Week 12 (continued)…Road Side Adventures

Saturday August 18, 2018

When we began planning this trip, we knew we needed to be prepared for a few vehicle issues. We’ve traveled enough to know that they happen, whether self-induced, or mechanical failures, either way we wanted to be as prepared as we could to take care of whatever happened.

We prepared by having three spare tires for the truck, and two spare tires for the trailer. Craig packed extra belts, tools, an air tank, multiple tools and extra fuel.

We were prepared when we had to change out two truck tires and a trailer tire. Craig was prepared to charge the batteries when the alternator wasn’t keeping up with the job at hand and put the new alternator in. And then a few days after that, he was able to change out the serpentine belt. He was also able to change out a fan clutch on the Jeep early on in the trip.

Those are all normal things you think of when you think of the problems you could have while traveling thousands of miles across the country. At this point, day 86, we have put approximately 9,000 miles on the truck and approximately 3,000 miles on the Jeep. We haven’t run into anything we haven’t been able to handle.

We were happy to finally have a sunny day and head to Chitina, where we were going to park the trailer and drive the Jeep the rest of the way to McCarthy. We had been told that it’s a beautiful drive and we were looking forward to it.

We pulled out of our mile 47.8 rest area and began north on the Richardson Hwy. We made it just past the mile 48 sign and we heard a bad noise. Assuming it was yet another flat tire, Craig quickly pulled over. I strained to see my side of the truck and although I didn’t see a flat tire, I saw a very wobbly tire. I told Craig the tire looks weird and he asked what that meant. I just said it was wobbling. He walked around the truck to the back passenger side and quickly realized what happened and that we had a huge problem on our hands.

Seven of the eight lug studs were completely sheared off. We are very thankful the last one didn’t give out which would’ve caused some major damage. As it was, we couldn’t make it to a pull off and were barely off the road. Craig attempted to take off the hub so he could take it in to a shop to get new studs pressed in, but didn’t have the tools to do it.

We questioned how this could’ve happened. We had gone to a place in Fairbanks to replace our destroyed tire from the Dempster. At that time, they pointed out that we had the wrong valve stems on our wheels. We had bought new tires before we left on this trip and the place that mounted our tires didn’t think to change out the valve stems to the higher rated PSI of the tire. We can only assume the place in Fairbanks failed to correctly torque the lug nuts and they worked themselves loose over the last thousand miles.

To make matters worse, this area has no cell service. We were unable to call anyone, or figure out if we should head back south to Valdez 48 miles, or north to Glennallen 68 miles.

We unloaded the Jeep and decided to attempt to use it to back the trailer up to the rest stop/campsite we had just left. We don’t recommend this, but it worked. The Jeep suspension was bottomed out and the hitch was skimming the pavement. It wasn’t far in reality, but it felt like a thousand miles. The Richardson Highway is a busy highway traveled by RVers, fisherman, and really big oil tankers. Craig did an awesome job at this really difficult task as the Jeep was taxed to the max with the big trailer and he couldn’t see anything at all. I walked beside him, trying to direct him, and flagged to the passing motorists to slow down.

We finally got the trailer tucked into a space that was out of the way at the rest area and we felt comfortable leaving it for a few days if we had too. We drove the Jeep thirty miles north to the Tonsina River Lodge where we finally had cell service. The nice Russian man there recommended a place in Glennallen. It was a towing company and mechanic shop. We were able to get a hold of the owner and it took him an hour and a half to come down with a big flat-bed to pick up our truck.

He wasn’t sure if he had parts in stock and thought it would be Monday or Tuesday morning before he could get it fixed. We grabbed what personal effects we thought we needed and went back to the trailer for the night. We had bought an air mattress for any brave visitors that would come out someday and ended up using it ourselves first.

We plan to still go to McCarthy and enjoy the day tomorrow. We’ll probably stay there and then drive into Glennallen once the truck is done. We will then have to drive back down to mile 47.8 and pick up the trailer.

The day was frustrating, sometimes scary, and unnerving. It’s not fun to have all your belongings sitting alongside a busy road. We are happy it all turned out and that we were able to work through it once again. We’ve now added more things to our checklist before departing each day.

That being said, I’m enjoying a nice glass of wine and Craig is sipping on a vodka drink. Our nerves are a little shot and we are happy to at least be in the comfort of our trailer instead of driving around looking for a place to stay tonight.

We’ve traveled a lot before this trip and have had vehicle problems in the past. People have commented that we shouldn’t travel because we always end up having problems. We think just the opposite. If you don’t travel, you will never have problems, you will never know how to handle them and you will never see anything new.

So cheers to a day of well handled problems!