Great Alaskan Road Trip: Week 7 Roundup

Each Friday, I post some relevant (and not-so-relevant) stats about the trip, as well as a little write-up of what it’s like to live out of a van for weeks on end. Here’s where we are overall:

• Total miles driven: 5077
• Total days on the road: 46
• Total miles hiked: 77.3  (no new miles hiked this week – trails too muddy from all the rain)

We think this is a juvenile bald eagle, but aren’t 100% sure

Here are some interesting stats for this week:

• Fuel stops: 2 (diesel: $4.59 / gallon at the Junction of Hwy 16 and 37; $4.68 in Terrace, BC – gas costs more here than in Jasper, AB thanks to BC’s higher provincial gas taxes.  Bleh.)
• Technical issues: 3 (The plastic bathroom door handle broke off, the water pump “On” switch light burnt out, and there was a leak around the TV antenna that got under the headliner.  Plus, the rivets on the bathroom vent still leak – luckily there is a shower drain on the floor in there.)
• National Park Service sites visited: 0 (Lots of great Provincial Parks in BC, though)
• Birds of Prey sighted: 4 adult Bald Eagles and 2 juveniles (we think).
• Moose sighted: 2 (still no males with antlers, though.)
• Bears sighted: 6 (Black bears, but no Kermodei Spirit bears, sigh.)

So our trip is nearly one-third over.  We’ve enjoyed seeing this part of Canada – even with all the rain and mist clouding up the views of the mountains, it’s still been pretty scenic.  But we are hoping we see some sunshine in Alaska – I am tired of all our pictures having washed-out gray skies!

Speaking of rain, we’ve had a little bit of rain get into the van thanks to a couple of leaks.  There are two ceiling vents on the van – one in the bathroom and one above the kitchen – and Kevin sealed them both pretty well before we left on this trip.  However, the bathroom van is leaking from the rivets in the plastic.  It’s really a manufacturing defect – Kevin can seal the rivets with silicone if only we had a ladder (and a dry day for the silicone to cure).

As to the leaking around the TV antenna, we are thinking what happened was that one of us didn’t quite close the kitchen ceiling vent all the way and some water got under there when the van was parked on a downward slope.  Then the water trickled forward and leaked out around the TV antenna crank.  It only happened the one time, and we haven’t seen it leak since, so we’re hoping this issue has fixed itself (and we’re now more diligent about making sure the vents are completely closed).

The broken bathroom door handle is just an aesthetic nuisance at this point.  A big piece of the plastic broke off, but we are still able to get the door open and closed.  When the trip is over, Kevin will replace the door handle but for now it’ll have to do.

The water pump light used to glow red and let us know when the pump was on – there’s no “on/off” label near the switch.  We like to turn it off at night because it’s kind of loud and every once in a while the pump will start running and wake us up.  So now that the light is burnt out, we needed a way to figure out at a glance if the pump is on or not.  Sometimes the simplest solution works best.

As you can tell, I am running out of material to write about as far as life on the van goes (things break, the roof leaks, it’s cramped, etc).  I don’t want to repeat myself so for next Friday’s roundup I am asking you guys if there’s anything you want to know more about.  If you have a question or topic suggestion just email me or comment below.  Otherwise next Friday’s post will probably be more photos of broken things and/or puddles on the floor.