Alaska P 11

We planned to leave at 10:00, so we got up late and waited until all the bus tours departed before going to breakfast in the theater building. Good Continental breakfast for the Smiths and a buffet for the Olsons. I spent a few minutes at the computer after loading the car. At 10, we piled in the cars and departed the motel. However, we just got on the road and the Olson car stopped! As we were trying to figure out the problem, it began to sprinkle, so we towed the car to a sheltered area by the Laundromat.

The distributor had frozen and must have caused some other damage, because a new distributor would not connect up with the drive in the block! I called Ron Mosher in L.A. and sought his advice. He said that they had experienced the same problem on their tour and it was shear pin in the drive that had broken and then the shaft had dropped not allowing contact. As I write this, Dennis is removing the valve cover to see if this is our problem. Meanwhile the gals are doing a load of laundry. Jo just came in and showed me the pump drive and it had sheared the pin. It also had damaged a couple of teeth on the gear. We don’t have a spare one of these, so we may have to try to make it to Fairbanks where we may be able to get one. Dennis with the help of Bob Sterner, who arrived in his Model T, removed the broken part and made a repair. By 3:00 PM, we were ready to have a snack and head to Tok.

The road to Tok was pretty bumpy all the way to the Canadian border. We had a long wait to get processed at the US Customs House. Why is a mystery. There were about three vehicles ahead of us, but it took lots of time and the inspector waited a long time between vehicles for some reason. The roads on the US side were better, but still had a number of gravel sections. On one of these, a large truck passed us. Our window was down and a stone struck me in the head! I have decided that I will attempt to block any trucks from passing in the future under similar circumstances.

The ten or so miles just before Tok, the road was very good and we made good time. We arrived at Tok at 5:55 PM. We had some trouble locating the motel as it didn’t have a sign with the same name as on out instruction sheet and all the Model A’s were gone, depriving us of this identifying feature. By stopping and asking a couple of places, we finally made it. The units were almost brand new and were much nicer than those at Beaver Creek. We went to Fast Eddie’s to eat and found all our companions there. After dinner, Pat Richardson held a meeting to explain the trip for the next day.