Tag Archives: Trips

North to Alaska (again) – Part 3

Posted on by

We bypassed the Top of the World (TOTW) highway due to weather concerns but while in Tok we all took a day trip to Chicken so we could see it, and say we went there, in case we could not take the TOTW on the way out of Alaska. It was interesting to see the small town:

We drove past Chicken toward the Canadian border but stopped short of actually crossing since it would have been difficult for us at that time.

But we got a nice view from a viewpoint.

On the way back we saw our first moose on the road.

The next day was the 4th of July. Since we were in the US there was a minor celebration. Tok shut down the ALCAN highway for a cute little parade.

Most of the participants in the parade threw out candy to the viewers. There was a lot of candy strewn about.

At Tok, travelers need to decide on which way they want to go. Head south toward the Anchorage area or continue the northern track onto Fairbanks. We opted for Fairbanks so we could head out on the Dalton highway toward Prudhoe Bay.

We stopped at Delta Junction, the professed end of the Alaska highway. However, I have seen other places that say they are the end.

We continued to Fairbanks and stayed at a not-very-nice RV park. We all had to do some laundry and also stopped by an Alaska Pipeline information stop.

It was time to get on the Dalton Highway. The Dalton goes from near Fairbanks to the Arctic Ocean for a total of about 415 miles, pretty much all gravel. Like the roads our family traveled in 1964:

The Dalton highway was pretty similar to this. We crossed the only bridge on the Yukon River in Alaska. We ran into road construction and lost the lead vehicle, going down the wrong road in a construction zone with me leading the group, naturally. I rounded a corner and found a large tractor in our lane. I got out and started telling everyone behind that we had to backup and get on the correct lane. Luckily the pilot driver came back and the tractor moved.

The road is pretty rough, especially for our trailers. I wanted to get to the Arctic Circle so we only went to Coldfoot, we didn’t have a desire to drive all the way, on those rough roads, to the ocean. We stayed at Coldfoot for 3 nights, George and Marcia left their trailer in our care and took their truck only up to the Arctic Ocean. We had 50amp electric hookups in Coldfoot so we had Starlink working and the AT&T service was very good. We were set.

Coldfoot is primarily a truck stop, with some tourists coming through. Pricing on things, like fuel, is pretty high. Part of the cost for staying overnight in their ‘RV Park’ is they include a shower. The shower is inside one of the rooms that they rent, for $250/night!

The Chens made it back from the Arctic Ocean and we determined it was a very good idea to NOT take any trailers up that stretch of the road. They had some dicey issues with just the truck.

We were already having some issues with our trailer wheel on the road up the Dalton. I noticed the tire pressure increasing on one wheel, and it was getting hot. I initially thought it was a dragging brake heating it up. I tried to break the brake loose with a mallet, I even cut the brake line to stop it from possibly locking.

On the road back, about 90 miles from Fairbanks, I checked it again and found the entire wheel was loose! We raised the trailer off the bad wheel and were able to pull the complete wheel off of the trailer without removing the lugnuts. That should not happen. Our bearings had failed on that wheel.

My father had an issue with an Airstream many years ago as I was a kid and I remember him towing it for a short distance on only three wheels. The axles that Airstream uses, Dexter, allow this to happen, most RVs don’t have this capability. Off we went on three wheels, monitoring the tire pressures on those, which are overloaded now. We would drive until the pressures got too high and then pull off and wait for them to cool down. It was only a 220-mile drive from Coldfoot to Fairbanks but it took us almost 12 hours to accomplish it, the last 90 miles at 30mph. George and Marcia stayed right with us the entire way, many thanks to them. We finally made it to our RV park and ended up eating dinner around 10:30 pm that night (and it was still light). The next day was starting the process of finding out how to repair the trailer.

We had initially planned to only spend a few nights in Fairbanks and then on to Mt McKinley (Denali) National Park. We knew this would take more than that so the Chens went on to Denali and used the reservations we had, we had been to Denali in 2019 so the trailer did take priority.

My mind went through all kinds of permutations about the repair. Dexter axles are not tremendously common and somewhat specialized so I didn’t hold out hope of replacing it, if needed. If we had to get a replacement, we would have to have the trailer shipped back to the lower 48 or store it locally to get fixed later. There was a place in Fairbanks that was a Dexter dealer, which surprised me. I talked to them but they did not have a shop there, only in Anchorage. That was better, we would only have to go to Anchorage (360 miles). I called Anchorage and they weren’t confident in repairing it. They, however, did know of a place in Fairbanks I could try, Bulletproof Trailers.

There was hope! I talked to Brett, describing the problem, and he immediately knew it was a Dexter Nev-R-Lube axle. He was very confident that they could fix it. We set up a time in a couple of days and I got with it ordering a new hub overnight from Toscanos in California (not cheap). The repair was scheduled to start after the weekend so we tried to put it behind us and become tourists again.

As most of you know, my family traveled to Alaska in 1964. Here is what Fairbanks was then (the most recent population is 32,000):

I was able to recreate a 1964 photo again in Fairbanks:

We had a few more things to do in Fairbanks, I needed an oil change, we had to get our windshield replaced (a small crack) and one of my crowns came off. We got those three items checked off and finally took the trailer in for repair:

Not knowing how long the repair would take we headed to the library. After we were there for about 20 minutes we got a call that the trailer was done:

Bulletproof trailers came through for us in Fairbanks and it was very reasonably priced. We ended up staying just over a week in Fairbanks for all of this and finally headed down to Denali for one night. On the drive down we were able to see Mt Denali from the road (I hear not many people get to see it):

Hopefully, all of our angst is now behind us.

