Alaska or BUST v 3.0 (3.1, 3.11, 3.12, 3.13, 3.14, 3.2)

It takes a hardy soul to live in Alaska. Or maybe, Alaskans know they should not go on 150 mile gravel roads in a minivan pulling a tent/trailer. WHATEVER. After Denali, we decided to go on the "Denali Highway", a 150 mile gravel road connecting the 2 sides of the state. After all, we could see more of Alaska that way. About 10 miles into it, we lost the tire on the van. Tre' had to help change that one, and he did a great job. We drove and drove and drove (at about 15-20 miles per hour). It truly was beautiful--you can see the pictures of the first true glaciers we could see in the distance--the things are huge! We stopped to camp for the night; I was convinced that a bear was going to eat us, so I made the girls, Josh, and I sleep in the van--and I didn't sleep. I kept peering around for bears. DJ popped up the trailer, and he and Tre' got a good nights sleep.

In the morning, the trailer tire was flat. OK--we could change a tire. DJ did that and we headed off. About 2 miles later, we heard a "KER-PLUNK. DRAGGG" We stopped immediately, and the tire had fallen off the trailer. We also lost the lug nuts and the cap for the axle on the trailer. Aargh--we tried to jimmy-rig it, but it just wasn't flying. Upon closer inspection, as the wheel fell off, it stripped the stems on the axle. A trucker stopped (yes, we do appreciate truckers), and suggested that we drop the trailer, and drive to find the parts that we needed. He also lent us a large steel mallet to drive out the posts, etc., and said we could leave it at a fishing lodge about 20 miles up the road. After that we looked at each other, dropped the trailer, and headed off to find our parts. 160 miles later (one way), we found the parts we thought we'd need--plus extra lug nuts! 160 miles back, and we looked at it. We had a variety of parts, and nothing worked just right. We looked at each other, said another prayer, and someone else stopped by 2 minutes later. He made a suggestion of combining the various parts to build a new ball/bearing part of the axle (gulp!), headed out, and we did it. We drove and drove and drove, and 10 feet from the end of the gravel road, we blew another tire (however, we knew that this spare had some sun damage, so it wasn't unexpected.) After we changed that one, we were done with the flats--hallelujah!

We got some fun wildlife pictures--I loved the ptarmigan family we saw--an adult poked his head up out of the grass on the side of the road, and then we saw the chicks. We've also included a picture of the porcupine that DJ chased trying to get a picture.