After meeting of coffee with the regulars on Wednesday, I headed towards Denali National Park with the truck. I opted to not take the Ural since rain was in the forecast and the Roadcrafter still hasn't come back from Aerostitch. I visited with fellow blue/white Ural owner, BruceW, in Nenana. His rig is still in Delta with Mickey getting the engine worked on after his engine hydrolocked last Spring. Mickey mentioned that it was so locked up that it was almost impossible to get it out of gear. That sounded pretty serious. After a short visit, I continued on towards "Glitter Gulch", which is what the very touristy section of the Parks Hwy north of the park entrance is called.
I met up with Lynn, the author of motoblog
Curvyroads.Info, and Jerry at the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge. They are on the land portion of a cruise and the park was as far north as the tour went. After talking at the hotel coffee place, we went to the
49th State Brewing Company which is about 10 miles north in Healy, AK. I had not been there before but my son, Tim, really recommended it. The food and company were wonderful. On the way back to the hotel, we saw three moose in a pond. Unfortunately, I didn't think about stopping for a picture.
There was a pretty strong wind in the canyon blowing north giving me a nice tailwind but it died down by the time I was halfway to Nenana. The remainder of the drive to Fairbanks had beautiful light shining on the trees. There was hardly any traffic and I arrived home shortly after sunset. It was a nice way to spend the day.
Thursday was clear and mostly sunny but it was in the 30s (°F) in the morning. I thought that it may be a good idea to winterize the water system in the RV. I brought about 1½ gallons of RV antifreeze for the pump and the traps and used the small motorcycle air compressor to blow out the hot and cold water lines. I already drained the water heater and switched the bypass. After blowing out the lines, I opened the low point drains. I pumped anitfreeze through the pump but not into any of the water lines. The manager of the RV repair facility said that they were targeting it to be done next week even though they haven't started any work at all.
Good deal meeting with fellow motoblogger Lynn and her hubby!
ReplyDeleteI expect I'll be starting the winterizing ops on the URRV soon after my next glamping trip....I hope to take it out at least once every month during the fall/winter....so I do a winterization each time before it goes back into storage.
How did Bruce hydrolock his rig's engine?
I believe he drove into a pothole during breakup. The pothole was a bit deep and the engine ingested water while running. Mickey thought that the crank may be bent enough to hit the inside of the crankcase.
DeleteAlways happy to hear of the blogger meet ups. A great way to spend the day. And no traffic coming home, that was a bonus.
ReplyDeleteI have yet to meet another moto blogger that wasn't interesting. Traffic is very light now that most of the tourists have left.
DeleteIt's too cool that you were able to spend some time with moto-folks Lynne and Jerry, a couple of mighty nice people there... :-)
ReplyDeleteYes it was. I believe that I knew there was an Alaska tour on their schedule but didn't think about a land portion.
DeleteI was really curious about that ingestion of water as well. Sorry to hear that it was that serious.
ReplyDeleteOMG Richard, I am SO far behind on my reading that I am just seeing this post a month and a half later!🤤 I tell you, I am really bad at staying connected now that I am retired and supposedly have all the time in the world!
ReplyDeleteWe so enjoyed meeting you and all the great conversation over coffee and dinner. Thanks again so much for driving down...it is such a pleasure to meet virtual friends in person, and have the conversation flow as if we've known each other for years! I do wish we had stopped for pics of mama moose and the kids. That was the closest we got the whole trip.
Well, I finally have posted the first of (what I hope will be) a series on our Alaska trip. I am embarrassed to say I have abandoned the Southwest trip series, for now at least, but I do hope to capture our Alaska experience with a photo heavy format over the next couple of months while we are home.
Cheers to you and Bridget, and sorry again it took me so long to see this and reply! 🌞