Sunday, July 08, 2012

Alaska -- Day 53

We have great scenery as we drove from Fairbanks to Cantwell, a small town south of Denali National Park.



We crossed the Tanana River a couple of times and drove through the Tenana Valley.



At one crossing, we saw this river boat and several barges for carrying freight up and down the river. Since the Tanana flows into the Yukon River north of here, freight can be shipped a long distance to and from this part of Alaska.



Buried somewhere in these clouds is Denali, "the high one," Mt. McKinley. We hope to get a better view of the 20,320 ft mountain, but, just in case we don't, or you have never seen it, check out the photo at the top of the blog. That is what we saw 8 years ago when we visited Alaska. Because of cloudy, rainy summers, visitors have only a 30 to 40 % chance of see North America's highest mountain.



Everything wasn't roses today, however. About an hour from Fairbanks, our Pressure Pro tir pressure monitoring system started beeping, telling us one of the truck tires, which should have 80 psi, was only registering 69 psi. As soon as we saw a
parking area, we pulled off and John used one of our generators and a small air compressor to refill the tire. We are so glad we are equipped to deal with situations like this.



As soon as we were set up at our RV site, John asked where we could get the tire checked. They sent us maybe 1/4 mile down the road, where Ken helped us.



We had our doubts when we pulled into his yard. There was "stuff" and junk and old rusty things everywhere. But we left with a new valve stem. Hopefully, it keeps the tire solid till we get to a Chevy dealer in Anchorage.



This is the view out our front window (at least it was until another rig pulled in). See that orange line? We were told we could drive across it, but not park with our wheels on it. Seems that is the water line and, if we parked on it, our neighbors wouldn't have any water. It is certainly something we have never seen before.





1 comment:

  1. That tire repair place was really something. I can see how you would have doubts. Good luck with viewing Denali, but at least you've seen it before.

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