On The Road 8 : Fwd: Among the many purposes of these trips are to get b

Click below for the trip so far. It does no good to say where we would have been because we are where we are...

http://ontheroadannex.blogspot.ca/2016/08/the-trip-so-far-in-red-day-6-1458-miles.html

Among the purposes of these trips are to get back to nature, get out of the heat of Washington (to wit, the temperature there today was 94, here it was 72), give Donner the treat of his life, clear from my mind of detritus from back home, and deal with the challenges that life on the long road in a tent with my dogs presents. As some figured out, the purpose is not some Travels with Charlie theme, I.e., to find the state of America, and not because I am mostly in Canada. With Trump and another Clinton running for president, everyone knows the state of America. Nor is the purpose to record my hell-raising days and nights on the road as Jack Kerouac did in the original On the Road. As it turns out, John Steinbeck actually never traveled the way that he described in this book, whereas I am writing the way I am living on the road. As for Kerouac, he never would have written that book had he had as little to drink on the road as I do, a few sips of wine at night, or the kind of drugs I take, a few Advil now and then and an aspirin. Nor is this one of those find-myself trips that sell so many books and block-buster movies. Heck, I found myself at age 7, and I can't recall a single book I read or movie I saw before then.

By the way, I am sure you noticed that there is no coherent, consistent theme to my postings. These are meant to supplement my journal and mainly for my own later recollection.

As for the day's events, Shaun from the garage called me to tell me that he thinks they found the problem, with the defective distributor cap. I hope that is the case, especially because it will actually solve two problems, the first being the immediate problem of the vehicle stalling and then not starting, and the earlier problem of the defender's not starting after some rainstorms. So, if that is the problem, then what happened here was rather fortuitous because it would've happened down the line for either of the two reasons. Shaun was not clear when he would get the needed part, but I got the impression that it would be soon. Let's hope for the best.

During my walk with Donner this afternoon I passed a garage just before Shaun's garage and spoke with the manager Bruno about my wheel problem. He agreed to look at the vehicle as soon as I get out of the garage and give me his impression of the wheel noise problem and perhaps fix it if it's a simple fix or a required one. It helped that I had Donner with me and he owned three German shepherds.

Fortunately, on the way back, I stumbled upon a small snack bar that offered on its menu choices a good green salad that I picked up for myself, and will probably do the same every day until I leave here. Beats watered-down mushroom soup. Nothing for Donner on their menu though. But After that, however, we walked right across the hiway to Donner's favorite place in town, the ice cream cream shop right at the edge of the camp, where Donner enjoyed his third treat to that white cool stuff. He doesn't wait to smack his lips now until I take the treat to him. He does it as we approach the steep hill up to the shop.

When we got back to the camp, I made Donner's dinner first, a small can of pink salmon mixed with some kibbles, which he refused to eat, moving away from the bowl and sulking by himself in some corner of the campsite. Eventually I carefully separated each and every piece of kibble from the salmon and hand fed him the salmon until he finally realized that it wasn't so bad after all and polished off the rest pretty quickly. From now on, kibbles will no longer be on the menu for him. He will be treated to red salmon and rice, which will probably also make up one of the courses of my dinner each day, although in much lesser quantity.

My dentist Mark got back to me and advised me to visit with the dentist as soon as possible to get that crown re-cemented on my tooth in order to avoid the crownless tooth shifting over the next three months and my having to fork out $3000 or more for new crown. I found a dentist not too far away from one of the garages I visited the other day and sent her an email hoping that my message evokes some modicum of sympathy in her so she will take me on an emergency basis.

Finally, I studied the maps today carefully. It seems that to get from here to Alaska will take me 20 days without pushing it, which I do not intend to do. Take that 20 and add three more days for servicing the vehicle and replenishing my supplies, and that means 23 days, without further incident or delay that is. This means that I will be shaving off some of the loops that I had intended to take and a couple of two-day stays at a few desired camps along the route, however something has to give. So, if I leave here on the 18th, add 23 days and you get my arriving in Fairbanks Alaska on the 10th of September. That means I will have five days to get to Denali, eight days if I forgo my first two permits to drive the road on the 16th and 18th, which I hope doesn't happen. Regardless, we will drive as far as we can until we have made or missed our schedule either at Denali or for the ferry on the 25th from Juneau to Washington State, and then turn the Defender around and head south to Yosemite and then northeast to home. The most important goal of the entire trip is to return home safely, and that is precisely what we intend and hope to do.

As I might have mentioned earlier, I misplaced the charging cradle for Donner's radio collar transferring the various components from one handbag to another. For fear that it may show up only after itbis no longer needed, I order two today to be shipped to my home, where my base camp commander Mike will ship it off to the Fed Ex office at Thunder Bay five days before I get there to pick it up on my way to Alaska. He will also pack with it the remaining supply of OTR patches in case I run out handing them out to the kind people along the way helping out in way or another, of which there have been many so far.

On my walk with Donner tonight to retrieve my charging device I left at the camp office for recharging, I noticed a lot a campfires along the way. We have had none yet, and will not until the temperature drops into the 40s or below at night. I use fires for warmth, cooking, to ward off the forest creatures when I am in remote, isolated locations, and lastly, for ambiance, even at home, except for the middle two. My neighbor at home, by contrast, told me once that he draws a fire to get back to nature. If he only knew what nature really was.

Now that I have mapped out the location of the new dogs in town, I have to navigate the camp road at night like the ancients of Greek mythology had to navigate between the Scylla and Charybdis for us to avoid one dog and then another. Among other skills, Donner is helping me improve my already sharp navigational skills to a much higher degree.

Not too many photos today. Click on the links.