Well, actually, over halfway. The approximate distance from Austin to Anchorage is 4200 miles (the way we are going). We are currently staying at the St Albert Kinsman RV park just north of Edmonton. From here we have just under 2000 miles to go. Here is our spot, overlooking the river, taken around 10:15!
All this started about 3 weeks ago when we left Austin. This was our cute little spot there:
Our next stop was the North Texas Airstream Commmunity in Hillsboro TX. It was an odd feeling to be somewhere else after spending over 3 months in the Austin area. But we had to get moving toward Alaska. The plan is to head basically due north to Minot ND and enter into Saskatchewan.
Keeping with our normal 200 miles a day (sometimes more, sometimes less), we ended up the next night in Lawton OK at the Comanche Nation Casino. They have about 4 sites that have 30amp electric for free overnighting, you just need to register with security. Here was our spot:
Next state was Kansas but on the way we had to dodge some inclimate weather, like tornadoes and flooding!
If you remember from a previous post, we had already been to the Geographical Center of California, so this was a natural. That night we stayed at a city RV park (Cozad MUNY) in Cozad, NE.
The next stop was also in Nebraska in Valentine at the Wacky West RV park:
This is where a slight direction change was in order. I determined that we should not go through Minot but head west to Montana and through Alberta to Canada. This made our next stop in Sturgis, SD. Where we were treated to a 30 minute hailstorm:
We survived that without any visible damage and continued on to Billings MT to stay at the first KOA in the KOA system. We stayed a few nights here as opposed to the single night hopping since leaving Hillsboro TX. That means we disconnected for the first time in that period. Roxie found some friends there:
We also purchased a new bed for the trailer. It is a normal queen so we have to squeeze by the ends. I will have to cut 5″ off of it one of these days:
The next stop was Great Falls MT to do some more prep for crossing over the border. I also had to repair a drawer slide that failed:
Roxie recommended a detour on the way, Glacier National Park. We found a spot for 2 nights:
On into Alberta. We had a bit of an ‘issue’ with the agent in Canada but more on that after we get back to the states, stay tuned. We ended up staying the night just Northwest of Calgary at a combination RV camp/golf course. We had a bit of weather here also:
Now we start the last portion. Almost to Mile 0 of the AlCan.
Finally, after over 3 months, we are close to getting back on the road and leaving Austin. It has been very interesting being here for this amount of time. We have learned the 40-mile radius from our campsite very well, and we know Austin as a whole pretty good also.
As of this writing, Roxie’s procedure has been completed and we just have to return next week for her final programming, then we plan on leaving here Wednesday. Our next stop will be the North Texas Airstream Community that is south of Dallas/Fort Worth. We will spend the Memorial Day weekend there to ensure we have a location for that busy time. Then we head north to Alaska.
While we have been here, we were able to accomplish some things (in addition to what I wrote about in the previous post). Two posts ago I showed some damage we incurred to the rock guard on the front of the trailer. I went to the local Airstream dealer, Camper Clinic II in Buda. The part was relatively cheap but the shipping was horrendous! Airstream, I am told, does not price their shipping, they box it up and call the shippers. The shippers then charge the rates. The shipping on the box was like $90! UPS charges the maximum rate for the box depending upon what can fit in it regardless of the weight. Oh well, we needed the part. Here is the repair:
This is the inside of the rockguard and shows some of the damage to the aluminum also.One of the supports had pulled out of the skin. Not sure if that was from the pan hitting the guard.This shows the rub rail (without the trim), it covers where the aluminum and plastic meet. I have to remove that before I can put on the new one.Here is the aluminum rockguard part with the rub rail and the plastic removed.The new plastic portion.The new piece needs to be trimmed to fit.Here is the completed product with shiny new piece of rub rail trim.This is the support reattached and holding up its portion.
The repair was not too bad. Initially, I thought that I could just trim it to the same size as the other. But with the curves, it is hard to get it accurate. The best solution was to attach it at one end, work it around, riveting as you go, and then trimming it on the end. It will do the job.
But there was not just one repair, oh no! I was walking back from the park’s restroom and I found Roxie out talking to our neighbors. I walked over to join the conversation. They asked me if I had heard the noise. I did not. It appears that the window in the trailer next to Roxie’s chair slammed shut and shattered! I went back and looked and found this all over the ground:
Shattered window glass!
There was heavy rain forecast so I kicked into repair mode immediately. I contacted the Airstream dealer (again) to get a replacement window. They quoted me about 3-4 days shipping but this was Thursday so I was unsure if they could get it out on Friday. But I had to order it. I went to the local Home Depot to figure out how to close it off to the elements.
I got some bubble insulation, a paint drop cloth and some Gorilla tape. I left it open at the bottom for ventilation. It was not clean or pretty but it worked. After doing this, we went to Austin and got some more ‘insurance’. I got the window dimensions from Airstream, went to a local plastics company and ordered an acrylic window (sans holes). I also ordered an acrylic version of the larger windows on the trailer also. I figured if this happens again, I will have replacement versions with me until I can get the glass.
The glass version came in just under a week later and, ironically, that was the same day the acrylic ones were done. I used the glass one:
This is the small acrylic version of the window.
Thankfully we had an operational window again. But that rain forecast was very true. It was an interesting Friday for us.
We go to a town called Bee Cave to watch movies when we do. They have nice recliners in the theatre. I purchased the tickets online so we can also choose our seats. This time I purchased them for the wrong theatre! I rarely do that but I did today. The manager gave us a pass for the movies there but the movie was on an hour later, so we had to wait.
While we were in the movie I could hear rain on the roof of the theatre. I have heard that before and didn’t think anything about it. When we got out of the theatre there was a tremendous downpour. Of course we didn’t have an umbrella and I didn’t even have any coat. We had less that 100′ to walk to the truck but we were drenched. We also walked through water that was overwhelming the drainage and it was 4″-8″ deep. Wet feet also.
We tried to get back to our trailer in the Dripping Springs area. We tried at least 3 different low crossings but each of them were at least 2 feet deep with running water. I have a little video on Youtube of it:
https://youtu.be/kRHqXp9fjW8
We eventually decided to take major roads to get back. It added about 30 miles but was safer. I would drive through a foot of water but no more. It appears our local area received 8-9″ of rain in a 3 hour period! Luckily our trailer is almost to the top of a knoll so there is very little surface area for runoff. We survived!
One more thing I worked on for the truck in anticipation for Alaska and their roads:
