You're all Time Travelers!

It’s now Sept. 2011 (in blog time, Dec. ’11 in real time) and I took a couple weeks off to get ready to get back on the road and head for the lower 48  (The Outside as they call it up here). I’d been advertising on Craig’s List for 3-4 weeks by this time for a co-driver that wanted to avoid flying back Outside and had 2-3 nibbles but no bites. It was a bitch because I didn’t have WiFi where I was parked so I’d have to drag my laptop down to the Big I tavern 2-3 times a week to check my emails, communicate with FB friends, and do my banking. My laptop is so slow I didn’t even try to work on the blog.

Got some comments from the Ice Alaska office manager when she’d spot my car down there at 10AM. But I don’t drink that early in the day so I was always innocent.  All things in moderation I always say (except love).

Anyway, 2 weeks before I left, one of my bar friends mentioned he might need a ride to Spokane. His dad had been diagnosed with end stage cancer and he wanted to get back home. Problem was he had a freaky cat that had saved his life when it woke him after a fire started in his apartment and he was fearful that the plane ride would really do the cat harm. Then he had all his belongings that would need to be shipped. Not inexpensive from Fairbanks, Alaska to Spokane, Washington. Since I was passing right by Spokane, and had room for his stuff (after he trimmed it a bit), and don’t mind cats, we struck a deal. Got everything arranged to leave by Sept. 16th.

Moose along side the road.

Sold my car, installed a 800W inverter in the RV (well actually, under the front cowl)  so we could use the laptop as a GPS along the way, found a new oil pressure sender and installed it, got the tires all aired up and the fluids topped and was ready to go. Oh, and cleaned the house too. The place was very dusty.

Saw a weeping from the passenger side of the differential, where the axle tube is sweated into the differential, but it didn’t look to bad so didn’t do anything about it other then top off the fluid. Probably related to the speed bump I hit in Mexico in ’07 that broke one of my spindles. This weeping was on the other side from that so that was good but something I needed to keep my eye on.

Then there was the lack of dash heat and cruise control. I’d asked people on the various RV forums I frequent if anyone knew where the pump was that controlled these two items and many had ideas but it was only around a month before I left Fairbanks that someone actually gave me the location for my RV. I’d looked and finally found it but it’s really stuffed inside the frame rail back near the engine. When I got around to looking at working on it the 2nd week of September, I just could believe I’d be able to get it out of there, fix or replace any broken devices, and get it back in there in the week I had left in town. Then there was the problem of trying to find RV specific parts in Alaska. So I backed off and determined to work on it when I got to the Southwest where it’s nice and warm and sunny most every day. And parts are less expensive.

So, on the morning of Sept. 16th, my passenger Kenny and I headed south. With a full tank of diesel and a possible 5 days of travel. Kenny had mentioned he’d driven bus before so I was looking forward to having a co-driver. This would be my first time as passenger in 6 years of RV travel.

The first few hours the weather was a little poor.

Outside of Fairbanks.

But then it started to shape up out there.

The weather was shaping up to be fair, at least this first day. But this time of year in Alaska, you never know.

I gladly let Kenny take the wheel a few hours later.

Ahh, the open road.

Moose along side the road.

The first of many lakes to pass.

The first day we made it all the way to Haines Junction, Canada. Two three hours before there, we check through the border station and around five miles after that I’m smelling something burning up in the cab of the bus. So we sniff around awhile and then I notice that the parking brake light is on. Ahh, brake pads for the parking brake are burning and the smell is getting sucked up into the cab. So I down shift from drive to 2nd, the light goes out, up shift to drive and for several miles it stays out. Then comes back on without me noticing. Until I smell burning again. This went on for sixty-seventy miles and finally, the brake pads where burned off enough that they weren’t causing a smell so I just ignored it. Not much I could do about it over 225 miles from a major town. Didn’t slow the RV down. I decided I’d just let it go until I got to the states and could get less expensive parts or service. Very expensive for stuff like this on an RV in Canada. This causes a problem of course, whenever you stop on even a slight incline, the RV would try to roll, so I’d have Kenny jump out and jamb a stop under a tire. For the first 2-3 days, I didn’t even think about just dropping the front jack when I stop.

When we got to Haines Juction, it was still daylight and we parked and set up, had dinner and then decided to head over to the bar there in town. I didn’t have any Canadian money and I hoped they’d have an ATM. We walk in and order some beers I wander over and try my debit card. Tried several 4 digit codes (because I hadn’t been using it much lately so I couldn’t remember what it was for sure) but nothing was working. The bartender didn’t seem to know what was wrong but she was nice enough to run my credit card through her machine (at least that worked). Earlier at the local store & RV park  it took my debit…but it didn’t require a code for that, but that told me it was working then. All this time I was worried that my card fraud people had shut off my card. They’d done it twice before in Canada because they’re idiots.

Next morning we head for Whitehorse, around 90 miles, where I’d been told by the bartender I could get US$ cash changed to CAN$, on a Saturday! Who’d think a bank would be open on a Saturday? I had enough fuel to get to Whitehorse, and I was hoping that we wouldn’t get stuck there for a whole day while I straightened it all out. I’d need $400-$600 cash to get through Canada if my card had been shut off.  Who wants to be trapped in podunk Canada without money? Kenny nor I had a phone that worked in Canada so I couldn’t call and check. Turned out that the Haines Juction ATMs are on a closed system that doesn’t check cards from anywhere outside that area. That’s why my card wasn’t working there. Wish they’d had a sign up or something. Bartender didn’t know that. Increased my sweat level considerably when it didn’t work. But, I stopped at a fuel station in Whitehorse the next day and my card went right through for nearly $200CAN, and they ran it for $50CAN over the amount and gave me the cash. Whew. Later at the bank, it went through there too.

One of the bridges on the road to Whitehorse.

This mountain looked cooler when I was there.

Another lake?

Still some gravel road areas here in Northern Canada.

It was very nice not to have to drive alone this trip. I could get use to having company. As long as they kept fairly quiet like Kenny did. Oh, the cat. It was freaky. The poor thing just didn’t know what to think of being in a moving RV and spent the first few days hiding under the couch. Whenever we’d stop, Kenny would try to coax it out from under. In the evenings when we’d stop for the night, it would come out and say hi, but during the day, we’d hear it moan every once in a while and Kenny would reach under the couch and pet it until it felt comfortable. Don’t know how it would have handled being thrown in the luggage compartment of a plane if Kenny had flown.

OK, enough for this post.