Leslie Thursday, September 11, 2008
It’s always an adventure!
We planned on traveling 286 miles to Dawson Creek, BC today and didn’t want to arrive too late so we endeavored to get an early start (10:00 am instead of 11:00am, hey we’re still having fun). We passed through more dusty roads and construction zones, stopped for a brief lunch break, and noticed that the vegetation had changed. We no longer saw miles and miles of pine trees and the leaves on the deciduous trees were mostly green. At the Sikanni River we passed a campground that I had to tried to call yesterday but had received a message that their phone was disconnected. I commented that the campground appeared to be open. (I later learned that the area had just converted to 10 digit dialing and that many phones weren’t working correctly.) After crossing the Sikanni River at milepost 162 the road climbs a long and extremely steep hill. This is where the day got interesting.
As we drove up the hill, maybe a quarter mile from the top, the truck was clearly struggling to climb and suddenly died. Robert was able to maneuver the truck and trailer off the road onto the shoulder by backing up. Of course our cells phones had no service. It was 1:20 pm. I put on my hiking boots, packed some water and a light jacket in my backpack and walked back to the campground to call for help. It took me an hour to get back to the campground – all downhill. Robert waited with the rig. Because of curves in the road, our two-way radios soon no longer connected to each other.
We have Good Sam emergency service covering both the truck and the trailer. Luckily the Sikanni River Campground was still open. I called the Good Sam 800 number from a payphone out front. I didn’t get off that call for another hour. Good Sam was having a terrible time figuring out the nearest town (although I told her numerous times) and finding a repair facility and campground to tow our vehicles. At one point she said they’d tow the truck to Dawson Creek 160 miles south and tow the trailer to the campground from which I was calling. She couldn’t find any repair facilities that would look at the truck for 10 -14 days. Eventually I think she got frustrated and said she was transferring the issue to Canadian dispatch. In a few minutes a much more competent person with Canadian Dispatch (actually CAA, the Canadian version of AAA) called me back with a much more logical plan. The managers of the campground, Wayne Gillis and Jackie Allen, had told me that there is only one tow truck operator in the area, Alex Eisenkrein of Eisenkrein Services, Ltd. CAA knew him. CAA explained that Alex would tow both the truck and trailer to Fort St. John, 120 miles south and on the way to Dawson Creek. She said that she couldn’t find any campgrounds that would be open after September 15 (and remember the truck wouldn’t be looked at until after that) so the trailer could be towed to a campground that I had found in Dawson Creek. (How we were going to get back to the truck, we hadn’t yet figured out.) The Wayne Gillis, campground manager, kindly took me back up the hill to let Robert know about the plan. Alex had promised he would reach us within two hours (5:30 pm).
It was shortly after 6:00 when Robert suggested that perhaps I should hike back to the campground and see if we could get some diesel. While we knew that our main tank had plenty of fuel, he wondered if something had happened to the switch between the tanks and that adding fuel to the auxiliary tank might solve the problem. I wasn’t too keen on repeating my hike, since it was starting to get dusk (or would be by the time I got back down the hill). Robert was also concerned about the rig sitting so long on the very steep incline. (It’s not a good idea to run the refrigerator that far off level.) He decided that he would try to back the truck and trailer down the shoulder to where the hill was slightly more level. That didn’t work too well. With minimal steering and braking ability, the trailer ended up side-ways across the road with both the front of the truck and the rear of the trailer pointing toward the right shoulder. The rear of the trailer was precariously close to the edge of the shoulder which was followed by a 5 foot drop. We had almost blocked the entire road. A couple of truckers stopped and offered to help. After a few attempts one of the semi-trucks that wasn’t hauling a trailer was able to pull our truck and trailer up the hill a bit until it was back on the shoulder. Well that was more excitement than I needed.
