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Hope everyone’s Holiday is Fantastic!!!

It was very windy last night at  Lake but I’m glad I stopped there instead of waiting down at the cruise ship dock in Skagway.

I finished listening to _Looking for Alaska_ by John Greene and was once again impressed by his easy brilliance at storytelling those details that build memorable characters. 

My catnip is getting a little sunshine on the dash while we wait to load up. 

I’ll probably load a few frozen burritos and Fresca in my bag for the trip since the Hubbard has no cooking galley.  Maybe I should bring my lawn chair for the deck, too!  But I’ll freeze out there! 

I’m glad to be getting home and heading into work tomorrow.  I’ll be tired until the weekend when I can really sleep in and get some rest. 

Micah, look at Wilford now!

Got here about 3:45 pm.  Way slower than expected.  The Al-Can is all ups and downs and twisty curves in this section.

So… I’m 5 hours from the border crossing- which means about 6 from the ferry. This is good news, except, at 4 pm after some rougher bouncy driving all day, I have to decide how much further I can drive TONIGHT, that I can still potentially get to the ferry in Skagway before noon tomorrow.

Check in for the afternoon ferry is noonish.

I think I’ll stay at what I know is a nice campsite here tonight and try for the ferry Tuesday afternoon. 

I got to Toad River.  It was Saturday night and a number of rigs were here before me but there was plenty of room for me to be parked by myself.

I had a nice meal at Boston Pizza in Ft. Nelson. By the time I got here I was happy for the clean pit toilet.  😏

I’m not sure when this will publish, as the cell service from here out is pretty sketchy… Probably when I get into Watson Lake. 

I went about 390 miles yesterday without incident, which was encouraging.

Stayed at a place with lots of pallet fires but got out and walked to check for nails first.  North just a bit of Dawson Creek, so I’m now on the Al-Can.

Getting going at 930!

Hoping to stay at Toad River, my usual camp spot, tonight.  Google says six and a half hours which means at least 8 in bus speed, but I’m heading out early…

Had some nice potatoes from the potato farm stand near Choteau, in Montana.  They were very fresh and good with my microwave poached eggs.

Starting miles

Well this is just a quick note there was a long line at customs and I got through fine and didn’t have very many problems overheating one time I wasn’t watching and I let it get away from me and the other time was very brief and I was surprised that it went off but it did.

I did some repacking and things are a little bit more roomy and organized in here and I can get rid of one of the totes that doesn’t have a lid and some other cardboard boxes. Things are stacked a little higher in back but I hope they’ll stay in place all right.

I’m hoping I can get some good miles behind me and at least get past Red deer which is on the other side north of Calgary, this is just a quick update as proof of life.  Woo!

I ended up getting to the Teton River rest area about 35 MI past Great falls yesterday with no overheating, but I did pay close attention to that thermostat showing the water temperature and every time it started to creep up- I’d lift up my foot and ease off. There were only a few hills that I needed to go 20 on.

I stopped at the rest area and it was pretty hot here yesterday, apparently it was a record-breaking day here in Great falls over 100°. It was definitely warmer inside the bus than when I stepped out. I turned off the engine when I went to use the rest stop facilities, and when I came back out, no ignition again.

I made a few calls and sat there a while hoping I could get it to start eventually, but by 2:00 p.m., nothing was happening.

I ended calling I state truck center in Great falls and they sent out a mobile tech who couldn’t find the problem either, but probing around in the electrical area, some circuit must have gotten bridged, and we got the engine to start up.

So I went 35 mi back in the other direction to Great falls. It was over 100 in the bus and there was no way I was really going to be able to sleep in the bus overnight, so I went across the street to a hotel by the truck stop.

I went over this morning and gave him the keys and talked to the tech but the problems I was having, and showed him little bit of what’s been done so far. He seems to think it’s a power issue coming from the batteries and that may be one of the cells is bad so he was going to start by checking there.

He saw that the power was acting intermittently so I’m not sure if it’s the battery, and I’m just waiting at the hotel in the air conditioning until noon when I’ll need to check out to see what they find out before my time is up.

I really really want to start making some progress towards home and it’s super frustrating to keep getting stuck and wait.

I wish I had the skills to figure out the problem myself and just keep going.

For those of you keeping track at home, I’m somewhere called pelican point and I didn’t make it to Great falls yet.

I’m at one of the fishing trail campgrounds and it’s super nice under some shady trees and hopefully that’ll keep her cool a little bit later in the morning while I get some sleep.

She overheated four times, the first time I was pushing it going 70 on the freeway. Then it started to climb and the temperature couldn’t keep up with the load so it overheated and I had to pull over and wait.

It took a long time to cool her down and I’m glad I stopped at that rest stop by 3 forks when you get off of 90 to go up to 15?

I just keep her under 65 unless I’m going downhill at this point right around 60 seems to be how she can run on average Highway ups and downs in this area.

There’s lightning flashing around too.  The sky was REALLY red.

Well…

David took my bus for a thorough test drive through Bozeman pass and indeed she overheated as previously described

The fan clutch will be here Monday. They will try again to fix her up.  She is starting well now but Lilly is still protesting road life in the summer heat.

I think the fan clutch might be the answer, because if the alarm goes off at 250 climbing a hill, sometimes if I throw it into neutral after I gun it up to 75 going Downhill I can catch enough fast air that the temp will drop a few degrees to turn the engine alarm off.  It’s certainly not much more than if the fan was going off at the proper temp and speed to prevent the heat climbing, but it does suggest that extra air during heavy lifting will help. 

Makes sense anyway.

So now I’m looking at Monday.

OBVIOUSLY.

I dragged Carole to a nail salon which did an excellent job helping us pass a little time waiting for the new starter to show up at Floyd’s Freightliner.

Then we decided it had been a while since we had Olive Garden for lunch … So we took care of that issue also.

I’m glad all these loose  ends are getting tied up.

Floyd’s says Lilly should be done by the end of the day.