Road Adventures – Page 2 – RV Travels in Europe and North America

November 17, 2019 Gron FR

Today was cleaning and packing day. On Sundays what little that is open is open between 9am to Noon, so we headed out early to Auchan. I asked to head to Leclerc because I wanted to try to get some LP gas so we could be toasty tonight. Unfortunately the LP gas pumps were closed for Sunday, so I will cross my fingers that it does not get too cold tonight and I will set the thermostat a little lower than I wanted. Bad planning on my part as I thought we would be fine for the rest of the trip.

At Leclerc we did find a very nice carwash that was better than the one we had used in the past. So I spent a half hour pressure washing François while Ton worked on cleaning the interior. The next stop was Auchan to buy some food for dinner, and to give Ton a last walk thru a grocery on this trip. When we got there Ton told me to get lost for an hour so she could pack and I would just be in the way.

As we were leaving Auchan we saw the major traffic circle on the main road had been taken over by the Yellow Vests. Today was the first anniversary of the Yellow Vest movement in France. It has been covered lightly in the US. It is a protest movement against some of the rationalization of the French economy that has been proposed by their President Macron. The folks come out every Saturday and sit in the middle of the traffic circles that are all around France. They occasionally enter the circles and slow down traffic. Unfortunately the protests today became violent in Paris, though the one we saw in Sens seemed very peaceful and was mostly people standing around a bonfire keeping warm. On the way back to the aire we came across another group occupying a different traffic circle who were motorcyclists, we were not sure what they were protesting but one of the signs seemed to say that there were too many photo radars. While we were waiting to get thru the circle one lady came barreling around the cars in line and tried to force here way thru the circle while shouting and getting shouted at by the motorcycles.

August 15, 2017 Eagle Plains YT

Today we set out for the Arctic Circle on the Dempster Highway. It is a spectacular drive even though the weather was not cooperating with us. It was raining with quite a bit of cloud cover so a lot of the views were covered in clouds. It was quite beautiful but not super photogenic so pictures were limited.

The first 200km’s of the drive were pretty easy, but at the Ogilvie Summit we ran into about 80km’s of muddy rough road that was a test. We made it through all of that and on a nice smooth pull into the Eagle Plains Campground we lost our rear tire and even more unluckily it was the sidewall so the tire was not repairable. We must of caught a rock going up the hill. At Eagle Plains there is a tire shop and we were able to find a used tire that is the right size to use to head back to civilization.

It looks like Inuvik will have to wait until next time. And though we had bad luck the first 350km’s of the Dempster are stunning and I will highly recommend them to anyone.

A picture of Scout about 11pm. It never did get totally dark. Note the mud along the bottom half of the truck.

August 16, 2017 Dawson City YT

Today was an adventure. We decided that the Arctic Circle was only 30km North of us so we started the day heading there. We also figured it would be a good test for the used tire we had mounted. We made it with no real problem and have now driven across the arctic circle.

On the way south after about 15 km’s there was a loud bang and the used tire had blown. Fortunately we were at a nice flat spot and on a long, dry, firm stretch of road. But for the first time Ron was going to have to change a tire on Scout. A sparsely traveled road 10 miles south of the arctic circle and 220 miles from the nearest paved road was not the ideal place to test our tire changing equipment. Ron was regretting not doing a dry run before with the tire changing equipment. Everything was going ok until it was time to position the bottle jack to lift the truck. Because the tire had failed completely the rear axle was too low to put the heavy duty bottle jack Ron had bought under the axle. But luckily two fellows who worked for the Yukon government came along and stopped to help. They had a jack that would fit under the axle, but was only rated for two tons, which was not enough to lift the truck. But it would lift the axle enough to get the heavy duty bottle jack under the axle, so success. The tire was changed with the help of a third guy who worked at the Eagle Plains gas station who wandered by with a water truck. I never did get the names of the two guys who had the jack that made the repair possible but I really appreciate them taking the 45 minutes it took for me to use their jack.

The next stop was Eagle Plains to assess the situation, as we were back to the same problem as the night before, 365 kilometers from the nearest pavement and no spare. We were forced to make the budget busting decision to buy a new spare tire that worked in a pinch, but we will be discarding when we get to civilization and can buy a matching tire for the one we lost.

After getting everything sorted in Eagle Plains we took off for Dawson City about noon and after a very cautious drive arrived about 730pm. A very long day.

A bush plane along the road. I am truly not sure where he landed. Possibly on the road.

August 8, 2017 Williams Lake BC

Another lazy start to the day. The original plan was to head towards a Provincial Park to spend the night and take in some sights, but as we were heading north out of Kelowna the smoke from the fires continued to get worst. Ton finally said that maybe we should just get to Alaska and come back and see British Columbia after the fires were out. It made a lot of sense as the intensity of the smoke is hard to describe.

We rerouted ourselves towards Dawson Creek on the most direct route which took as thru Kamloops. Kamloops had the most intense smoke we had seen so far on the trip, with visibility down to a mile or less in some places. As we pulled into Kamloops there was a sign showing that Route 97 was closed due to fire activity. As you can guess Route 97 is the direct route to Dawson Creek from Kamloops so we needed to reroute. We ended up on a 80 mile detour around the fire to rejoin route 97.

The impact of the fire is massive. Tonight we are staying on the grounds of the Williams Lake Stampede(Canadian for Rodeo). Sharing the grounds with us are about 10 fire engines from various towns in BC and Alberta. A helicopter with a water bucket just flew buy, and in the mall in town is a large Red Cross evacuation center staffed with about 20 people. Talking to a local this is the biggest heat wave BC has had since the late 50’s and the most fires in one season since 1961. Right now they have fire crews from all over Canada, the US, New Zealand, Australia, Mexico, and Chile. It really is something traveling thru the middle of a natural disaster.

So despite our best intentions of taking it slow we are back in the miles per day race until we get north of the fires.