Day 83 - Wednesday August 09/17

(Formatted and posted on Thursday August 31st at Battleford, SK)

Another ‘alarming’ day today, this time with the alarm set for 7am so that we could get on the road and get the trailer to TrailerCraft as early as possible to have the brakes looked at.

We arrived at TrailerCraft at about 8:00 am, just as they were opening. We booked the trailer to have the electric braking system inspected, and also to have a trailer tire that had been going soft looked at, and hopefully repaired. After dropping off the trailer, we went out to breakfast at McDonalds - egg & sausage McMuffin, what a treat!!

After breakfast we went to Value Village to look for ‘new’ used books - got 5. And then to a battery store to get a battery replaced in one of the truck fobs, as it had begun to work intermittently. We then went back to TrailerCraft, to use their Wifi in the waiting area for blogging.

The TrailerCraft parts person took Michael and the soft tire to a tire repair place. It was a screw in the tread - probably picked up in the gravel parking lot where we camped at the Wickersham Trailhead on Sunday night. (They later took Michael back to pick up the repaired tire.)

At TrailerCraft Nancy did a couple of emails, and phone calls, while Michael prepared a couple of blogs to post. The inspection of the trailer braking system (which cost over $300USD), indicated that the brakes were functioning properly. Michael surmises that the reason that the ‘overload’ and the other warning signal that was coming on had to do both perhaps with dust in the brakes, and more so with the bumpy, washboard gravel roads which interfered with the electronic inertial sensors in the control box mounted in the truck.

We left TrailerCraft just before 1pm with the trailer, and went for lunch at the same ‘3-calendar’ restaurant where we had eaten before - the Airport Way Family Restaurant. We also located and went to a ‘vape store’ so Michael could get some e-juice.

Today we travelled southeast on Highway 2, from Fairbanks to the Dot lake area. (map)

We got on the road by about 2:30pm. Just past the Air Force Base, we got a further glimpse of Denali in the distance. As we travelled, we noted that the leaves of many of the deciduous tress (aspen, we think, or poplar) were beginning to change to yellow - a sure sign of fall in the arctic zone! We also saw a moose on the highway (sorry, no photo!). Again, saw Denali across the Tamnana River (photo).

We stopped at a roadside display, and got more information about gold rushes in the area (photos)

As we crossed the Tanana River at Delta Junction, we noted that highway signage indicate that an ‘Oil Spill Drill” was underway on the river. Good to know that the pipeline folks are staying prepared and vigilant!

Delta Junction marks the northern end of the Alaska Highway at its junction with the Richardson Highway. 

Note the structure in the foreground - a good replica of the common
"food cache" found in years past.

Nancy is getting a bit tired of all the "Johnson-named" places we come across!!

We stopped at a highway turnout at about 7pm and made supper. We drove for a couple of more hours, and then overnighted at a highway turnout (free- boondocking; another RV, from BC, was there also).