Another Cabin Weekend

It’s the 2nd week of November and we got our first real snowfall, so Tyler and I drove to the cabin to get some work done. Plan was to get the furnace and fuel hauled in and then work on running the electrical wiring for the lights and wall plugs. Sean, Melissa’s boyfriend, or un-husband as she calls him, came down Friday night to help, as he’s an electrician I figured we would make short work of it. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

Tyler and I left town Thursday night and it looked like it’d be an easy drive, maybe I was just to use to summer driving when the suns out for 20 hours a day and the roads are dry. The first 55 miles to Nenana weren’t too bad, just a little slick with a light snow falling, so we just drove at a slow but steady pace. It wasn’t until we got about 80 miles south of Fairbanks that the real fun started. The snowfall turned into thick heavy flakes and started sticking to the road. About 90 miles out there was 2 to 3 inches of snow on the road and a 10 MPH nice side wind blowing, so that every time a north bound vehicle passed us I lost sight of the road for 3 to 5 seconds, just enough to make me wonder if I was still on the pavement or headed for the ditch.

By 8:00 pm we made it to Healy, a three hour drive for what should have been one and half hours. Tyler and decided it was time for dinner and enough white knuckle driving for one day, so we spent the night in the parking lot of the diner we had dinner at. Come morning we had breakfast at the same diner and I was glad to see the plow trucks driving by and clearing off the snow and scraping some of the ice, so we headed out and made it to our destination around 10:00 AM.

Friday we spend the day hauling in materials and playing a little, kind of nice to have some snow to play in even if I did have to dig Tyler out three times :<). Sean showed up around 8:00 PM and we relaxed a bit and then hit the hay for some sleep. Woke up Saturday morning to semi-clear skies and a little snow falling with beautiful blue skies to the west and cloudy skies above. We rode into the cabin and spend Saturday running the electrical wiring, or I should say Sean and Tyler ran the electrical wiring while I tried to get the furnace running. After a couple hours of messing with the darn thing I did get it to fire but the generator just wasn’t putting out enough juice to keep it going, darn thing kept shutting down and tripping the breaker. Not what I was hoping for. By Sunday we have a new list of more electrical materials to get, including a larger generator and more outlets. Headed back to camp and had a late Sunday breakfast and then Tyler and Sean headed back to town. I was half an hour behind them leaving so I could cleanup and organize the motorhome a bit better and make sure the sleds and fuel drums were secured on the trailer. Now I should mention that it did snow all weekend and the ¼ mile of dirt road from our parking spot to the Parks hwy hadn’t been plowed, but heck, no biggie right, the RV is heavy and should plow right though all that snow, not…. I got about 200 feet from the pavement when the trailer decides to slide off the hard pack and into the snow berm. Dang it, ok a little digging and off we go, nope. I made another 100 feet and got within 100 feet of the pavement and that was all I was getting by myself. I called AAA figuring I could get a tow truck out there in a couple hours at the most. Hahahahaha, that’s what I get for thinking. After 2 hours waiting the tow truck driver calls me and says he another 5 hours out. WHAT, now I don’t mind waiting a bit, but this was border lining on the cussing side. So after waiting a bit more I got lucky and a guy with a nice big 5 ton truck stops by and pulls me right up to the Parks Hwy and pavement. Yeah team….. So I’m on my way home. I knew the roads were slick but the skies clear, or so I heard from Tyler when he called me as he and Sean were leaving Nenana. Just my luck, they missed all the snow but I didn’t, nope another 5 hours of white knuckle driving as the snow fell and the roads got icy all the way back to Nenana. All and all it was decent trip and we did get a good start on the electrical and heating for the cabin, but I sure would have liked to have gotten that dang-gone furnace running. And I did get some miles on my sled... So next trip down I’m bringing more electrical supplies and a bigger generator, along with rolls of insulation for the walls. Maybe I can get to the point where I could start staying at the cabin in my cot and sleeping bag. Would save gas and make staying there so much more enjoyable than the RV down on the roadside.

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