Another trucker had a jerry can of diesel that we added to the auxiliary tank. The truck still wouldn’t start. He gave me a ride back to the campground where I replaced his diesel and called Alex. Alex had been stopped by a road closure due to paving; he said he’d be at our truck in a few minutes. The Wayne Gillis, campground manager gave me another ride back up the hill. Although we never got to stay there, the Sikanni River Campground looked like a delightful place and the managers are incredibly kind.
After a couple more hours of fuel related attempts to get the truck started, Alex determined that we’d have to be towed. He first pulled both the truck and trailer on a chain up the hill to level ground. Then he loaded the truck on the back of his flat bed truck and hooked up the trailer to a 5th wheel hitch on the back. I would have loved to have a picture of the entire set up but it was 9:30 and pitch dark by the time we got this far. The three of us piled into the front of his cab and off we sailed to Fort St. John. About half way to Fort St. John, Alex stopped at a small store in Wonoone (say that town name aloud and you’ll get the joke). There was another car there that had just hit a moose on the road. The car looked to be totaled. Alex told the man he’d be back in two hours to tow his car. Alex drove incredibly fast the remainder way to Fort St. John (I saw the speedometer over 75 mph). Alex said that he couldn’t get his truck into a campground but that he would drop both the truck and trailer off at the Ford dealer in Fort St. John. By 11:30 pm we were set up with our generator running in the Ford dealer's parking lot. I reheated some soup for dinner and we went to sleep.
We’ll learn tomorrow how long we’ll be camped at the Ford dealer. Look at all the diesel we saved! We saved the cost of a camground fee as well. :-)
While the day was incredibly long, we commented many times that it could have been far worse. Had we lost the truck while going downhill, we likely would not have been able to stop. We certainly could have broken down in a more remote location. We are very thankful for the kindness of all the strangers we met.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
It's Always Sumthin!!!
Robert, Thursday, September 11
We set out for points further south and east today. We weren’t sure if we were going to go all the way to Dawson Creek or if we would stop somewhere short of there, Little did we know that regardless of what we thought, fate was deciding for us. Our starting point for the day, Fort Nelson, is 283 miles from Dawson Creek, the end of the Alaska Highway. Just after we had gone 114 miles was a long, steep hill to climb. As we started up the hill, the truck didn’t seem to have too much power. About half way up the hill, the speed suddenly dropped and the engine quit. We were in the middle of the right lane on a three-lane road–two uphill and one down. I backed the rig onto the shoulder and tried to restart the engine to no avail. So there we sat. We decided that Leslie would walk back to the campground we had seen at the bottom of the hill where she could phone for help. We have emergency road service that I had renewed just a few weeks before. I sure am glad I notice that the card we have expired and I made that call to renew. I stayed with the rig and tried to raise someone with our CB radio. I finally get a trucker to say the nearest help was at Fort St. James which was about 122 miles further down the highway. After what seemed like hours, Leslie got a ride back with the owner of the campground where she had walked. She said she had finally made arrangements for a tow truck that should arrive around 5:30. The truck had died at 1:30. We sat there until 6:00 and I decided to try to get the rig down off the hill by backing down the shoulder. Without the engine, the power steering and power brakes made control difficult. We got most of the way down when we got too far out in the road. Suddenly vehicles stopped to see if they could help. We finally got the rig towed about 100 feet back onto the shoulder. By this time I was beginning to think that the problem had something to do with the fuel. The truck has two fuel tanks–the original main tank and an auxiliary tank. Inside the truck is a switch that selects the fuel tank to use. The amount of fuel in whichever is selected is displayed on the truck fuel gauge. About 10 miles prior to the engine quitting, I had run the auxiliary down to almost empty and then I switched to the main tank. My thought was that the valve had not switched the supply and we had simply run out of fuel. One of the people who stopped had a 5-gallon tank of diesel so we put that in the auxiliary tank but the truck still wouldn’t start. Leslie went with him back down to find out what had happened to the tow truck and to replace the fuel in the fuel tank we had used. Just then the tow truck arrived. Leslie returned and we towed the rig up to the top of the hill where there was a pullout. The tow truck driver though we might just have air in the fuel lines and so we bled the air out. The engine still wouldn’t start. So we loaded the truck onto the tow truck, hooked the trailer on the back, and started out to Fort St. John, the nearest Ford dealer. About half way we stopped in the town of Wonowon (101). It is at mile marker 101 on the highway. The stop was to check the tie downs and the driver wanted to get some coffee. While we were there, a couple had just pulled in after hitting a moose. Looking at the front of their truck, it looked like a total loss. Our driver told him that he would probably get the call from his road service as he was the only service along that part of the highway. We loaded up and headed on the Fort St. John. About a mile down the road we saw moose remains in the road. Shortly thereafter, the tow truck driver got a call to pick up the guy who hit the moose. We continued on to the Ford dealer in Fort St. John. We got there just before midnight and set up in the dealer’s parking lot. We were both tired and hungry so we grabbed something for dinner and crashed.
