The story of the trip to haul the skid loader up. By Andy
This is an epistle, so proceed with caution if you don’t have much time.
This week I have been reveling in the presence of my family. I missed them so much for the ten days that I was gone, and it was for their sakes that I tried so hard to be careful to get back home safe and sound. I have a definite sense that this is where I belong and that I definitely need to be there for my children as they grow up.
The trip was one for the books. I flew in to PA around 5 on Friday evening. Dad and Mama picked me up at the airport, and that evening we went and picked the truck up at Rovendale tire, where it had gotten new snow tires put on it. Dad and I got the skid steer loaded after some trouble starting it, and Nick Borch came over to see me and help with the loading process. Around 10 we felt done.
I got up early the next morning to get tie-down chains, but there were seemingly none to be found. I searched the auto parts stores in Lewisburg, but they only had straps, and I needed grade 70 chains. The guy at NAPA finally directed me to Tractor Supply. I was appalled at their prices, but what was to be done? I was already late.
I finally got on the road after wolfing down some breakfast that Mama made for me and weighing at Elvin’s scale. I was right under the maximum weight allowed for my rig, so it was perfect. I saw that there were about 1500 pounds on the truck, which I though was about right. As I drove down the road I realized that I didn’t have nearly enough weight on the truck, allowing my tires to spin when I tried to take off. That is a very bad thing when you are hauling a heavy load with a bumper hitch trailer, as you need as much stability as can be found. I stopped at a truck stop and bought a can of starting fluid to start the skid steer and move it forward. After I made the adjustments I continued on my way.
I arrived at Vincent’s (One of my campers fro my boys camp days) place a little before the time that they were going to start the reunion at Camp, and it was easily another three to four hours until we could arrive. I calculated my fuel mileage from PA to Ohio, and it came up as 7.7! I was appalled, but I had been gaining a lot of altitude and pulling up a lot of hills while trying to make up lost time. I took it a bit easier going to Camp and got better fuel mileage as a result.
The camp 10-year reunion was great, and then it was back to the road to take Vincent back home. I ended up sleeping in a camper in their yard. The wind howled throughout the night, and it sometimes woke me up from the noise. I was scared that it would knock a tree over onto the camper, so I prayed for safety, and the Lord must have heard me. They said the next day that it was around 70 mph winds that were ravaging the area. I met up with Tyler, the fellow who was helping me drive, nearby in Warren, Ohio.
We headed out west, and skirted the heart of Chicago, technically adding an hour or so to our trip, but who knows how much time we saved by skipping that madness? We continued on into Wisconsin and we spent the majority of the night at a truck stop. I wanted to continue pushing on, but I had started having diarrhea and needed a pot close by. I believe the gut issues were stemming from the Diablo sauce that Vincent had convinced me to eat with the Taco Bell meal that I had bought us on our way home.
We continued on the next day, driving through Wisconsin and into Minnesota. We had some issues with the truck tires spinning again, so we moved the skid steer farther forward yet. The truck was more stable now, but most of the weight was on the front tires of the trailer, and around Fargo, ND we blew a tire. We stopped at the next exit, and there was a farm equipment dealership right there. Unfortunately they were only selling newer equipment that is mostly the size of my house, and they didn’t even have a lug nut wrench. I had been thinking that I would use the truck’s lug nut wrench, but it was 1/16 too small. The fellows in the dealership told me where the nearest tire shop was, so we headed into town, about 5 miles away. A police officer pulled me just before I reached it, and said that I was not allowed to keep going, and I would have to unhitch the trailer in a parking lot right there and go get things fixed up. He was very nice, and it was as pleasant of an exchange as could be.
We drove down to the tire shop, and he said that there was a place where I could get tires and rims together, so we headed over there and got two tires with rims. We had to stop at a Walmart and get a jack and a lug wrench star, and then we stopped at an auto parts store to get some jumper cables. We finally got back to Point A, and got the tire fixed. The jack wouldn’t fit under the axle, so we just started the skid steer, unloaded it, and picked the trailer tongue up far enough that the front axle came off of the ground. We also put the two buckets for the skid steer into the pickup truck bed for extra weight, and we loaded the skid steer back up. The tire star was 1/16th too small to adjust the tongue down to help level the trailer, but we felt better about the weight distribution now. The whole process took about six hours. Ugh, we were trying to save time on this trip.
