FORT NELSON

We got onto the Alaska Highway just west of Fort St John. Dawson Creek is the ‘real’ beginning of the highway, but we had taken the cut-off over to the dams. The road as far as Fort Nelson has been pretty darn good. A few patches of gravel where there had been chip & seal, but no big deal. Then, on one of those patches the front end seemed to want to shake itself apart. When we pulled over I was looking for loose lugs or a bad bearing. One of the spectators walked over and pointed out that there was a big chunk out of the left front tire. Sure enough, and the steel belt was starting to loosen. We put on the spare and went into Fort Nelson with the express intent of finding a replacement tire for a spare. We checked with both the tire companies and neither one had our size of tire, even in a used one. The guy at Kal-Tire phoned to places up our route and said nobody he talked to had one either. E and I talked it over, and we didn’t want to head up the road without any spare at all. One of the outfits said they had a rim in a 16” that would fit the lugs, and he could put on a used tire to go with it. We’ve done that. So if we have a flat on the rear, we’ll have to put one of the front tires onto the back, and put the odd tire on in front where it won’t do so much damage. Our hope is that in Fairbanks, AK we’ll be able to get the correct tire. We’re beginning to look a little like the Clampets’ with the second spare lashed to the roof. Going back a bit, it was our original spare that separated. One of the tires had a leaky valve stem and we had changed it for the spare down the road a ways. While in Fort Nelson we had the valve replaced and put it back on. We now when we were in Tucson. Nope, says the guys in charge. No good “here”! are back to the 6 original tires. The tire shop told us we could spend the night there but we chose to park on the access road near the Alaskan Highway. That way we could walk around town and went to dinner at a nice little pizza place.

Gary Sez: While we’re ranting about tires, here’s a tidbit I bet you didn’t know: Wal-Mart Canada doesn’t honor the tire warranties of its Southern relatives! We wanted our “lifetime” tire rebalance done on the front of the rig. We had paid extra for the privilege