Fall Colors – Part 1

Posted on by

One trip we always mentioned that we wanted to do was a trip to the eastern seaboard for the fall colors. We thought we would get to the Northeast in the fall and let the weather drive us south. We mentioned this to our friends George and Marcia, they were on board. We left on September 10th and would meet them on the way as they usually travel faster than we do.

As with any trip from your home base, the first day or two is always familiar. The same route, same towns, and oftentimes the same campgrounds. Our first nite was one of our favorites, Homolovi State Park. We got there and it was pouring rain with high winds (normal for Homolovi). I just hooked up the electricity and no other amenities. Didn’t even disconnect.

More I-40 travel the next day. Our stop was the Native American casino at Sky City. You can get spots there for around $20/night IF you ask for the discount. It is a decent RV park except for the terrible road into the RV park, it is abysmal. The park is on a slight incline so if you head into a spot you need to disconnect to get your trailer level. However, if you come in from the other direction, you can lift the tongue, stay connected and be level! We also set up Starlink here for the internet, worked great!

Yet another I-40 day. When heading east, you don’t have too many options in the western states. That changes when you get to Texas. We made our way through Albuquerque and ate at a local place off the road, Vicks Vittles. It was pretty good and it is always fun to eat locally. We stopped at Ute Lake State Park for the night. We stayed here with George and Marcia the last time we headed east with them. It is a good campground, with loads of space between the sites but it usually has a lot of bugs. It had a great sunset:

Our 4th day on the road started with finally detouring from I-40 and heading NE a bit to the Oklahoma panhandle. We passed through Dalhart TX and I read something interesting in their Wiki entry.

One more night before a bit of a break. We ended up at an Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE) campground at Fort Supply Lake near Fort Supply OK. We had a site that backed up onto the lake that was very nice, a bit windy. The next day was eastbound entirely in Oklahoma. We had been on the road for 4 full days and nights without disconnecting the trailer at all. It was time to take a short timeout.

We got to another ACOE campground at Brush Creek Park. It was right on the Arkansas River, just below the dam at Keystone Lake. We were just west of Tulsa OK. The next day was a ‘down’ day, not that we didn’t do anything, we just didn’t travel with the Airstream. It was interesting camping by the dam, many people were fishing the river and a horn would sound repeatedly whenever there was a change in the water discharge amount.

We skirted around Tulsa as we left and headed NE to our rendezvous with George and Marcia at Twin Bridges State Park. We had lunch in Claremore OK, the hometown of Will Rogers. It was very obvious that he was from that area and a huge amount of everything had his name on it. They are even in Rogers County! We got to drive along Route 66 for a long stretch primarily because I am too cheap to pay for a turnpike and back roads are better. We met the Chens at the campground and got to visit a bit with them.

George and Marcia had some friends/relatives to visit before our next connection so we parted ways in the AM. We headed into Missouri for our next stop. We took a selfie at lunch:

The evening found us at a private campground called Ruby’s Landing. My parents owned a campground for 10 years so it is always fun to stop at a rustic campground. But, this one might have been a bit TOO rustic. We were there on a Saturday night that happened to coincide with some Halloween camping event. Many scouts were camping in tents. Many others running around making noise, some being chased by a guy with a chainsaw and mask. It wasn’t too noisy in the late hours, luckily. I am glad we weren’t there for 2 nights.

Our next stop was just north of St Louis MO at a county park. Very nice location, good sites, and lots of trails around a man-made lake/river overflow. An uneventful drive through some very beautiful areas. But we keep pushing on to our next meetup location in PA. Our satellite setup is working great, with the TV on the left and Internet on the right (one looks to the south, the other to the north). The top of the truck is a great location when we don’t disconnect.

Following our theme of skirting around towns, we did the same with St Louis and continued ENE to the next state. Staying on a US highway instead of an Interstate highway we ended up south of Terra Haute IN at a county park. It was a beautiful park, a bit tight for the trailer but we made it. There were numerous restored historical buildings around a nice lake.

Another day, another state. This is much different than traveling in western states. Go around Indianapolis and end up at the Buck Creek State Park near Springfield IN. This is a beautiful campground, with lots of grass and trees. We saw a couple of deer wandering around. The camp hosts were very friendly.

Ohio was next, I couldn’t find a better route so we went right through the gut of Columbus OH. It was not a real issue but as we got to Zanesville I saw there was a Texas Roadhouse so that is where we ate. Downtown Zanesville was much more difficult with the trailer as it seemed much older and narrower. The reward was better than the risk. We spent the night at Barkcamp State Park. It had a large camp area for horses and a large infestation of flying stink bugs. The terrain was beginning to remind me of what I thought West Virginia would look like.

The next day confirmed my suspicions, we drove through Wheeling WV on our way to Pittsburgh PA. Our final stop was Penn Wood Airstream Park. We stopped here in 2017, enjoyed our stay, and decided to come back. We were here for 4 nights, and George and Marcia were meeting us here in a couple of days.

We really needed to do some laundry so that was first on our list, along with a Chinese buffet. The next day we had our main meal at a local farm-to-table restaurant. Took a little walk to the Climax tunnel. This is an old railroad bed that was repurposed into a 28-mile walk/bike trail, we only did a small portion of it.

George and Marcia showed up right on schedule. We did a little drive on the back roads of this area of Pennsylvania and took them also to the tunnel to see the area.

The fall colors had not changed all that much in this area yet, not to the degree we were looking at. We continued moving NE, but that is in the next installation.