One! More! Time!

With the heater fixed, we’re back on our way to Alaska.

We got home around lunchtime on Saturday. Since we cut the trip short, we had a lot of groceries to declare when we crossed the US border. The agents searched our vehicle and notified us that uncooked chicken was forbidden, so they threw it out. Everything else was fine, so we ate the remaining Canadian groceries over the weekend. That was helpful since we had practically nothing to eat at home.

The replacement glow plugs for the Timberline diesel heater were scheduled to arrive on Saturday, but they were delayed for unknown reasons. Greg decided to try to disassemble the burner while we waited. Considering the compact spaces around RV components, it took nearly every screwdriver in Greg’s toolbox, but he eventually extracted the broken glow plug. He tested it on his workbench, and it passed all tests in the service manual. Greg cleaned up the burner and put everything back together. Lo and behold, the burner worked again! Greg tested it every night over the weekend, and it worked perfectly.

Still, it is possible that there is a problem with the old glow plug, so we decided to wait for the delivery of the new ones. While we waited, UPS eventually reported that they had the package but it was delayed. At least this meant the parts should arrive on Tuesday, following the holiday weekend. We made the best of the time at home: Greg went to a string quartet concert on Sunday and we bought a few extra supplies for the trip. We also made a few more repairs to the RV, including replacing the TV, which had a problem where the screen would freeze intermittently. That said, an intermittent TV was not going to stop our Alaska trip, unlike a broken heater!

Besides fixing the heater, the most important task for the weekend was to replan our itinerary. There were two basic options: skip the stops on the northbound drive to return to our original Alaska schedule, or skip the visit to Ketchikan. We have visited Ketchikan several times on cruises, but we have never done the drive to Alaska, so we decided to cancel the visit to Ketchikan and reschedule our ferry to Juneau. It’s unfortunate but it was better than trying to rush the long, scenic drive to Alaska.

Over the long weekend, Greg was really stressed about the package with the glow plugs for the heater. He kept refreshing the UPS app to see if there were any updates. Late Monday night, it looked like the package was on its way, and it finally reached the Seattle area overnight. First thing on Tuesday, it was on the truck, and it was delivered at 10:15 am! Time to leave!

Our first stop was at the Bellingham Costco to fill up on Diesel and get lunch. Our trip tracker was working again, and our friend Phillipa decided to check on us. She was also in Bellingham and just happened to be stopping at the Costco! So we had a surprise visit with Phillipa before we reached Vancouver. You too can be like Phillipa and follow our progress on the live map!

You might notice that this part of the trip looks like a rerun: back to Vancouver, back to Granville Island, back to Kirin restaurant. It was a great choice the first time and worth repeating. It’s not like we get to Vancouver every week - just these 2 weeks.