When I woke up at the 3Gs RV Park I went to get coffee at the restaurant and was told by the waitress that the North road was closed due to fires. I found out that you could still travel over 300 kilometers up before you hit the closure so I decided I would go North anyway.
There was a long distance cyclist who was riding the same way and we chatted- he is a physician, a young guy, in Calgary doing Emergency medicine. So far he has gone 1,200 K on the bike. He has a tough test coming up because soon we will be in the Canadian Rockies! Funny too, farther down the road heading the opposite way I saw a young woman riding towards him. Maybe they will meet up!
I left a little later- around 9 am and filled up the tank and started North. It was smokey, but not terrible. About 60 miles out of town I started climbing into the Northern Rockies and at one point I decided to downshift into D2 which went fine- when the climb was over I shifted back into regular D drive and then the shift lever went slack- just felt like it would slide around. I continued driving until I came to a small RV Park which turned out to be deserted! The van would not go into Park or any other gear., just slid around. A sign on the door said, "Gone to Town". No one was home and there were no guests. I went to the road to try and flag someone down who might have a phone to call for help.
A couple in nice Class C came along and stopped, but they did not have phone service; while we were chatting an older truck camper pulled in and the guy driving, Bob, asked what was wrong. When I told him I thought the linkage had gone bad he asked to take a look to see if he could help.
We took the doghouse off and you could see the problem right away- the linkage was out at a 20 degree angle from the transmission!
Bob asked if I had any wire, which I do. He wired the linkage back on and said that would probably get me all the way, but that I should have a mechanic put a proper nut, bolt and washer on it at some point. It worked good as new! Bob is from Manitoba and was heading ro Dawson City to see about a gold mine. We ran into each other at the hotspring at the Provincial Campground I strayed in that night.
The Canadian Rockies are amazing- ran through a high valley with a green river running through it and high granite peaks surrounding me. So beautiful!
I saw animals too- some what are called 'Stone Sheep' that look like little mountain goats were in the road licking the salt off of roadkill apparently and I saw a I sign with a buffalo on it and sure enough, five minutes later, there he was running beside the road. Nice when things work out as advertised.
When I was in the pass the mountains kept the smoke out and I saw partly cloudy and blue skies for the first time in awhile, as soon as I got out of the pass though the smoke was back.
I stayed at Hotsprings Provincial Park that night and enjoyed the soak. I've gotten many bites on my ankles and calves and elbows from nasty teensy tiny bugs the call Sand Flies or No see'ums. You don't even see them coming and there bites bugged me all night making it hard to sleep. I needed some Advil PM and then slept fitfully waking several times to scratch. Ugh.
The road is open again so North as far as I can tomorrow and hopefully in Fairbanks on the 25th.
More later now some pics
Thank goodness for Bob, glad he came along and got you fixed up and rolling again.
ReplyDeleteThe hot springs look very nice and inviting.