So we were ready! In fact we were so ready, and so excited we loaded up Our Ohana and hit the road a day earlier than we originally planned. We decided to go ahead and spend the night in Kenai to cut down our windshield time a bit the next day. First leg, and easy 81 Miles.
Since we were in Kenai anyway we revisted the “scary park” as Laura likes to call it. 👻
It wasn’t so scary after all, and nobody was messing with us in this rig. 🤣 Still in repeating fashion of that last trip to Kenai in Serenity, we decided to settle down in the Walmart parking lot that night. Since Covid was still going on, and the “I’m tired of quarantine” Alaska camping craze hadn’t quite exploded yet, we were the only one’s there that night minus one other RV. A very rare sight to see… unless it’s winter.
The next morning we awoke to the cottonwood trees letting the cotton seeds rain gently down all around us.
We enjoyed the show while we went on a mission for coffee. (Yep- we had forgotten to pack coffee!)
After a little bit of time in Kenai, we hit the pavement again to get up to Seward. Another 104 miles, when we arrived our shakedown miles would be at 185.
Once we past Sterling we decided to take an adventure down the sound end of Skilak Lake road; Laura wanted to go Morel Mushroom hunting. The whole area had been subject to a large forest fire last summer, and because of that Kenai Peninsula Morel Mushroom hunting was exploding en mass.
The road was horrible, and we only went a short ways down (maybe a mile) before we decided to go hunt mushrooms.
We didn’t find any Morels though… but had a good time none the less. 😆 Soon after we left Skilak lake road, with The Ohana having been rattled to hell thoroughly enough, and got back on the pavement.
Soon the burned forest turned into lush greenery spattered with glimpses of lakes and The Kenai River.
Soon we arrived in Seward. We drove down by The Seward Sealife Center to look out at the water.
Unfortunately The Sealife Center was closed, so we decided we would go check out Exit Glacier. It was a beautiful drive to the parking area.
And with that we were walking the trail up the mountainside to an overlook of Exit Glacier!
Once we were at the top and soaked in the view, we decided to head back to down the mountain. We voted to go check out the washout area of the glacier down below, and maybe see if we could get close to the bottom of the glacier. (FYI- Laura really wants to touch a glacier!!!) We went as far as we were allowed to, and Laura was okay to settle for some fresh glacier water instead.
While we were there we drank a bit too, and it was super tasty and refreshing!
After that we hiked and headed back into town and enjoyed a wonderful dinner. This is when I realized the new water heater had stopped working, and I couldn’t figure out the problem for the life of me. 😟 Nonetheless we enjoyed our meal while we awaited word from…
…Wendy Lou! We had coordinated a meetup while we were in the new hometown of Serenity! It was an awesome chat and sight to see the two together now that the outside was finished on The Ohana!
Wendy Lou even had new custom plates made- check them out! 😁
We were stoked to see our old baby happy and enjoying her new home.!
After one more slow cruise around and through Seward we headed back out to The Exit Glacier Road, where we had seen a sweet pull-off right by the river where we were hoping to spend the night.
It was a perfect spot. There was next to no traffic and the sound of the river was super pleasant to sleep to. Laura will really want me to explain this next picture… On either side of the entry door, the strip in between our window pins has curved up. She does not want me to ever fix them, and Laura has designated these as our smiley sushi rolls.
Can you see the smile and the two eyes near the top of the window?
The next day we were Anchorage bound to meet up with our friends Nick & Whitney! Another 127 miles for the shakedown total, bringing us up to 312 Miles.
It was a pretty windy and rainy drive until we hit Girdwood, then the weather cleared up.
That evening we met up with Nick and Whitney, and decided to go grab sushi at the OEC. With Covid the revolving sushi bar had been shut down, but you could still order. After much debate we decided to all go in on a mondo sushi platter!
That night we camped out at Nick & Whitney’s place. Let me tell you how amazing Nick is. When we heard about the water heater issue, he was on it. He worked with me to track down the problem, and eventually we tracked it down to the control panel.
He then dismantled the control panel and found that one of the wires had chaffed against the control board and slightly severed. This was probably due to me not leaving much slack in the cable when I installed it, and I theorized after our Skilak Lake Road rattlefest that it had caused the sever.
He drilled out the old connection, soldered a new one with clean wire, and then re-enforced the area with hot glue. We worked on it until after midnight, and with some smiles and laughs we turned on the hot water heater and gave it a go! Within 15 seconds she was flowing hot water! A million Thank You’s Nick! We were, and are, super appreciative.
The next morning I got Nick’s observations and opinions on what we could do to improve the rig in the future. So I gladly ended up with a chore-list of cool things to improve our rig in the future.
It was at this time I noticed something… a tiny, very slow drip from the black water tank. When I climbed beneath I found that there was a large dent in the tank, and someone before us had simply slapped a piece of Vycor tape over the hole and left it! I knew this would have to be on the top of my priority list as soon as we got home. I covered the old tape in Gorilla tape for the time being, still super unhappy about the discovery.
But I digress 😆, we bid our adeiu to Nick and Whitney, and made a plan to contact them when we came back through after our loop around Alaska.
Next we were headed up to Eagle River to meet up with another friend of ours, Tadd Galusha. A simple 21 miles to add to our total. (332 miles so far!)
