Fair Time

Now that we are back from the trip, there is just the normal running around town. On Tuesday afternoon, we stopped at Pioneer Park aka Alaskaland, as Bridget wanted to look for something at the museum. I just enjoyed looking around since I really don't stop there very often. This is the sternwheeler Nenana that has been under renovation for longer than I lived in Alaska.

Wednesday was "Senior Day" at the fair. I'm not going to pass up free admission. As you can see in the picture, attendance seems to be really down. At least from what it used to be. One of the vendors mentioned that next year they were going to raise the rate for a booth and reduce the number of days. Not what you want to do where there are already a lot of empty booth spaces. Back when a family pass was reasonable, we used to go to the fair almost daily. Not so anymore.

The normal "senior rate" is only $5 so I went to the fair again today. Partly to exchange an iPhone charge cable that I had purchased last year at the fair. The claim was that it was extremely sturdy and should last a lifetime. It lasted a month. I brought it back and the vendor happily exchanged it for a new one.

On Monday, the Ural wouldn't accelerate in 3rd gear. It felt like it was running out of fuel or something. After a search on SovietSteeds, a Ural forum, I found a description of exactly what I was seeing. There was no followup post with a solution so I sent a message to the original poster. He told me that he tore into the transmission and replaced a slightly worn 3rd gear. That fixed the problem. So I guess that I will be digging into the transmission shortly. Today, I had some errands to run and just drove the Ural in 1st, 2nd and 4th gear. It has a full tank of gas so I need to use some of it up. Skipping 3rd means that it runs up to 5k rpm in 2nd before shifting into 4th. This works fine on flat ground.