We set out for points further south and east today. We weren’t sure if we were going to go all the way to Dawson Creek or if we would stop somewhere short of there, Little did we know that regardless of what we thought, fate was deciding for us. Our starting point for the day, Fort Nelson, is 283 miles from Dawson Creek, the end of the Alaska Highway. Just after we had gone 114 miles was a long, steep hill to climb. As we started up the hill, the truck didn’t seem to have too much power. About half way up the hill, the speed suddenly dropped and the engine quit. We were in the middle of the right lane on a three-lane road–two uphill and one down. I backed the rig onto the shoulder and tried to restart the engine to no avail. So there we sat. We decided that Leslie would walk back to the campground we had seen at the bottom of the hill where she could phone for help. We have emergency road service that I had renewed just a few weeks before. I sure am glad I notice that the card we have expired and I made that call to renew. I stayed with the rig and tried to raise someone with our CB radio. I finally get a trucker to say the nearest help was at Fort St. James which was about 122 miles further down the highway. After what seemed like hours, Leslie got a ride back with the owner of the campground where she had walked. She said she had finally made arrangements for a tow truck that should arrive around 5:30. The truck had died at 1:30. We sat there until 6:00 and I decided to try to get the rig down off the hill by backing down the shoulder. Without the engine, the power steering and power brakes made control difficult. We got most of the way down when we got too far out in the road. Suddenly vehicles stopped to see if they could help. We finally got the rig towed about 100 feet back onto the shoulder. By this time I was beginning to think that the problem had something to do with the fuel. The truck has two fuel tanks–the original main tank and an auxiliary tank. Inside the truck is a switch that selects the fuel tank to use. The amount of fuel in whichever is selected is displayed on the truck fuel gauge. About 10 miles prior to the engine quitting, I had run the auxiliary down to almost empty and then I switched to the main tank. My thought was that the valve had not switched the supply and we had simply run out of fuel. One of the people who stopped had a 5-gallon tank of diesel so we put that in the auxiliary tank but the truck still wouldn’t start. Leslie went with him back down to find out what had happened to the tow truck and to replace the fuel in the fuel tank we had used. Just then the tow truck arrived. Leslie returned and we towed the rig up to the top of the hill where there was a pullout. The tow truck driver though we might just have air in the fuel lines and so we bled the air out. The engine still wouldn’t start. So we loaded the truck onto the tow truck, hooked the trailer on the back, and started out to Fort St. John, the nearest Ford dealer. About half way we stopped in the town of Wonowon (101). It is at mile marker 101 on the highway. The stop was to check the tie downs and the driver wanted to get some coffee. While we were there, a couple had just pulled in after hitting a moose. Looking at the front of their truck, it looked like a total loss. Our driver told him that he would probably get the call from his road service as he was the only service along that part of the highway. We loaded up and headed on the Fort St. John. About a mile down the road we saw moose remains in the road. Shortly thereafter, the tow truck driver got a call to pick up the guy who hit the moose. We continued on to the Ford dealer in Fort St. John. We got there just before midnight and set up in the dealer’s parking lot. We were both tired and hungry so we grabbed something for dinner and crashed.
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