That evening Tyler drove into the night. I woke up once when he commented that he had just driven the straightest stretch in his life. I learned later that with the driving snow visibility had been about 30 feet for a while, but he could see on the gps that there were no curves, so he could keep his speed up. Also helping the safety factor was the fact that no animal in their right mind would be out in that nasty weather. There was blowing snow and the temperatures were really cold. I don’t know how cold, but I remember noticing at one fuel station that the windshield washer fluid in those window washing stations was starting to get slushy. I suppose it was around -20 at that point, because that is what the cheap windshield washer fluid is protected to, generally.
I took the warnings and suggestions from others seriously and grabbed some cardboard from a dumpster and stuffed it up in front of the radiator to try to keep the engine from getting too cold. That seemed to work well, and we had really good heat from the heater the whole time.
We arrived at the Portal, ND checkpoint to cross into Canada. They had us pull into a heated shop and they took our luggage and ran it through a scanner. It was two ladies, and they were very nice, making small talk about our family, etc.
Soon we were cleared to continue, but the truck started rather hard, even in the warm shop. I took that as a warning to keep the truck running at all times.
We continued on into Saskatchewan. It was really neat to recognize a few places in Saskatchewan where we had stopped on our way up in 2017. We pushed on through into Alberta, but we had another flat tire. We didn’t even know it until we pulled into a gas station and realized that the front tire was shredded on the passenger side.
I met a fellow there as I was filling up and it turned out that he was also from Alaska heading back, and I picked his brain about how to drive the AlCan highway in the winter. He recommended filling up with fuel every chance I could get. He thought he would try to get to Edmonton, AB that evening.
We replaced the tire on the trailer by using some wood that we found laying around and continued on our way. I figured that since we weren’t on the AlCan highway yet we would be able to get fuel more often, and would be able to use more than the top half of the fuel tank. I ran the tank down to just above 1/4 before I could find a fuel station. I was delighted to see a sign for a 24 hour station, since it was now around 10:30 pm. I pulled in, and discovered that all the diesel fuel pumps were out of service. I decided to walk in and see what was going on as well as use the washroom as they are called in Canada. I finally did find someone in there, a young fellow who seemed to be running the place by himself that night. I asked about the fuel situation, and he said that the pump was out of service because it was too cold and the fuel had gelled up. I had noticed it being cold, but I didn’t know that it was that cold! He said that it was something like -35 C which is about -31 F. He went on to describe how gas gells up around -37 and oil gells up, etc. We had a nice conversation talking about Alaska and what took me there.
He told me that Vegreville was about 20 minutes up the road on my way and that there were gas stations there. I bought another 5 gallon diesel fuel can while I was there, and it was the Canadian style, there way that they used to be here in the U.S., with a real spout and a screw-off vent in the back. We did find fuel at Vegrevillle after some trial and error. There is a weird thing in Canada called a cardlock, and basically if you have a certain card you can use their fuel station. I’m not sure if the whole thing is a subtle way of trying to rid the world of pesky American tourists or what, but it was very nearly effective in this case. We did finally manage to find a Shell station that was open and I filled my fuel tank and my extra fuel can to the top. I had also been adding anti-gell stuff to my fuel and I was running low, but there wasn’t any for sale there. I noticed that all the shell stations didn’t offer fuel additives. I don’t know if it is because their fuel already has additives or what.
We continued on, and at Grand Prairie I got another tire put on a spare rim. When we made it to Dawson Creek I decided to follow the posted laws and get some tire chains. We did find a place that had tire chains, but we would have to wait for a few hours for them to get adjusted for the tire size that was on our truck. We found a Wi-Fi hotspot at a nearby fast-food joint, and hunkered down. After a while we went to a nearby Safeway and I got some more water since we were nearly out. By that time the chains were ready to go. We continued on up the AlCan highway and before long we were in the mountains.
