Mosquitoes, Fatigue, Frustration, and the Miracle on the Alaskan Highway
It is Tuesday morning and the WiFi in this hotel is finally working. I was too tired yesterday to care but I wanted to provide an update before we hit the Dempster Highway this morning.

The mosquitoes continue to be a problem each time we stop. We are told it will get even worse today. But never fear, Doug has a solution. The only thing is he didn't know what to do with his hat:


The leaking gas tank was a big concern for us. It was a "show stopper" if it could not be fixed. We arrived at the Honda dealer in Whitehorse to have our new tires installed and the mechanics there could not offer any solution but did offer us their tools. By the way, for those non-motorcycle folks reading this, we needed to install special tires because the road to the Arctic Circle is mostly dirt, gravel, slime (when it rains or they wet it down) and generally bad conditions. The knobby tires will provide us more traction.

Doug and I removed the tank from the bike and saw a bunch of problems with the studs that hold the plate onto the inside of the tank. Some were stripped. After three times taking the tank off, working on the problem, and putting the tank on only to see the leak return we where very frustrated. No kidding, I was weak and my spirit was broken.

Doug never stopped trying. We even called Ted from A&S on the sat phone. Ted connected us with a mechanic from A&S. When a solution failed Doug insulted my gas tank with very spicy language that even had the mechanics keeping their distance. We determined that some previous mechanic had tightened the plate so tight it put dimples in the brass plate. Those dimples prevented the plate from lying flat on the tank and caused the leak. Here is a picture of the plate.



Doug went silent and I stood there looking like I had just lost my wallet or something equally frustrating. After about a minute of silence Doug grunted something and went into the garage. He returned with a socket, a nut, and a pair of channel lock pliers. He told me we were going to flatten those dimples. To our surprise we were able to flatten them. We tightened the screws put the tank on the bike and filled the tank with fuel. Immediately it leaked! I stood back as Doug ranted for a moment. We removed the tank and in desperation Doug tightened the nuts a little more. To our joy the leak stopped and as of this writing is still stopped thus the miracle on the Alaska Highway. I can not speak too highly of Doug. Throughout the 4 hours he kept his sense of humor and kept coming up with solution after solution, simply amazing. Here is a photo of a miracle about to take place.


We left Whitehorse after 1:30pm for the 340mile ride to Dawson City. We arrived at about 7:30pm. I was exhausted. Clearly the chemo fatigue was affecting me.

I will meet Doug in a little while and we will be off to the Dempster Highway. This is the last leg before the Arctic Circle. The road will be tough to negotiate and I am a little worried. However the weather looks like it will be good with only a slight chance of rain. We are a day ahead of schedule since we were planning on resting here today. I want to press on while the weather is good.

Thanks for reading.

Dell
- posted by Dell @ 7:13 AM