Day 30 -- Returning back to civilization from the Dalton Highway

Travel   From: Coldfoot, AK   To: Fairbanks, AK   Distance: 264 mi (425 km)   Travel time w/brks: 7 hr 21   Distance since start: 7,533 mi (12,113 km)

Thursday 7/20/2006

We slept well despite it all. Early in the morning I walked over and got the tire taken care of in the shop. That piece of metal junk we had picked up appeared to be very close to the sidewall so this tire is probably nothing more than a temporary spare tire. Since their dump station was broken, we took advantage of the showers they have for the pipeline workers, in the barracks. We were all quite dirty and this was nice. We cleaned up some of the mess in the trailer and then ate breakfast at their restaurant. Karl had been talking about their buffet for some time, but we missed it last night. He was quite pleased now. Everyone got so much bacon that they handed strips over to Karl, who was very happy about that.

The sun is shining in Coldfoot, even on trailers in despair

Breakfast in Coldfoot

Once we were fed, we fueled up and hit the road around 1PM. I decided it was not worth it to fix the shower door now, so the kids put it in a sleeping bag, on the floor. The bathroom mirror was disconnected and placed on the floor, face down. The weather was nice and sunny. This is the other dark side of the Dalton Highway. When you have sunshine, which is very nice, you also have tons of dust. This crept into every cavity of the trailer. Every drawer. The only thing spared was the fridge. And it already looked horrible as it was. The road construction in the south was still on, but the nicer weather had compacted down the road a bit, so it was not as full of sharp rocks as it was on the way up. We stalled for about 10 minutes before the construction, waiting for a pilot car. It turns out that the worker that handled flagging of cars also had a 1964 Airstream and he was very amused to see us in the line. I gave him all sorts of web information.

As we approached the last miles of the Dalton Highway, it gave us one final memory: a check engine light and a clogged fuel filter, just as we were approaching a long hill. Nice thing is that we can now take care of this completely by ourselves. We have spare filters, a pan, funnel, etc. We were done with filter change #4 in 45 minutes, which included an extended conversation with a local that stopped to ask if we needed help. The score is now 4-4 in Flat tires versus Clogged fuel filters. The rest of the road was largely without events. We checked back into Chena Marina and met up with Kushman's group of four Airstreams from Charter Oak. It was nice to see everyone. We got a site next to the Kushmans. Unfortunately, their dump valve faced ours this time. Click here for amusing sewer side story from 1999. We got a few items of food from our friends since we were pretty much totally exhausted and everything in a total mess. I tired to get started with the exterior cleanup, but gave up after a little while. Even with our high pressure washer, the stuff was only coming off slowly and it was getting very late. We did not even bother to unhook the trailer.

Campground   Name: Chena Marina RV Park, Fairbanks, AK   Our hookups: 30 amp, Water, Cable, Sewer   WiFi: Yes   GSM service: Yes   TV Channels: Yes   Cost: $39.10/night   Reservation mode: Phone

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All Pictures (c) 2006 Hamnqvist, Background features the flipped bedroom light that is hanging lossly ad missing its shade.