Alaska Bound end of July

[powerscol]

August 9th arrived in Denali to SNOW. Pictures on camera but not downloaded yet. Got a great spot at Riley Creek campground and spent 2 full day hiking and driving the roads Great time, No hookups so had to run the generator to add heat to the trailer for the first two nights. They have very strict generators hours 8am to 10 am and 4 pm to 8 pm. Ran the trailer heater all three nights but batterys held up very well and I did not use as much propane as I thought. Fridge on gas as well as HWH. HWH board went bad (DSI fault) Replaced it with the Dinasore I had spare and everything worked. Before replacing the board I did check the thermal fuse in front or whatever it is called.

Aug 12 (SWMBO Birthday) left Denali about 9 am and headed to TOK Arrived hear about 5:30. Long stop in Fairbanks at Walmart. Picked up 8 boxes of Blue DEF and so minor grocery's keeping in mind crossing into Canada tomorrow. Just outside of Fairbanks is a little town of North Pole. Found a great dinner just before town. Tonight at the TOKRV park in town. Diesel fuel is averaging $5.25 Truck also got 13.1 MPH running 55 to 60

[Grandesigner]

Dan
There are lots of state and provisional (Canada) parks along the way and lots of places to boondock even on the Homer spit. I usually need hookups once a week but if the weather is hot I want the AC and if cold we have a small cube heater that does great

Thanks. I understand about weather forcing electrical hookups and the need to dump and refill fresh water about once a week...good to know.
Hope you are having a great time out there!

[DandS-303]

August 9th arrived in Denali to SNOW. Pictures on camera but not downloaded yet. Got a great spot at Riley Creek campground and spent 2 full day hiking and driving the roads Great time, No hookups so had to run the generator to add heat to the trailer for the first two nights. They have very strict generators hours 8am to 10 am and 4 pm to 8 pm. Ran the trailer heater all three nights but batterys held up very well and I did not use as much propane as I thought. Fridge on gas as well as HWH. HWH board went bad (DSI fault) Replaced it with the Dinasore I had spare and everything worked. Before replacing the board I did check the thermal fuse in front or whatever it is called.

Aug 12 (SWMBO Birthday) left Denali about 9 am and headed to TOK Arrived hear about 5:30. Long stop in Fairbanks at Walmart. Picked up 8 boxes of Blue DEF and so minor grocery's keeping in mind crossing into Canada tomorrow. Just outside of Fairbanks is a little town of North Pole. Found a great dinner just before town. Tonight at the TOKRV park in town. Diesel fuel is averaging $5.25 Truck also got 13.1 MPH running 55 to 60

Reading your thread brings back some great memories. We did the Ak trip with 5th wheel in 2010. Our halibut trip was also canceled but because of extremely low tides so we clammed instead.
Have a safe trip on your way home and enjoy.
Dennis

[Scott'n'Wendy]

Picked up 8 boxes of Blue DEF ...........................Truck also got 13.1 MPH running 55 to 60

Not gonna get 13mpg if you fill the truck box with DEF....lol

[powerscol]

Aug 13 TOK Alaska - on home bond leg. Stayed this time at TOK Rv park in middle of town. Had a great dinner at Fast Eddies

Aug 15 good day driving half way down hwy 37 south of Watson Lake - slow, narrow, but no big rough spots and no traffic. Fantastic scenery. Spent night as the only unit at Shadow Mtn RV park - only spot for miles. Second picture was what we woke up to.



Aug 16 Finished driven 37 - get better the further south you drive - only the north 250 kilometers was tight. Went out to Prince Rupert BC to see if there was any crab and fishing. Stayed at Prince Rupert RV park. Ill give this place 1 star and it not worth it. Dirty and rude. They gave me a full hook up site I could not get into and when I had to settle for a non hook up site there was no refund. Town was dirty and trashy too. It was so disgusting I just left the next day to head home. I think the only reason the park is there is for the ferry traffic.

Aug 16 - as temps were in the 60's I wanted AC power for heat. We stopped in Vanderhoof BC at the county run Riverside RV park This is a really nice place, secluded sites, with great hot individual showers and clean restrooms. Folks were really nice there as well as other campers.



Aug 17th Laundry day. Stopped early at Lakeside RV park near Clinton BC. Small, two washers and dryers but did OK per the boss unit. This is on 97 and in this area not much to choose from.

