Days 30 & 31. Wednesday, May 20 & Thursday, May 21.
View Harvey's Route in a larger map
Here's where things got dicey.
We started the day very early by dropping off Andy, Melissa, and Clara at the airport in Whitehorse, about an hour drive from Spirit Lake. We ran some errands in Whitehorse - oil change, laundry, and a little nap in the Wal-Mart parking lot - before setting out for Alaska. The goal for the day was to make it to Tok, Alaska, about a 7 and a half hour drive.
The drive went slow; the road conditions between Whitehorse and the Alaska border were pretty rough. A lot of the pavement was crumbling and, because the road is built on permafrost, several seasons of temperature changes causes the road to buckle into waves called frost heaves. All of this is bad in any car but just brutal in an RV. Eventually the roads deteriorate enough to where they need to be re-paved, and are first taken back to dirt. This was actually the best conditions we saw for long stretches since the dirt can be leveled. But we kept on moving, the scenery was unbelievable, and we saw a couple porcupines along with another great bear sighting.
We were about forty miles from the Alaska border, it was getting late, and things got bad. Harvey stared... acting up. The constant breaking and accelerating up and down hills on the terrible roads caused the transmission to overheat and begin to slip. We pulled over to the side of the road and proceeded to freak out.
To give you an idea of how remote this place is, the Yukon has a population of around 33,000 with over two-thirds living in Whitehorse. That leaves somewhere around 11,000 people dispersed throughout the rest of the territory, an area larger than California.
So we were on the side of the Alaska Highway, no cell phone reception, bad transmission, and, oh yeah, my mom was about seven hours from boarding a plane in Michigan to meet us in Anchorage the following day. The next town on the map was about twenty miles away and was the last one we would pass in the Yukon - the border town of Beaver Creek. We doubted there would be a garage there, but at least we could find a phone. A car passing by to see if we were alright told us that, yes, there was a garage in Beaver Creek, so we decided to go for it.
It was a terrifying 17 miles and the transmission had cooled but was still slipping a little; but we managed to limp into Beaver Creek and found the shop: Far West Garage. Of course it was closed for the night but the woman in the general store next door said he opened at 8 in the morning and she let us park in one of the few RV sites behind the store. Best of all, though, this tiny town actually had a cell phone tower and I was able to get through to my mom. We didn't really know what was going to happen, but we were determined to get on with the trip and told her we would meet her in Anchorage, still a nine hour drive away.
The shop was supposed to open a eight, so we got up at seven thirty to check if anyone was in early... checked again at eight... nine... ten... I called every number on the side of the building. Nothing. The woman at the general store called his wife. Nothing. (we later learned they were on vacation) At about noon we felt we had little choice but to press our luck some more. We'd made it this far, right? The Alaska border was 19 miles away, the next shop, in Tok, was 112.
Harvey limped, and limped, and eventually started coughing smoke and made it all the way to the Alaska border; and that's as far as he would go. US customs is about a quarter mile past the border up a hill. Harvey made it about half way up that hill. Reverse worked tough, and I was able to get down the hill and roll backwards into the turn-off where people stop to have their pictures taken at the border. The photo at the beginning of this post was taken with Harvey completely inoperable. Fifty feet past the border. Pretty awesome, huh?
Soooo... we no longer had cell phone signals and we needed to get up to customs. Two couples caravaning with their travel trailers offered to give us rides up to customs, and Casey and I were sworn back into the United States in separate vehicles with complete strangers with the RV and dogs technically still in Canada. Canadogs. We hopped out of our cars and proceeded to hang out at the border crossing for the rest of the day. The border agents weren't the nicest people but they were nice enough to let us hang out and use the pay phone to stage our rescue (during our many hours there I read that they are actually obligated to help those in trouble so, in conclusion, they were just dicks).
The pay phone didn't accept quarters, wouldn't take credit cards, and had no number for incoming calls, but did make toll free calls and I got in touch with AAA for them to start working on a towing option. That option was Willard, he was in Tok and had the only garage within several hundred miles with a wrecker big enough for Harvey. Tok was 93 miles away and AAA covered towing up to 100 miles. Score. For whatever reason Willard's line was busy and it took a couple hours to get through but eventually
he was on his way. In the meantime, I called my dad collect to give the family the update and relay the status to my mom who would be arriving in Anchorage and getting a hotel room before we even got to Tok.
Also while we waited I found time to don my new Hawaii shirt and board shorts for the awesomest photo shoot ever.
Willard finally arrived around 7PM with his wife, Yolanda, following in a minivan to transport us and the Canadogs. Willard, a man of few words, hooked up Harvey to the rig and we were off. We made it all this way and the first 93 miles of Alaska were by tow truck.
I elected to ride in the wrecker with Willard and talk to him about our options. He told me he actually had two rebuilt transmissions on-hand at his shop for just such an occasion (this type of thing isn't terribly uncommon). How long would he need to do the work? About half a day. We might get to Anchorage sometime tomorrow!
We arrived in Tok sometime around eleven and Yolanda (a very pleasant and chatty Mexican woman who had been in Alaska over twenty years) took us to the Burnt Paw. Awesome name for a bar but it's actually a sled dog themed motel where we rented the "Iditarod" cabin for the night and I was able to finally call my mom who was now only six hours away.
