A very long day began at the Cookie Jar for breakfast. Then the big drive out the Steese Highway to the Elliott Highway and then the Dalton Highway, made famous by the Ice Truckers. It was a trip of about 250 miles to Coldfoot, 60 miles beyond the Arctic Circle. You wouldn't think 500 round trip miles would take more than 13 hours.
Steese Highway was a good ride, On Elliott Highway, things began to change and the ride was a bit rough. The broken pavement, loose gravel and heaves began there and compounded on the Dalton Highway with the addition of the potholes and oncoming vehicles throwing rocks and clouds of dust. It might have been a thrill ride at an amusement park. If we managed to avoid one obstacle, there was no time to miss the next one. There were times I felt like I was riding with the Duke boys in the General Lee and times it seemed like a roller coaster and others when you hit a bump with a thud. There were moments when you thought things were improving, then the monster returned.
After one thud there's a sound we hadn't heard, not the normal sound of the tires throwing gravel, but it was a steady sound, maybe something was caught and rubbing underneath or maybe it was a hissing sound. We stopped to discover the mystery sound was air escaping from a tire. We had a flat!
This is a first for us. Never before have we had a flat tire on the road. Now what? No cell phone service on that road. Fairbanks was nearly 150 miles behind us and Coldfoot almost 100 miles ahead. Yes, we have a spare tire, but do we have a jack? The owner's manual had the instructions for finding the hidden jack. While I was reading the instructions someone (another angel) stops to see if we need help. He leaves his bigger, faster jack for us and asked us to bring it to him at the Arctic Circle photo stop.With both men working, Ray on loosening the lug nuts and Bill taking command of the jack, the tire change didn't take very long. We laughed about the insurance commercial where the kids don't know what a lug wrench is. I must admit we had a new fancy model that folds, I had not seen the likes of that.
The spare had never been out of the Suburban, it's 7 years old, is it inflated? Yes, it was a little low, not flat, just low. Ray wanted to just put the tools in the back of the Suburban, while Bill wanted to put it all away, just as it was. I'm not sure which way it happened, but we were back on that mangled road. First stop was the Arctic Circle to return the jack and thank that fellow, who came to Alaska from West Virginia and fell in love with her. No time for pictures now, Ray wanted to get to Coldfoot to see if they could repair the tire and fully inflate the spare.
That 50 miles was like watching and waiting for water to boil. Finally we arrived, fueled up the Suburban, got the tire repaired and put on the truck again, inflated the spare and had burgers while we waited. Now for the dreaded long drive back to Fairbanks. More thrills, zigging and zagging, rocking and rolling down the Dalton Highway again. We stopped at a couple of spots for photos, but were quickly back on the road each time.
Everyone was exhausted, happy to be back and went straight to bed. It was the end of a very long day.
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