Aug 18th crossed over into the US. Had a minor issue with customs as we declared we had eggs with our other grocery's and firewood I bought in Alaska and forgot to tell Canada about when we crossed there (they did not ask) and ran into the US / Canada egg war. Canada banned US eggs due to poultry virus issues, so US did the same. They also took an old jalapeno and a bell pepper too. They did do a full search. They did let us keep the firewood. Also as our garlic was individual labeled (thanks walmart) we got to keep it. Agent said it was the first time he had seen that. What was nice is he properly re locked everything. We had to sit inside as he did his thing - took maybe 15 to 20 minutes. We crossed on hwy 11 that is well marked at Abbotsford. Took a while (45 minutes) as lots of Canadians were trying to cross to get cheap gas on the US side.

I then decided to head out to the coast on 546. We stayed at Birch Bay 1000 trails RV park. I have heard great things about the 1000 trails parks, but I was not really impressed. I wanted score crab (one week to early as season start next week) We did score some local mussels and oysters at a local Haggen super market (wow what a place) . The result

[powerscol]

To finish with the Birch Bay feast


Aug 19th
Time to head east and home Took I5 south to the 405 in Seattle. Be very careful - this is a zoo. Then got 90 SE to I82 to I84. While on 84 we hit a 2 hour road closure as they had a motor home burn to the ground, so once going we found a gem of a place to stop so I could have AC, (Air temp was in the 90's) Its the A-Frame RV park in Baker City ($30). I think this was originally a KOA a long time ago. It quaint, clean, and quiet. The gem part is the men's bath as it is crammed into 1/2 of the a-frame, The men's commode has the bottom half of the door cut out so your knees stick out. I guess that's ok as long as they cant see your face. The twin showers share a common dressing arena. However they are big with fantastic water pressure and are hot. Price included the showers.This arrangement was not a problem as I had the place to my self when I went

Aug 20th
Disaster hit 50 miles north of the I15 junction. Got a DEF pump failure warning the truck would be limited to 50 MPH in X miles. I got to a rest area and a second warning of DEF pump failure and I would be limited to 50 MHP in 37 miles. DEF tank is 7/8 full and the DEF warning light was on before I stopped. I called my home dealer and they confirmed the fault remotely, said OK to drive, but get to a Ford dealer ASAP. Nearest one was in Tremonton UT at the I15 junction - 50 miles away. I called just before they closed and got me an appointment Monday at 8 AM. The service person also recommended an RV park in town.I was not looking forward to running 50 MPH on a posted 80 MPH freeway.

When I left the rest area the DEF warning light was out, but check engine light was on. We made it to town with no speed limiting, but I only ran 60 to 65 behind a string of semis. We are sitting at the Aspen Grove RV park - an immaculate place, but it should be at $65 a night. But we are safe, have hookups and they are keeping the spot open for several days until I know the problem and how long the repair might be.


For information I have only been using DEF I have tested, and the last 4 jugs have been Blue Def brand.

More of the adventure to come.

[Ed5901]

If you are using T mobile for your cell service, beware that their service is roaming and if over 50% of your monthly usage is roaming they may cancel service

[Canyonlight]

Keith - really appreciate all your posts with pictures on your AK trip ! Very informative, interesting, and helpful information for those of us planning this trip. Looks like things have gone relatively well and hope you are enjoying the trip.

Dan

[Grandesigner]

Good thing you weren't too far from the Ford dealer...good luck on the repair.

[powerscol]

If you are using T mobile for your cell service, beware that their service is roaming and if over 50% of your monthly usage is roaming they may cancel service

Ed T-mobile voice does not work in Canada nor AT&T. Not sure about Verizon. They have totally different networks. We have consumer cellular and they set one phone up with the T-moblie roaming. We could text but no voice and text were 0.10 and voice $1 a minute if it worked. It didn't.

I highly recommend getting a Canadian prepaid sim card for you phone. Walmart outside Edmonton set us up with a $50 unlimited talk and texting Canada and to the US. It als has a generous amount of data, so that was good for googling camp grounds.It worked flawlessly just about everywhere. Name of phone plan was Lucky. When we got to Alaska we just changed sim cards and vise versa returning to Canada and to the US

Also have a chat with your credit card folks. Discover is rarely accepted in Canada. Visa, Master card and a Canadian card are. Be sure you have a way to verify yourself. After our Bank of America Visa fiasco where they only will send a code to you phone of record, and with our US phone not working we almost had to operate on cash only, meaning stop at banks along the way. They did not have the Canada phone on record, so could not use it.

Hope this helps

Hope this helps.