Moving to Alaska: Day Twenty Two

Well after our very short day I got up early to call U-haul to get the tire fixed. I still have no idea why I have to contact them FIRST before they will start working on finding a repair company but since they told me 7:00 am yesterday, I called at about 6:55 am. And of course, in this comedy of errors, they call back and tell me the vendor cannot fix it. They are LITERALLY across the road; I can see them. All they have to do it roll a jack over and take the tire!!! I actually went across the road to have that exact conversation with them and learned their "field service" truck was in the shop so unless we could get it to them, and were willing to wait a long time, they could not help. They did call around a couple other shops and found one that actually would be able to fix it. So about an hour later we were packing the car to leave.

That is when I saw the tire pressure light...

Yup, another one.

We took a quick look and once again saw treadwall on one of the back tires, the one where the trailer flat was. Apparently the low/flat tire put extra stress on the car tire. So now we have to decide if we want to risk driving another nearly 800 miles or replace it here since this is the last option we will have. As much as we did not want to, we opted for replace, again.

We checked with the place across the road and they did not have them in stock so told us how to find the other shops in town. The next one, no luck. The third one, no luck. However, this happened to be the place that changed out the trailer tire and they have  a large selection of used tires. Thankfully they checked inventory and had something close but not quite the same and we decided slightly miss sized was better than what we had. So once again, we waited a couple hours.

FINALLY we were getting on the road at noon. We intended to drive all the way back to Anchorage, weather permitting since Thao is supposed to be back at work in the morning. The road report yesterday showed that entire route clear. Today, it showed "snow on the road". Of course.

Well after about an hour we arrived at the next town. And the trailer was shaking again. I know this will shock you all but the just replaced tire on the U-haul? It had a puncture. We stopped at a gas station and got directions to the local repair place because honestly, based on the hassle of yesterday, I wanted to just get it fixed rather than waiting for U-haul to dispatch someone, who we already knew would be lucky to get to us today. So we took yet another hour of our already tight time and got the puncture repaired before once again hitting the road.

They were not kidding about the forecast. The road was covered with a light dusting and/or light ice but much better maintained so we were able to at least drive 35-40 MPH in the bad spots and up to normal speed in the better ones. But it was still a white knuckle drive since we did have a fair amount of side to side shimmy as the trailer tends to not adjust well on the ice but nothing that was too scary. We did stop to plant a letterbox since I had not put one in the Yukon yet and found another one later in the day

For most of the day we were theorizing about whether we would go all the way to Anchorage or not. We had a long way to go, got a late start, an unexpected stop, and non cooperative roads. But we were not giving up on getting Thao to work yet. We did make a deal that we would get to Tok, the first town in Alaska (and still 300+ miles from Anchorage) and reassess at that point.

Well, wait for it, about 75 miles before Tok the tire sensor on the car went off again.

This time, we were in the middle of nowhere, it was night and snowing and we had no phone coverage. For the first time, this shit happened NOT in a town. But it was not flat and we had a cigarette lighter powered air pump which I just happened to know how to find in the trailer. Thank goodness I left it near the back. So we over inflated the tire by five pounds (compared to the other one), then drove until it was five pounds under and would pull off the road and refill it. Based on the deflation rate, that meant about every 15 miles. So four times on the way to Tok we would basically drive for 15 minutes then stop for 5, drive for 15, stop for 5... but we did finally arrive. But we also knew it was late and nothing would be open so Thao talked me in to trying to fix it ourselves. We went to the gas station in town and picked up a tire fixing kit. Well, first I got a fix-a-flat type spray but she had previously used another type where you literally shove some tacky rubber into the hole and let it seal. So we made a deal; we would dig out the rock, patch it, go have dinner and if the tire held, we would push on through to Anchorage. Otherwise we would have to get it fixed in the morning. She really did not want to miss work so I might still have lost that argument when it came down to it but luckily, after a 30 minute dinner, we had lost no pressure.

So we pushed on. 328 miles to go on icy roads late at night, starting about 8:30 pm. Sounds fun huh? Most of the driving was again the 25-30 MPH kind with clear spots mixed in where we got short spells of decent speed. But since it was below freezing and actively snowing we were on untreated roads. We actually did a good job swapping off sleep since we knew we would need it to finish with such a late night.

First a flight delay. Second a blown tire. Third an ice storm requiring ~150 miles of 25-30 MPH. Fourth a punctured tire followed later in the day by another blown tire, this time on the trailer. Then another blown tire on the car AND  a puncture on the trailer AND a puncture on the car AND icy road requiring  ~300 miles of 25-30 MPH. Canada is trying to "win" but we won't allow it!

But we finally arrived, just short of 4:00 am on October 21st. Plenty of time for Thao to rest and go to work at 8:00...

Start: Whitehorse, Yukon Territory

Stop: Anchorage, Alaska

~710 Miles Driven

~3.5 Miles Walked
2 Letterboxes Found

2 Letterboxes Not Found

2 Letterboxes Planted
3 Tire Replaced
2 Tire Punctured

Pictures will be posted on Facebook in this album (and the link will be included in all future posts for this trip):

Moving to Alaska Photos

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Trip Totals

22 Days

19 States, Provinces and Territories

7072 Miles

50th State Visited
151 Letterboxes Found (including 4 new states; only 7 to go)

53 Letterboxes Not Found 

19 Letterboxes Planted (including 12 new states; only 23 plus DC to go)

5 Tires Replaced

2 Tires Punctured

1 New Life Begun

Now for the real adventure. Wish us luck and please, come visit!!!