Travel Update 3

We took off to Wrangell - St.Elias National Park from Anchorage on the Glenn Highway. This highway was absolutely stunning. The drive is a little bit tough at first because it can be a little narrow and winding, but the views and lakes are absolutely worth it. 

When you get towards the end near Glennallen, the Wrangell mountains come into view for a spectacular finish to the road as well.

 

After spending some time in Wrangell - St. Elias National Park (see our park post), it was time to start thinking about heading back down to the lower 48 but we were just 80 miles from Valdez and heard that the trip was well worth it. So we took the detour. The trip was truly spectacular. The mountains were so young and jagged that you could still see the sheering of rock from when the plates pushed that piece of rock up out of the ground. There are also a whole variety of different waterfalls. 

 

Just as we were about to get into Valdez, our second tire blew. This time it was the inner tire on the back, passenger side (the previous one was the outer tire of that pair). We took the outer tire off to see the damage and we at first thought that a metal bracket had come loose and punctured the tire. On further inspection, we decided the tire went first and the metal rods took the bracket out.

 

Lucky for us, this happened right across the street from a repair shop. We managed to cross the highway on the bad tire and spent the night in front of the shop. They got us a new spare and were  convinced that the beam that is now cut off did not actually support any of the structure of the vehicle or house. There is a structural cross beam right above where it came off. This was a secondary support that may help reduce the sway of the back panel but doesn’t hold any weight. I guess we’ll see…

With the fear of the possibility of losing our remaining 2 “older” tires (the front ones were newer than the back ones), we decided to head back to Fairbanks, to the place that actually had our tires, and buy more tires. Apparently our size of tire (14R 185C) is super rare, at least this far north. This drive took us up the Richardson Highway, which again had stunning views and several stops and informational signs about the Trans-Alaska pipeline which is used to pump crude oil from Prudhoe Bay all the way to Valdez.

We spent another couple nights at our favorite Walmart and were able to catch the Duck game against Montana at Lavelle’s Taphouse, before starting on our way back. We were once again successful at finding at least one duck. This time the man working at the food cart outside the tap house was wearing a duck hat and watching the game on his tablet. It turns out his son is a senior walk-on cornerback who plays mostly on special teams. It was fun to chat with him a little. 

Duck football at Lavelle's Taphouse

September 15th is officially the day that winter tires are allowed in Alaska so we decided that it was  about time to start heading south. That and we have a wedding to attend in two weeks down in Oregon and we want to see some things on the way south. So next up, we’ll be heading back into Canada.