Woman Make Fire!

We woke up at Cathedral Gorge and took a hike around the place. The land was amazing, we had a good time checking it all out. I guess I put pictures from there on my last post so see there for a couple pics.

There were free showers, so after breaking camp we both got washed up. Showers are pretty important to living on the road, we take them where we can get them. After doing dishes and refilling our water supply, it was 10 before we got on the road.

We left Cathedral Gorge and shortly thereafter were in Utah. Since we were on a scenic byway, it was long streches of arrow straight road thru pastures seperated by twisty mountain sections over passes. We are getting used to the cycle. Eventually we are making our way into St George. Holy Cow, this place can host an Entrance!! Cruising down a very steep highway trying to stay on the road while you gawk at all the amazing rock formations is hard!! Really hard! Very red.... as we venture into town we see neighborhoods planted on the sides of the hills, and they look pretty fantastic! All the way into town, we were gawking at the  hills around town and all the color.

My house battery hadn't been lasting more than one night. Last year at tanacross, it easily lasted 4 nights so I knew something was up. I managed to loose the reciept, but I decided to wing it and see if I could talk someone into replacing it for me anyways. It had a 12 month warranty and the sticker said I had bought it 12 months ago. I pulled it out and took it into the Walmart and found the automotive section. It's alway at the exact opposite side that I enter from, so I start looking there and finally found it. I tell my story to a tech there named Junior, and he's cool with no reciept, unlike the customer service clerk the last time I tried this. Junior goes into the shop and returns with a battery tester, then quickly confirms my diagnosis of being bad. He also agrees to let me buy up to the 24 month battery for $15. Nice.

We fill up with gas, buy a few supplies (lunch) and hit the road. We took 59 out of town to the East, and are in Arizona shortly thereafter. We'd never been to the North Rim of the Gaand Canyon, and that was on our schedule for today. When we were about 30 miles from the Park we learned that the road was still closed for the winter. Dang. This has happened to us before.

 Fortunately, it was scheduled to open the next day (lucky us). We check out the Campground and decided $18 was to much to pay for dry camping and pit toilets, especially since the day before we were in such a nice campground for $17.

We decided to cruise down the road a bit and see if we can find some dispersed camping. 1/2 mile away I spot a dirt road and we take the Donkey down it. The Donkey rides so nice on these dirt roads, it's a joy to travel on them. We see a couple others people setting up camp in the woods so we venture further down the forest road. About a mile into the forest we see a pretty nice spot, it even has a fire ring already set up. We pull in and check things out. It looks really cool! We're stocked to have found such a cool, private spot.

We decide a fire is in order and start collecting up wood. This area has just finished breakup, there are lots of deadfall laying around ready to provide us with a warm, inviting fire...

Spring Tanacross, 2013

(sorry the formatting is pretty messed up on this one, the blogger is acting up and I don't have the time or bandwidth to fix it)


We returned to Anchorage May 8th, after spending a few days in Maui to attend one of Cara's Cousins Wedding.

We were greeted by unusually cold weather and remnants of a late snow storm that had recently passed through. We spent about 2 weeks in and around Anchorage, taking care of personal items, visiting with friends and chipping away at the laundry list of projects I have in mind for the Donkey to make our future trips a little more comfortable.

I added a small generator and a nice 3 stage 35 amp battery charger, installed an LED voltmeter for the house battery, got a warranty replacement for the house battery that wasn't holding a charge, mounted some lights, redid some wiring, installed a louder horn, and installed a larger fuel tank for the heater. In classic Ken fashion, when replacing the house battery I hooked the dang thing up backwards and did a very small amount of welding. I sure thought those terminals were on the other side, but I guess they mark them for a reason. I didn't appear to do any significant damage to anything, although the radio stopped working at that point and hasn't fixed itself yet. We've been using a small rechargeable Goal Zero speaker set and an old ipod for tunes, it works pretty good but when Cara want's to watch a movie on the big screen Ken's gonna be in trouble.

On a side note, the new battery will run my Edgestar fridge for at least 5 days now, the longest we've gone so far was 3 days and we were still at 12.3v. Much better than 11.9v after 12 hours.










About 5 days into our trip it snowed in Anchorage. Mid May. May is supposed to be sunny and warm. The year I leave Hawaii it sets records for the latest snowfall and lowest temps. Cara is hating it, she's freezing.

Our 2 weeks in Anchorage dissapear at a startling rate, before we know what's happening (which seems to happen with amazing regularity) Memorial day weekend is upon us and it's time for the next stage of the trip, Tanacross.






For those that don't know, Tanacross is a small Alaskan Native village on the Yukon river, about 12 miles by highway northeast of Tok, Alaska. Yes, the town is called Tok. Pronounced Toke. But my story is not about Tok (not pronounced tock), nor is it about Tanacross. My story is about the Alaska Sports Car Club and the auto racing weekend they put together that is held at the Tanacross airfield, about a mile East of the village of Tanacross. I started going somewhere around ten years ago, about 2003. Since then, I only missed 1 Tanacross (the race, not the village) fall of 2012 because I was living in Hawaii. I'm sure the event was a catastrophic failure due to my absence, and this assumption has been supported by an unfortunate lack of stories about drunk people stumbling around. But wait, this isn't a story about me, this is Tanacross.

