Day 77 - Thursday August 3/17

(Written on Wednesday August 16th in the trailer, boondocking (dry-camping [no services or facilities] for free on public land) in British Columbia, just below the Northwest Territories border; Posted on Thursday August 31st at Battleford, SK)

Today was a day to do things that can only be done in the city. Nothing pretty or interesting to see so there are no photos. Shortly after 9 am we dropped Roscinante off at the Fairbanks location of TrailerCraft (the repair garage that we had used in Anchorage to buy and install new trailer tires). We were following up on a warning that the bearings in the trailer’s wheels seemed to be wearing. It seemed prudent to do this preventative maintenance before setting out on some of the roughest travels so far – to the Arctic Circle.

We sat in the waiting area of the garage for several hours using the Wi-Fi to do blogging. The report on the trailer was that two of the four wheel bearings were badly worn, and the other two beginning to show signs of wear, so we authorized replacement of all four. [The parts themselves  are inexpensive, but the labour charge will be quite hefty!]

Finally we left for a lunch break and went to McDonalds. As we needed to send some birthday cards back to Ontario we found a post office and bought stamps. Then we grocery shopped and returned to the garage around 3:30 pm. Roscinante was still not ready so we did more blogging. Finally at 5 pm, closing time, we were able to hook up our trailer and go back to the campsite.

For dinner we had a chicken ranch salad collaboratively prepared. While we were doing the dishes we listened to the “Proms” concert from the BBC and aired on NPR. With our brains fried from so much blogging it was a nice, relaxing way to end the day