Day 71, Tuesday, October 18, Whitehorse (22)
I was awakened at precisely 6:00 a.m. this morning by the gunning of the cold school bus engines in my back yard and immedistely pulled out my iPad to see the fate of the delivery of my own engine to Edmonton. The drivers not only met their 6:00 promised delivery, but beat it by two hours. That's 57.17 miles per hour for 829 miles. At last, the final obstacle to my engine's arrival in Whitehorse eliminated.
Or so i thought.
Before i closed up the iPad and was getting to get some more shut-eye, i checkec my email to see if Britta had sent me another emai. (Forget abut who Britta is for now.). She had not. But my barely opened eyes caught sight of the subject of another email from a Jennifer at UPS that had arrived at 5:32, URGENT, it screamed at me. Action required. What that email said sent me off on two-hour frenzy of activity that at times made me wonder if i shouldn't just chuck the new engine and abandon the Defender like a weak-kneed captain abandoning his ship before its time.
What Jennifer said in her email was that my engine had arrived but was put into bond (or bondage) and could not move anywhere until i personally found a customs broker who could deal with the myriad customs matters associated with the shipment. I had six hours before i missed the truck to Whitehorse today.
My first reaction and action was to write her back telling her i had no idea what she was talking about, that i just wanted my beloved engine, that i knew no one where i am, let along a customs broker. Heck, I don't even know where to find a laundromat here.
My second reaction was to send copies of the email to everyone i knew up here, hoping that one of them would have a friend or relative who knew or was a customs broker.
I will omit the details of the flurry of calls and emails that took place over the next two hours except to say that Jennifer assured me the process was simple and gave me four names to contact. Others gave me a few more names, all of them spread over various time zones in Canada. I sent pleading emails - SOSs really - or calls to every one if them even though it was only 7:00 a.m. Yukon time. Two minutes after i sent a nessage to seversl names at Jori Internationsl in Ontario, my phone rang. It was Sarah from Jori International calling to respond to my plea for help.
Sixteen minutes later, and $700+ poorer, my engine cleared customs thanks to very capable and equally personable, as well as dog-loving, Sarah. Minutes after that, Jennifer wrote me to tell me that my engine was on its way to Pacific Northwest. And shortly after that, Marika wrote to tell me that my engine, unshackled from bondage or whatever, had been loaded into Pacific Northwest's truck, for departure to Whitehorse at 5:00. today for delivery to Travis by noon on Thursday.
Armed with these assurances, i set out for John's Auto Repair 11 miles down the Alcan. Earlier, i had asked Matt there if once i knew a certain delivery date they could start to dismantle the old engine the day before and get ready to install the new one upon its arrival. I knew, however, that there were big ifs with that, but you cannot blame a guy in my shoes for asking. He saw no reason why they could not, but i knew thst this would be risky for them because they could not tie up one of their three always-full bays for any non-productive job. Likewise, i could not see them dropping everythjng else they were doing when the engine arrived for a one-time customer. Moreover, starting my job even on Thursday would only give them 2 days to do a likely 3-day job and give me no time for test-driving the Defender and them no slack for unanticipated problems, although i ordered enough auxiliary parts to launch a new Defender .
I got my answer almost immediately after i walked into the garage. There were no bays open now for them to start my job tomorrow. Moreover, they had two big jobs already scheduled for Thursday, making it unkikeky that they would get to my job until Friday at the earliest, probably Monday. But Matt assured me that they would get to it early next week.
So much for Monday's ferry.
Frankly, even if they had three full days to work on my Defender this week, that would not have given them the comfort margin i would have liked to give them nor would it have given me my needed margin for road testing the Defender before i got on my way. So tomorrow i will change my reservations to the October 31 ferry, assuming there is space left.
Had i known about Travis's tight schedule earlier in the day, would i have had the engine diverted to Seattle from Edmonton and then had the Defender towed to and onto the ferry on Monday and then towed off the ferry in Seattle to the LaMorna garage? No,. At the most, that would have gained me only two extra days at greater cost compared to what the situation is now, assuming all goes well.
Lets assume Travis does get to the Defender Monday and finishes it by Wednesdsy. At least i will not have the big expense of a rental car after that until the ferry on the 31st. And i can still have my $25 a night room here or move down to warmer Skagway or even Juneau. And i will have the Defender back to combat the elements for me. And If Travis does run into a snag, well, he would have had that same snag this week, thereby upsetting my plan A anyway.
The bottom line is that i am here to stay for at least another week before On the Road 8 resumes.
What if the Defender is still not ready by the October 31 ferry? Right now, i am not even thinking about that except in broad terms. I take one day at a time. However, if that does happen, pieces of the various plans B will move to front stage. Who knows, maybe they'll even be. Plan C, move to Whitehorse.
As for the delay of a week due to the need for three days, actually this is where i was last Thursday before i tried to move things up a week, so i really haven't lost anything. In fact, i gained a lot, most important, the knowkedge that up here if you ask for help from someone, you will get it, from everyone. I also got onto Travis's scheduling board for sure. So for five days of hectic activity, i gained a lot.
I also gained a week more of meeting some of the most fantastic people on the planet, although the way outsiders view the citizens of Whitehorse Yukon, it might as well be on another planet.
Most important of all, i gained one more week of living outside my comfort zone, perhaps enough to make me make some hard decisions when i get back home.
More tomorrow from off the road..
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