No Problem.

 

12-12-12

What a cool date, but what a challenging day!

First official day of the Rally and we're supposed to meet up outside of town somewhere for a convoy into the center of town and the official beginning of the rally. Meet at the Applebees next to the Holiday Inn on the road into town. Sounds simple enough...

My sense of direction (or lack thereof) isn't helped by the confusion designed into the roads and tunnels of Guanajuato. Google Maps has been my friend for a long time in unfamiliar areas, although it sometimes takes me on what I refer to as the scenic route. Several of us leave the campsite almost on time, I plan on being last as I usually am but plug Holiday Inn into my phone just to see if they lead me on the same route as google would. Theres one on the map not far away so I figure that must be it and choose it.

The first bit of confusion is a guy at the entrance waving us all uphill because his delivery truck is blocking the route downhill that we normally take and are familiar with. The next intersection our convoy is stopped and/or turning around, seems like they're not sure where they're going. This is the way I originally came in, I'm a little familiar with it. And my gps says go this way anyways. I've got GPS, follow me! I'm now in the lead, and we make our way across town. At some point in traffic Scott winds up in the lead, no problem. A few minutes later another rally member passes everyone and stops us, directing us to another route. Gps reroutes and seems this path works also, No Problem! That person drops back and lets Scott continue to lead. A short while later we see another rally member, a local, heading a different direction. Well thats odd, I wonder where he's going? Oh well, I'm sure we'll see him at the start. We meander up some side roads, Eddie and myself are the only ones in radio communication at the time. He asks me if we're going the right way, I tell him google says so, Scott has been staying on the right track. Eventually we stop and the route takes a sharp turn up an alleyway. Everyones a bit confused at this point, this doesn't really sound like the directions we were told before departing. At this point we're down to about 4 vehicles, the others have all taken different routes.

I look at my GPS and is indicates we're only about a kilometer from the Holiday Inn. As I've experienced before, sometimes Google takes you to the back door or side street, I figure we're just going the back way so I charge ahead to figure it out, telling everyone else to chill for a minute. I quickly realize google has us on a terrible route, and the road diminishes to little more than a footpath. Cara suggests turning around, but I know we're close to our destination and urge Donkey on, we bounce along happily on an overgrown dirt track. We eventually are deposited back onto pavement but find our path hindered by low hanging christmas decorations. I climb out and remove Donkey's CB antennae to provide clearance and make our way to the end of the route.


Huh. This isn't a Holiday Inn at all. I look at my GPS and choose a random road that I hope will return us to a major road. I call for Eddie on the CB, no response...

Guanajuato and the Mexican Spider Monkey

 Camping was good, we stayed up too late and slept in, broke camp and hit the road about noon. Theres alot of toll roads in mexico, we spent $50-70 american. The free roads are often in sad shape.

Just outsode of Guadalajara we pulled into a rest stop and I was assulted by a kid about 5 years old before I even got outof the vehicle. He climbed up the side of the Donkey like a mexican spider monkey and before I knew what was happening he had the door open and was practically in my lap. He was chatting away in something not english, the only thing I could make out was an occasional 'Senor'. I shoo'd him away so his mom could wave a washcloth at me, which she did after babbling at me in her language.

We've been able to move much quicker on the mainland thanks to the toll road. We probably spent $50 on tolls the first day, but saved 2-3 hours by doing so. Much faster and better condition than Baja, but I would have opted for the free route if we weren't in a hurry. Not because it's faster, but because the toll roads skip everything, like an interstate in the US.

We found a street named Alaska. Had to take a picture.












While Stopped to take a picture of a streetsign, we noticed a taco stand and got lunch. While eating lunch, I noticed a key making stand. I needed a spare key so I tried to talk to the kid working it. Neither one of us could understand each other and we eventually decided he didn't have a blank that would match the Donkey. While failing to get a key made, I noticed a cool little sculpture and took another picture.









Our first day on the mainland we left Mazatlan, passed thru a couple Policia and Militaria checkpoints and made our way to Tequila! They have a town called Tequila! How cool is that? We actually stayed in a town called Etzatlan, a little south of Tequila. They were having some sort of festival, with lots of fireworks. It was pretty neat, we wandered around and watched some dancers, and also got to see lots of street vendors. To dark for decent pictures but I did get a one of the church.


It's sunday morning now, and we're within striking distance of Guanauato.

Leap and the net will appear...

