Limping Into Alaska
March 2st, 2009
Laura’s made it to Alaska so no more roaming charges on the cell phone. She is free to call me and give updates and she has plenty of those already. After the initial breakdown in Conrad, Montana Laura hoped for smooth sailing. What she received were more opportunities to make”memories” and gather material for more stories. Laura always gives me the wildlife rundown for her trips. Along with countless moose, caribou, elk, buffalo, antelope, deer, a lynx, a few coyote, wolf, a fox and one lone bunny that barely escaped the tires of the dog truck Laura and Rick also spotted an elderly man stuck in a ditch as they drove through Canada. The license plates were Washington State and you can’t very well pass up a stranded car in the middle of nowhere in the midst of winter. There was already a truck stopped to help the man but Rick and Laura stopped to see if they could lend a hand. The other truck had already attempted to pull the car out and had damaged its back end in the attempt. Laura and Rick decided to give it a try. They unhooked the dog trailer, backed the truck to the edge of the ditch and managed to pull the man’s car from the ditch. Yeah!! Happy endings are great, only that was not the end. As they tried to hook the dog trailer back onto the truck they realized that the trailer hitch had been bent by the repeated “yanking” on the stuck vehicle. It was now not safe to drive with the trailer attached. They limped into the next town looking for help and not finding it with local mechanics. As a last resort they start perusing local restaurants parking lots with the hopes of offering someone $100 for their trailer hitch. As they were passing a gas station they spotted a truck belonging to a fellow musher from Whitehorse (a nearby town). Rick and Laura waited outside the bathroom door for Gary Wilmiester( the musher) to emerge. I told Laura it seemed a little like stalking but they were quite desperate at this point. As he emerged they explained what had happened and he gladly gave them a spare hitch and they were back on the road.
As Laura called yesterday to tell me about this blessing of the spare hitch she also informed me that they had lost all the rubber on one of the trailer tires but because they were driving on a solid sheet of ice the tire had not blown but had in fact stayed inflated. I guess there are benefits to driving on ice!
All in all they had an eventful but safe journey and are now driving around the Wasilla area trying to find all the spare pieces needed to put the truck back together. Let see if I can get the list straight: a back bumper (for the trailer), outriggers (used as tie outs for the dogs when they take stops), trailer hitch (bent during the daring ditch rescue), and one trailer tire (just in case they have to drive on something less smooth than ice).
Today she called to tell me she was on her way out to run dogs. They need to stretch their legs and release a little pent up energy from the drive. If you can imagine driving all the way to Alaska with 36 kids in the car you’ll start to understand what I mean. By the end of the trip everyone is complaining that everyone else is looking at them wrong and breathing from their air space. Dogs are the same, the start to get annoyed with each other and Alaskan Huskies are very vocal about it. Between howling, barking and “singing” it can get pretty noisy. Needless to say, Laura thought it was time to let them get out and do what they like best, run. They’ll be right as rain after that.
I’ll write more this week as I hear from her. There will be vet checks, EKGs for all the dogs, banquets and ceremonies. Check back soon and I’ll keep everyone posted. Until then remember, if you aren’t the lead dog the view never changes!