The Road to Alaska ( and back ) - In Progress

[vanish1982]

This all started on our drive home ( Colorado) from Thanksgiving in Arizona. We realized it had been almost 7 years since we visited our uncle in Homer, AK. He's getting into his 70s and we don't know how much longer he will live there. We've flown twice in the past. This time, we wanted to take the whole family (DD - 16 months, Dog - 2 y/o). We camp a lot and before DD mostly we just slept in the back of our pickup. It was getting more difficult with her, so they would sleep in the truck and I would be in a tent. We knew we wouldn't want to do that all the way to Alaska, so we decided to look into trailer options.

I really liked the projected ease of towing a popup as well as low entry cost, and in February I purchased a 1996 Coleman Sun Valley. TV is a 2020 F-150. Its not new, so it has its character but I couldn't find any of the red flags to look for. It is probably bigger than we need, but I really liked that it did NOT have a bathroom ( wasted space for us ) and does have the lounge area.



Once home, every time there was a streak of good weather I would try to set it up to start getting an idea of how to organize inside, as well as do some sort of maintenance on it. I knew I wanted to pack the bearings but I was pretty intimidated about doing that.

Closer inspection revealed a few things I had missed during the purchase, mostly things that had been repaired, but still no functional problems. Oh, but it doesn't have brakes, which I totally did not have on my "check these things" 24 point checklist.





We got it into our garage ( barely ) as we wanted it out of the weather, and there it stayed for a month, so that might not have been a good choice.

I really had to restrain myself from not taking on optional projects. We want to try out this popup thing before we commit to keeping it, so things like USB outlets or solar power I just had to stop thinking about.

 

[vanish1982]

We decided to go on a test trip in early april, heading East towards a quiet spot we know. Stay close to home first time? Debated it, but instead went 200 miles one way, cause that's how we do things.

The only real thing done to this point was create a curtain for DD's bed, as there weren't any that came with it. I ordered some clips that were supposed to fit, but were too big, but we made them work anyway. I epoxied on binder clips to hold the fabric instead of sowing them on, so the curtain is easy to remove.







We learned that DD is fearless about climbing about and in/out. We learned we don't really need much if any power, as we didn't even have the lights on more than a few minutes. We also decided we wanted to use more "real" bedding as opposed to sleeping bags even if it takes slightly longer to set up. Lastly, we opted to purchase some new dishware dedicated to the camper.

 

[vanish1982]

( added some more pics to the previous posts )

We had plans for the last week of April and made our second trip with Zaa ... oh, yeah, that's apparently the name of our camper. Our truck has you name each trailer and that's what I put it in my haste to bring it home that first day. This was another 400 mile RT boondock.






We learned something very important on this trip. Older popups need their bungees replaced. One of the more gut wrenching things to happen in my life, when at 130am I heard swish thunk waaahhhh. DD managed to roll and slide out the end of the bunk between two of the shock cord hooks. She was obviously upset but we couldn't find any indications of an injury. Luckily, as you can see, we were camped just on grassy dirt and it just so happened the wheels were in a low spot, so the fall wasn't nearly as dangerous as it could have been.

After doing more research when we got home I learned this is not super uncommon. I felt terrible as I could have probably prevented it by replacing the shock cord. We decided we wanted double protection from this happening, so in addition to me replacing the shock cord and adding more hooks a few days after we got home ( easy and cheap! highly recommend! ), we got a simple four foot play pen that fits in the bunk so she cannot possibly get to an edge. It also benefits in preventing her from coming through the curtain.

 

[jmkay1]

Way to go. Looks like you are well on your way of making your trip happen. You got some awesome memories there. Your DD falling through the bunk was one of my fears when my little side kick was that age and VERY squirmy. Of course I was also worried she would fall off the bed in front as she was literally a freight train at night. I personally chose to keep her on our table in bed mode and pillows on the floor beside that until she learned how to stay reasonably on a bed. Every kid is different. Cherish those memories and continue to make more. I really hope the trip to Alaska can soon become a reality.

 

[vanish1982]

With our leave date approaching only 3 weeks out, the need to finish up the maintenance items really set in. We had a streak of good weather and I had enough ambition to break out the headlamp to be able to work after dark.



First up was cleaning and lubricating the whiffletree. That went pretty smoothly and there really was no reason to be intimidated.

