Day 41, Aug 12

The clouds were low hanging again this morning. As we were getting ready to leave we could hear wolves howling in the mountains. Lawrie had to hot wire the bus again to get us going

There is only one road in and out of Valdez. It is interesting to see the difference in the landscape as we travel south to north. It wasn’t nearly as foggy as we approached Thompson Pass (it’s a steep 7 mile climb coming from the south). When we reached the summit we were into sunshine and blue skies! What a treat to drive the Richardson Highway when you can see the mountains.  

The highway mostly travels in a valley between the mountains. Sometimes we saw alpine slopes and sometimes craggy snow capped peaks. The views of Mount Drum and Mount Sanford were outstanding. They both have massive glaciers atop them. 

Around noon we arrived at the junction of the Richardson Hwy and the Glenn Hwy where we turned west on the Glenn. I took over driving as it looked like it was going to be a fairly level road. Lawrie settled back for a snooze. Well, the road became winding and very up and down. I eventually had to wake Lawrie up for instructions on shifting down for steep ascents. I know he does that on mountains but hadn’t delved into the details. After a bit, I found a place to pull over so we could switch drivers. 

Not a moment to soon as we got into some serious mountains, switchbacks and very narrow roads with no shoulders. 

We arrived in Palmer about 40 miles east of Anchorage mid-afternoon. This will be our base for a couple of nights. Guess who else is in the campground - the caravan. They are leaving tomorrow morning. 

We went to Napa Auto where Lawrie picked up some automotive wire and ring terminals. He rigged up a wire to the solenoid that he can touch to the battery to get the bus started without crawling underneath it. It doesn’t solve the problem but makes life easier. We have an appointment for an oil change on Monday at a Cummins dealer in Anchorage so will ask them to take a look at our problem.