On The Road #6 - 2013: May 2013

There is a Solution for every problem ....leben's wheelchair on the road

For all my road trips, to ensure my own safety and the safety of my dogs, and to help make the trips more enjoyable, I always prepare a list of rules i must follow on the road. I get this list laminated and refer to it every to make sure i am following the rules. Always near the top of my list is rule that there is a Solution for every problem, as well as its corollary, Don't give up till the problem is solved, if it is worth solving, that is. This problem solving takes place long before the trips start, when it involves measures to take before we leave to avoid problems on the trip.

Ever since I got Leben's wheelchairs in November, I have transported them in the rear of he vehicle with one or the other of my dogs. Needless to say, this takes up space, valuable space, and causes problems in the process. In thinking about the problem yesterday as I stood at the rear of my defender, the solution to this problem jumped right at me. A picture of the solution is shown above (or below). Leben's wheelchair fits nicely on the ladder on the rear of my defender, secured by at least six bungee cords. This was a big problem, but now it is solved.

Saturday, May 25....

I’m off in a few minutes to check out some new tents, as if I needed a 7^th tent. I actually take 2 tents with me on these road trips. Our main tent is a four person tent that provides some room for the three of us, allowing me to set up that new air mattress I got last year, which the dogs seem to enjoy at my expense. I also take an emergency tent that I can set up quickly in foul weather or backpack into a campsite remotely located from where we park the Defender. On all five of my prior road trips, the tent I used for this purposes was a Northface 2-person 4-season expedition tent. It was a bit cozy inside the few times I used it with Leben and Erde in the past, and I imagine it would be even more so with Leben’s situation, so I decided to get a 3-person tent. The two candidates are the NorthFace VE25 or the Eureka K2 XT.

May 23: On the Road maps (1-6)

Below is a crude map showing my six "on the road" trips with my dogs.

1- (Green) 2000, with Sonntag, 12,500 miles, 42 days: Dc to Prudhoe Bay Alaska and back.

2- (Khaki) 2001, with Leben and Erde, 14,500 miles, 50 days, from DC to Inuvik, Canada, then on to Prudhoe Bay, then down to San Francoscom and back.

3- (Red) 2002, with Leben and Erde, 10,000 miles, 60 days, from DC to Nova Scotia to Newfoundland to Labrador to Prince Edwards Island and back.

4- (Pink) 2011, with Leben and Erde, 8,000 miles, 38 days, from DC to New Brunswick, to Labrador, to Quebec, then on to Thunder Bay, Ontario, and home.

5- (Blue) 2012, with Leben and Erde, 4,000 miles, 27 days, from DC to Ontario, around Lake Superior and then home.

6- Planned (Yellow), with Leben and Erde, maybe 14,000+ miles, maybe 75 days, from DC to Prudoe Bay again, and then back home.

If #6 goes off as planned, these trips will have covered 63,000 miles over 292 years, camping every night.

If you are wondering why there are no lines to the north-east of the lines shown, it is because there are no or few roads in that area.

May 21:, Day -56

Plans and preparations are progressing with 56 days to go before our scheduled departure. Here are some highlights.

We're still undecided about the route we will take to Alaska. The options are:

1- Start the 2011 trip all over again and head from DC up to Maine, then through New Brunswick to Nova Scotia, hop a ferry to Newfoundland and then another to Labrador (Port Sablon, Quebec, actually), drive the 1300-mile dirt and gravel Trans-Labrador Highway counter-clockwise to Northwest River, Labrador, which is the end of the road in the northeast, head to Alaska and then to the end of the 500-mile dirt and gravel haul road in the northwest at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, 8060 miles in total, and then figure out how to get back to DC. This was the original trip (16,600 miles) planned in 2011, but we had to cut that trip short at Thunder Bay, Ontario because of Leben’s terrible skin allergy and the Defender’s (false) overheating problem.

2- Head from DC up through Maine to New Brunswick, hop a ferry to Tadoussac, Quebec, head to Prudhoe Bay Alaska via Chibogamu Quebec, 6087 miles in total, and then figure out how to get back to DC.

3. Basically pick up where we left off on last year’s trip at Thunder Bay, Ontario by heading directly to Thunder Bay via the east coast of Lake Superior, head northwest via Banff in the Canadian Rockies and then to Alaska via one of the few routes there, 5022 miles in total, and then figure out how to get home from there.

The only deadline I have for the trip is to be at Denali park by September 13^th in case we win the lottery to drive the 80 miles back to Wonder Lake, assuming there isn’t three feet of snow. If I win the lottery, my guess is that we will take option 3, but we will not know that until days before we leave in July.

May 14: Getting ready

Last week, I started my planning for my trip this summer with my dogs, Leben and Erde. They are now 12, and I am very mindful that they may not be around much longer. I have such wonderful memories of my previous four trips with them to Alaska, Labrador (2 times), on all through Ontario (three times) that I would be a fool not to try to solidify those memories deeper by one last trip. This trip will not be easy because of Leben's situation (he is paralyzed), but that just makes the challenger greater. Fortunately, there's little more I need to do to make the trip less difficult because I just about improved everything that could be improved on from the previous trips and I am planning and preparing this trip well in advance.

The biggest challenge of the trip this year will be space in the Defender, now that I have to make room for Leben's wheelchair and stroller and make him (and his sister) comfortable and clean. I have already installed a new AC in the Defender because I do not want to run the risk its failing. I already removed the Defender's front passenger seat to give the dogs more room up front. I just ordered a new 4.7 gallon Big Kahuna portable shower to give Leben the twice-weekly showers he needs for his skin allergy. I am now painstakingly scanning in the 1100 pages of my Defender's Workshop and Parts Manuals so I can leave the manuals at home to save space and view them on my iPad. Tomorrow I will start working on my formidable to-do list and to-take lists, using 2012's as the starting point. I will probably only be posting to this blog each week until the trip starts, and then it'll be every day, or so I hope. And to make my blogs easier to write, I just bought a new LogiTech keyboard for the iPad.

The two options for the trip this year are to head to Alaska via Ontario or via Labrador. I am sure no one has ever done the latter for the simple reason that it is time-consuming, if not expensive and tiring. But the three of us have plenty of experience on the road and if we do not do it now we may never do it.

Until I organize this blogger, readers might wish to look at the blog from last year's trip by clicking here or the reference to it to the right.

ED

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On The Road #6 - 2013

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