Next I lubricated all the pulleys as well as adjusted for cable stretch, as I felt the roof needed to be able to go a little higher. The door was quite difficult to lock in.

This also went smoothly until I cranked up one too many times. I have another thread in the roofs section where you can read about it.

Lastly, it was time to get dirty and pack the bearings. That wil follow in my next post.

 

[generok]

Keep at it! I'll keep the light on for ya' as you pass through Anchorage!

 

[vanish1982]

Normally I am the type of person that pays for an oil change, so having someone else pack my bearing would not be unusual. However, everything I've read indicates it's a really good idea to be able to do this especially on a long trip. The pup manual indicates this should be done every 2000 miles, which we will do multiple times over.

I purchased a bearing packer and already have a grease gun as well as things like wrenches. When I pulled off the first dust cap, I didn't like what I saw.



I suspected I would want to replace the bearings and after pulling the outer bearings decided it was a good idea due to discoloration of the race.

Back to the internet to find the parts and found a kit from a boat dealer containing everything I would need for both sides, should it come to that.

Upon pulling the driver side, I found it had been replaced and everything look good, so just needed to repack it.

Once the kit arrived, I went to install the new races in the hub and found I had destroyed the punch I used to remove the old ones, so it was back to the internet for a bearing driver as while an experienced person might use a punch, I felt I should own the tool designed for it.

We are now like 4 days from departure but once the tool arrived it was easy to reassemble.

 

[vanish1982]

While I was waiting on parts, I tackled lubricating the furnace. Read more about that here.

Because I was on a roll, I also replaced the butyl tape seal around the exterior duct for the furnace. It was dry and deformed. I used white instead of black and it looks so much better.

Next on the list was the nonfunctional reverse lights.



After checking the bulbs were good, I traced the wire and oh look, it just ends. I decided to table dealing with that as there is no obvious place it should be spliced in.

As I was touching electrical things, I saw the battery was 6 years old so I didn't even think about it and bought a new one.

 

[Wakita46]

Thanks for the details. I'm sure that will be useful to people. I never did get to Alaska with my Aliner but I did get 40,000 miles out of it and saw a lot of national parks and stuff.
I noticed when I did my trips that I would stop in between things like National Parks and find out there was something interesting that I would have stopped at if I knew about it. I did some research and posted some natural wonders on my website to visit in each state. hoffsalinertravels.net It might be useful to some people.
Good luck on your preparation and hope to see some pictures of your trip.

 

[vanish1982]

With all the maintenance I planned to do complete, it was time to start packing. Our anticipated leave date would be the afternoon of May 20.

We would split the trip into to legs. For the first leg, we would spend 2.5 days driving to Edmonton, AB. I would then work from a coworkers house as we "camped" in their driveway for the week. The second leg would then be taking the Alcan and down to Homer over the course of 9 days.

Two days before we leave, we find an article about evac orders along the Alcan due to the fires. Neither of us wants to be in a popup in that smoke, nor be unable to get to Alaska.

PIVOT!

 

[vanish1982]

We planned a new route up the Cassiar highway with the idea I would work in Spokane for the week, commuting from a boondocks spot I picked out in short order.

Thursday we got the truck mostly loaded, at least verified how things would fit.



The playpen ended up being a tighter fit than measurements illustrated, but we got it all in there.

All we would need to do after work Friday was fill the coolers and connect the pup!

 

[vanish1982]

Friday arrived and some last minute prep occurred by the girls while I was at work. Getting out a little early, I grabbed the food bags and said "Let's Gooooo", but as luck would have it DD had a 102 fever. After a few moments of cursing, I came to the realization all would be OK, just needed to wait.

 

[vanish1982]

Leg One

Saturday morning and DD was back to normal. It's happening! The plan was to make it as far north as time allowed, with a drive stop time of 530pm to give time to set up and eat dinner before DDs 730pm bedtime. She's not a happy camper ( hah, see what I did there?) if she is off schedule.

The drive itself had a couple hiccups including barfs from both dd and the dog, but overall went pretty well. We didn't quite make it as far as we wanted, but we were going to hit a large reservation anyway where there would not have been a place to camp, so using a combination of OnX and iOverlander picked a camp spot. The smoke from the Canada fires was all they to our house in Colorado, but we were in a bit of hole for it here, just south of the Montana border.