A quote from a fellow traveler, the Dangerz. http://www.thedangerz.com  I felt it particular fitting for the past two days. As I mentioned in my last entry, we were faced with being in Mexico Illegally based upon what migracion and some semi-permanant residents (fellow americans) said. The US embassy wasn't helpful at all, and Migracion simply laughed at us. Faced with an impending deadline we tried to book tickets back to Tijuana to repair our mistake, halfway through the process online it timed out and the tickets dissapeared. Eddie called to attempt making reservations over the phone and was told he couldn't make reservations less than 6 hours prior to the flight. Huh. Theres less than an hour before the next flight (only tw o per day, unless you want to route through Mexico city, adding 14 hours to your travel time and an additional $400 each) so we ask the campground own er if we can leave our vehicles with her for a day. Sure. A fellow american wintering down here gives us a ride to the airport, we're winging it!

The wheels on the van go round and round...

I might have underestimated the amount of driving involved on this adventure. We haven't been acomplishing huge mileage numbers, but we've been spending quite a bit of time every day on the road. Despite living in Hawaii for the past year, I am still not accustomed to how quickly it gets dark. I need to attach some more lighting around the Donkey to help with all that. I have some really cool LED's that should do the trick whenever I get around to it.

Crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, I can now cross that off my bucket list....

Bigfoot and the Giants

We couldn't find Bigfoot, but we saw some really big trees!

We camped one night on the 'Avenue of Giants' in the California Redwoods, that was pretty cool.

Blast off!

We finally got outta Seattle Tuesday the 19th about 3pm. Only a little behind schedule, but ahead of the 5 days I originally planned on being in Seattle. Unfortunately, that meant we had to cut a few corners and delay a few projects I wanted to complete on the Donkey until later, I hope I'll have time to get to them soon. It's friday and I haven't done much other than drive so far.

The weather has been chilly and wet, yesterday was the first day it didn't rain most of the day. We're glad both vehicles have awnings, they have came in very handy camping. Right now, camped in Brookings Oregon, I see clear blue skies, it should be a good day. We're cruising through the redwoods today.



One of the projects that was left unfinished was plumbing the heater. It's japanese, so the fuel fitting is metrtic and all we could find in Seattle at the 2 places we checked was standard. I was stressing a bit because it was already after our planned departuyre time and I still had alot to do. Rather than go on a wild goose chase and waste half the afternoon I decided to bag the heater and rough it. It's been in the forties at night, not bad unless you consider I came direct from Hawaii,

The Eagle Has Landed!

Well, Eagles, Cara counts too. But we're not really eagles, or even birds. It was kinda an euphemism...   no wait, Google says thats wrong. I had to look it up because I can't think of the right word. Nevermind.

The point is, Cara and I are in Seattle! We caught the redeye out of Hawaii friday night, enjoyed an overnight rest in some undersized airline seats while being serenaded by a 2 year old in the next seat crying almost the entire flight. Caught the Light Line train the next morning to my Gary's house and eventually picked up the Blue Donkey.

While we were at North Westy (the shop that fixed up Donkey for our trip) Eddie and Kathryn showed up. I stole some pics from Eddies Facebook because he wouldn't give them to me....

 

After an exhilarating test drive with Kirk, the head honcho at North Westy, we all caravaned back to Gary's for some Drinking. Um, I mean planning and refitting of the Donkey. While we (Eddie and myself) watched, Gary began building furniture by flashlight until it was too late to continue annoying the neighbors.

We had some delicious dinner the girls prepared and experimented with my portable icemaker. Thats my kind of living! Eventually we called it a night and crashed. Tommorow should be a productive day.

 

First night camping....   OK, Gary let Cara and myself stay inside. Hopefully we'll get the heater installed today. Donkey will be ready soon!

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Day two in Seattle.

Rain.

All day.

Rear hatch makes a decent roof, but it drips into the cargo area. With Gary and Eddies help we made great progress, but underestimated the job ahead of us.

Beginning stages of a rear cabinet....

Gary and Eddies work in the main cabin, Gary has some great carpentry skills.

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Day three in Seattle.

More Rain. Alot. Floods in full effect in Washington. Do you know where your Ark is? We're still working on cabinets, Eddie completed his Clutch master cyl instal, helped Gary install a new Master Cylinder on his truck. Mostly finished and painted cabinets. I screwed up my project several times, Gave up and went to  North Westy for some time on the lift to replace some front end stuff. Kirk is the man for letting us use his facilities and tools to finish prep Donkey prior to our trip. We replaced the front CV's and tierods, a couple other small items and a good pre-trip shakedown. Kudos to Kirk for helping us out, Thanks!!

Donkey continues to run great, having a proper boxer is enjoyable. Cruising at 65 is cake.

My heater is installed, but I still need to run the fuel lines.

We'll see what tomorrow brings, hopefully theres less rain. We haven't even thought about packing yet.

If you ain't first your Last!!

Eddie and Kathryn departed Anchorage this morning.

A short 700 mile drive to catch the Alaska Marine Highway ferry in Haines, Alaska then a week trip ultimately landing them in Bellingham, Washington on the 16th. This is the most current pic I have of their vehicle (1967 Rover 109 Diesel), maybe they'll send me some fitted with roof rack etc when they get a chance.