1st world event, with 3rd world buildings. These old buildings were slapped together by volunteers and halfway house workers. Leaked, drafty, bad plumbing, inadequate electrical, frozen pipes every winter, slapped together kitchen with hand-me-down appliances, and NO dishwashing machine. I often mentioned that they should be bulldozed down. Of course they can’t afford that so these buildings have a new life at the new site. Someday they’ll come down, and if they have a successful couple of years, perhaps sooner then later.
Another view. Ready to go, but no route to use yet.
Meanwhile, back at the new site, I was working every day on the electrical wiring jobs. The house was finished, the tool room was roughed in, and the new garage was going up. I had a computer crash around this time and lost a bunch of pictures of the new garage. It’s huge, with 3 main sections, 2 open sections, running around 60′ by 125′ and 25′ tall, all covered by a giant roof. I helped wire those buildings (except the tool room, there I was working as a carpenter & straw boss). Lots of work. Maybe more work then I really wanted to do, but it was kind of fun de-rusting my skills. Ice Alaska asked me to stay on and even offered $1,000 per month if I would. Took me several days to decide but I’d been there for 15 months and my feet were itching to get back on the road. So I declined. It was the first week of Sept. at this time and I took the next two weeks off to work on getting my RV ready for the road.
I discovered that my transaxle had fluid weeping at the sweated on junction of the transaxle pumpkin and axle tube to the passenger side driven wheel but at that time it didn’t look too bad so I decided to let it go until I got back to the states. Then I removed the passenger window and used my method of clearing double paned windows: https://chaos.goblinbox.com/?page_id=179 so I could see out of it while on the road. It wasn’t too bad but I wanted it clear. Then I installed a 800 Watt inverter under the front cowl to run my AC devices in the front of the bus, devices like my computer. Then I crawled up on the roof and added Eternabond to the rear seal of the home between the roof and the rear of the bus. I am presently sitting here in Portland, OR and it’s been raining for hours. Only have two minor leaks around window seals so I’m happy all my leak patches on the roof are working pretty well. We’re suppose to get 3″ of rain over the next 2-3 days and leaks are not fun. It’s too wet to try to reseal the windows so I’ll leave that for when I get to Arizona.
Finally, I spent hours at Napa stores and other chain stores trying to find a replacement oil pressure sensor. It hadn’t been working since I put a wire in the wrong place and burned it out 2-3 years ago. None of the major auto parts stores were able to help…since they are all set up with computers that can only search for specific autos in order to find parts, and an RV isn’t in their lists, it was an exercise in futility. Then I remembered a small ‘Trailer & Truck’ store I’d passed many times before. Stopped there, and had the exact part in less then 10 minutes. Installed it the day before I was planning on leaving Fairbanks.
In the 3 months before I planned on leaving, I’d Craigs listed my trip trying to find someone to share fuel costs. Had several nibbles, but no bites. Then, two weeks before I was to leave, I mentioned it to a friend at my favorite bar. He jumped on the idea. Turned out he’d just found out his dad had cancer. His family lives in Spokane, Washington, he has a freaky cat (who had saved his life when it woke him up to a smoke filled house) and dreaded trying to take the cat on any airplane. I needed the help with fuel and asked for $400 to take him, the cat, and most of his belonging to Spokane. That saved him nearly $600 in airline expenses and shipping costs. All in all a good deal for both of us.
We left Fairbanks on Sept. 16th. I’ll cover that trip in my next post. Thanks for following along!