There is one stretch of long, steep uphill that I remember from 2017, and we shortly encountered it. I remembered that as the worst place of the Alcan, so I was glad to be over that. Later that evening Tyler was driving and I was sleeping when we started down an extremely long downhill section. We kept going down for what seemed like an eternity, then we kept going down for what seemed like another eternity. We figured that we were just coming down from the high prairie and from the mountains on the edge of that prairie, so it took a while to get down closer to sea level. That evening we spent in Fort Nelson, BC. While there, we used the Wi-Fi at the nearby Tim Horton’s. After sleeping in the truck again (as we did every night on the trip) we pulled out in the wee hours of the morning. About two miles out of town I heard the familiar pop of a tire! I went back to look, and not one, but two tires were flat!
I put out the two flashers that Dad had sent along, and suddenly I heard some loud screeching and noises! I hadn’t noticed the elk there beside the road, but apparently they had noticed me, and when I turned around they panicked and ran back through the fence into a field that was adjacent to the road. They stayed there and watched as a desperate human jacked the trailer up and took two tires off of his trailer at -37 F with a wind chill of -51 F.
I would get cold, then go hop into the truck to warm back up. I was just using my jeans and sneakers with wool socks at that point, and it was enough to keep me warm enough to keep going in between warm-up spells. After getting the tires off we headed back to town sans the trailer. At that point I realized that the tire shops wouldn’t open for about an hour and a half at 8:00. We waited back at the Tim Horton’s.
After getting the tires fixed and installed we headed on our way. I stopped later to check the torque on the lug nuts, and Tyler pointed out that the tires were wearing unevenly. Both front tires were down to wire on the inside with plenty of tread left on the outside. I deduced that overloading the front axle had actually bent it, making the tires wear unevenly. I switched the front tires to the rear, and vice versa since the rear tires were new. That took about two hours, and then we were on our way again.
That evening we slept beside the road around Tetlin, then we continued on our way. After a while we blew another tire, but we had a spare. At Destruction Bay I filled up with fuel and checked the tire pressure and it was low on both right tires! We had had a flat tire there with the motor home in 2017, so I knew right where to get air at the next-door shop.
After a longer while we were nearly to the Alaska border near the town of Beaver Creek, Canada when we had another flat tire on the trailer. We unhooked the trailer and drove into the small town of Beaver Creek, and there was actually a little tire shop there! He was away for lunch at that point, but the general store next door allowed me to use their phone to call him. We waited until he showed up, and I checked the temperature on the porch of the general store. It was -52 F !
That fellow had one tire that would work on the trailer. It was a truck tire originally, and he recommended using those whenever possible. They are just a lot tougher than nylon trailer tires and last a lot longer. When you get used truck tires they are also a lot cheaper than new trailer tires, especially in Canada along the Alcan.
We continued on into Alaska after getting fixed up, and made it down to Palmer that evening. We slept on the floor in Brandon and Elaine’s apartment, the first horizontal sleep either of us had had since Saturday night.
The next morning it was a balmy 9 degrees, but the wind was blowing, making the wind chill probably well below zero. I woke up around 4:30 and went out to try to start the truck. I checked the oil before starting it, and it was really low! That night was the first time it had been turned off for any significant length of time since the trip had started, and it was really low on oil.
I decided to go looking for an open fuel station that might have oil, but it was around 7:00 before I got back with some oil. The truck did get started, but barely. I have since checked the batteries and they are about 14 years old. Maybe I can forgive it for that.
We trucked on down to Anchor Point, and it was great to be back on familiar turf again. Coming home was amazing, and surreal. I had been running on some psychotic energy to get home for the last half week or so, and it has taken me a bit to recover from that. For the first few days I have had to take a nap from sheer collapse, but things seem to have leveled out now. The weather has been clear and cold, but not nearly as cold as the temperatures that we saw on the trip, so it seems downright balmy. One old-timer in the area has been quoted as saying that in his lifetime in Anchor Point the coldest he saw was -20. We saw -12 the one morning, so we should be good as far as seeing how warm our house can be around here. I like the cold clear days. The sun gives us electricity and the cold keeps things from melting and being messy and slippery. The cold also keeps things in the freezers from thawing and requiring electricity to run the freezers. I like this winter fairly well so far.
Glad to be home, Andy