Days 2, 3, & 4 – Whew! Here I was thinking I was going to be able to keep up with the blog daily. 😄 Well- at least I’m trying my best. A few days have went by in the mean time- but I’m making it a serious point this morning to get this posted.
Day 2 we woke up to a gorgeous morning down by the edge of Six Mile Creek.
Next we were headed up to Anchorage. Once we arrived in Turnagain Arm we were able to do the last times blog post and make calls. I sent a question off to Dave Dooley and he gave me a call right back. We made arrangements to meet up with him in the morning in Eagle River to try and get the spare tire swapped; as well as show him the latest edition of the RV he had put the engine in 7 years ago. Laura continued to make calls to try and see if we could find a User Control Panel for the hot water heater while we drove the rest of the arm.
In Anchorage we fueled up and went to meet up with our friend Whitney Powell. We hung out and caught up on our lives before promising to keep in touch and see each other as soon as we could again. 💕
After Whitney we went to see a friend we hadn’t seen in about 10 years – Steve Smith! I had wanted to make a point and track him down before we left Alaska; and that mission had been successful. Steve arranged for us to stay in his parking lot for the evening, and we spent the the time showing him what we had been up to, telling stories from the last 10 years, and reminiscing about growing up in Homer together and our school years and beyond. Steve made us a lovely dinner, as well as filling our whole night with whole hearted laughter.
On Day 3, we were headed up to Eagle River. When we arrived at Dooley’s Auto Repair the next morning Dave came out and we finally met the man! He immediately scooted right under the rig and started looking it over, With a thumbs up we headed to the rear to figure out how to get the tire off the chain. We had to get the holding bracket out of the lug holes and then used a pry bar to pop it through the center of the tire. We discovered that the crank had been re-mounted sideways and though it was a super tight fit, with some lubrication and work it was possible to get it up and down.
We got the mechanism moving freely and Dave kindly gave us a spare 16″ rim with a junk tire on it. We also bought a Toyota crank set from him. Next we were off to find a tire shop to pop our spare tire on our new rim.
Eventually we found a walk in shop called Qwik Lube. We dropped the tire off and headed over to our friends Tadd & Erin Galusha’s house for another touching base with friends. They served us a piece of one of Erin’s delectable pies she had created, introduced us to a pet we didn’t even know they had this whole time, and we enjoyed some coffee and sunny side deck time. By the time we were done with this special meet up our tire was ready for pickup.
Afterwards we cruised on back over to Dooley’s where we got the new tire back up into place. Dave proceeded to look over our engine and help me figure out what was wrong with our AC setup. We were missing the discharge hose, so we were going to have to find ourselves one of those too. Dave then continued to give us a lot of history on his experience with the rig, as well as showed me all the diagrams for the engine swap that had been done. He said he would scan and send them to me later when he got a chance. Overall- Dave was super kind and helpful the whole time, and we were both very stoked we had gotten to meet the man who gave Our Ohana its heart.
After whipping up a couple of quick smoothies we were headed over to Palmer where we visited our friends Ray & Jennie Weber. Minus a picture of their beautiful backyard we forgot to get a goodbye phot with them. 🤦 But we had a great time playing a board game and wishing them the best until next time we got to see each other. The Webers actually do a youtube board gaming review channel- so check it out if you want to get to know them and all the awesome games they host! Here’s the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCM1_LqMSaMXRYJ6-xUF0EFw
Next we were headed to our good friend Josh Krull’s for the night. Josh spoiled us with a dinner of fried halibut tacos with homemade salsa, crème avocado sauce and coleslaw. His wife Kerston gave us the sweetest parting gift; a little camper fannie pack made by a family member. 😍
After dinner Josh gave us a tour of his new Tesla- which was crazy! The features in it are out of this world; from light shows, awesome sounds system, to hands free driving, and g-force control!
We got to test it out too, and I’ll tell you; not having your hands on the wheel is a wholly different and somewhat scary experience at first. The torque and acceleration it is capable of is insane! It was such a unique (for now) and crazy / awesome thing to get to try out.
That night we got in some good board gaming and talking before we went to bed.
On day 4: The next morning we woke up to coffee and some sunshine out on his deck, where we shared music and chatted up the morning. Afterwards we finally showed Josh our workout system, where we all got in a good session before we had to get ready to hit the road. Josh had the neat idea of dumping and filling at his place, which had never occurred to me that we could just use a sewer cleanout for dumping our tanks. 😲 So we gave it a try and it worked great!
Josh was so kind the whole time- and we had a very special stay over at the Krull’s home. We will definitely stay in touch and keep this cherished friendship in the future. ☺️
Once we were back in Wasilla proper, we spontaneously decided to grab a bite to eat before we started the long haul to Fairbanks. I had to show Laura a spot I had discovered that winter that was super cheap and super awesome; Tacos Cancun. It was so professional I had assumed it was a chain- but it turned out it’s the only one there is. Definitely worth stopping by if you’re ever in Wasilla.
Then we had a long and slightly rough drive to Fairbanks that took us around 8 hours total with a few stops. When we were at a gas station I noticed my dash lights where out, along with my running lights! The fuse for the dash lights kept popping as well. After trying to solve it for awhile we decided we could at least make it to Fairbanks since we had turn signals, break lights, and headlights. I’ve gotten some good feedback from members of the Toyota Motorhome Club page- so I’m going to try to solve this issue as we travel.
Tired and weary we arrived in Faibanks around 11:30 PM, where we pulled into the Planet Fitness parking lot for the night. We stayed up for a bit before hitting the hay. Here’s some pictures we took at about 1:30 AM of the evening sky colors. Land of the midnight sun! It’s going to be nice to see what life is like with a regular day and night schedule soon.
Geoff Murphy – 6/4/2022