We met up with Tadd and chatted it up for awhile. (and took no pics- great 🙄) But anyway, it was a really nice chat and it was fun to get to show him The Ohana. FYI- if you’re not familiar with Tadd Galusha, you should be! He is an awesome guy, and a phenomenal comic book artist. Check him out!
https://www.taddgalusha.com/
Once we were finished hanging out with Tadd, we were on a mission. Laura and I had wanted to test out how showering was going to work while we traveled. We wanted to start trying out rolling up near a dump station, taking brief showers, and then dumping the tank and refilling our water supply. So we found a local Tesoro, found a spot in the parking lot, closed the blinds and took a couple of sweet, sweet showers!
The system worked great! And you know what else works great? Switching your fantastic fan to in and letting it give you a dry off after a shower!
So we had our showers, now it was time to dump our tank!
Guess what? We had no dump hose! We didn’t remember doing it- but I think we when were going through the rig originally we trash canned the old one because it was pretty wrecked. I had ordered a new one, but Amazon was taking forever to deliver it, but I had assumed I had at least kept the old one until it arrived! So in a hurry we were on the road to Walmart…
Walmart was getting close to closing, so we purchased a dump hose. Before we left the parking lot, I tested if it would even fit in the bumper storage for it, it wouldn’t. We returned that hose and had to buy and even more expensive one- which did fit! So we drove back to Tesoro.
When we went do dump we found out the fitting on the end of the new dump hose wouldn’t fit into the sewer drain hole! They wanted you to buy the elbow adapter to make it work! Well, I decided forget that, and pulled out a hatchet and cut off the connection “nubs”. A minute later we were good to go. And with that, we finally accomplished our Tesoro mission!
Next we were out to settle in for the night- so we decided to drive down the road to Eklutna Lake. Another 26 Miles to go! 358 Miles on the shakedown.
It was a long sweeping drive with steep hills. So I used my low gears and creeped along for the ride. When we reached the end it was a “pay to play” camp area, so we headed back to a nice turn-off we had seen along the way.
We found a sweet spot on a pretty decent incline and parked up for the night. Laura made another wonderful dinner, we had the tunes playing and were just getting comfortable in our snug and warm space out of the rain.
Then it happened, water began streaming in from around the center skylight. In a panic we used a cup to catch the water, and I pressed up the metal ceiling paneling. I worked the water from out of the panel and we identified where the leak was coming from; our new skybench floor support board. 🤦🏽
Yep, we had gambled with putting screws in to suck the board down into place and it was just confirmed we lost the bet. I turned the vehicle around so it was facing down hill, and the leak immediately stopped. Laura and I sat up and discussed it, saddened our baby was being hurt by the weather again. We then decided we would go home the next day. It wasn’t worth traveling all the way around the state fearing the rain, plus the black water tank did need addressed. We resigned to, and swore, our trip would happen another time in the next few weeks.
After all, that is the point of a shakedown; to find what issues there might be. So the next day we were headed home, and we decided to coordinate meeting up with The Ohana’s previous owner in Girdwood. It would 437 miles on our trip when we got there.
On the way down we ended up stuck in traffic. There had been an accident around Girdwood and the traffic was backed up on both sides for as far we could see. If you look closely, down across the water in the next picture you can see traffic stopped; it’s the little white dots.
The bore tide was coming in, working it’s way in to fill Turnagain arm, and as we slowly moved forward in spurts we plaid a leap frog race with the tide’s progress.
After an hour and forty-five minutes of creeping along through the traffic jam we made it to Girdwood.
There we got to show the previous owner how his old rig had changed! And finally I get to announce who the mysterious previous owner has been; Tim Johnson! It was cool to see the look on his face when he got to see how we had given his old girl a new breath of fresh air, and a new take on life!
I scoped the steps he had built on his new project again, seeing if there was any pointers I could take for my upcoming new entry step dream.
We had a nice talk, and it awesome to get to see the two rigs chillin’ next to each other!
I believe Tim is getting pretty into doing YouTube videos; so if you want to see his new project and what he is up to; check it out! If the YouTube link takes you to Full Send Alaskan Overland- You’re in the right place! 😉
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyfg9nFSHL82SWVWN3YUe2w
So we continued on home through the wind, rain, and construction. On the way we decided we would park up at Fred Meyer in Soldotna for the night. Adding another 110 miles to our run. (547 Miles at arrival)
On the way down we had the cringing painful experience of watching this dance:
We watched this vehicle tailgate everyone in front of them, so close their car looked like it was being towed! 🤯
Please take my advice and if you do this in your habitual life- please stop; it is extremely unsafe! 😲
The person in front of you can’t see you! 😨
You can’t see anything in front of the person! 😧
If they had to slam on their brakes it would be a guarantee that you will not have the stopping distance to keep from hitting them! 😱
Being that close also causes you to stare only at the rear of their vehicle, and doesn’t allow your eyes to be moving enough to stay active. This causes your eyes to go into a “blank stare” and they start to ignore parts of your vision, and will not catch everything happening around you! 😵
You should be able to slow count 4 seconds from the time their rear bumper passes an object to the time your front bumper reaches it. Add an additional second for each danger factor involved. (For example: Snow, Rain, Ice, Etc) ⏲️
Don’t be this person- they put themselves and everyone on the road around them at risk! Be an everyday hero; drive patient and drive safe! 🦸
Alright- Rant Off… Thank You Everyone… 😰
That night I lit up a fire in Kalcifer and we enjoyed a relaxed evening.
We knew tomorrow we were headed home…
(Overall Straight Shot Shakedown Mileage: 621 Miles)
…And we had a lot to do!
Geoff Murphy 7/31/2020