The 26th Hour

The Griswalds don’t have anything on us. We've had a very interesting last two days. It started with us leaving Beaver Creek at a good time, making good time to Haynes Junction, YT for lunch. We stopped for a quick bathroom break at a small campground and saw a grizzly bear in the campground (you never saw little girls pee so fast).

Then our little problem happened. Fifteen miles from the campground where we saw the grizzly the UHaul truck had a problem. To make a long story short, the truck's air conditioner pump seized and shredded the belt in many pieces. We were able to contact UHaul's recovery service, - which was based on the east coast- from a small single gas station in the middle of nowhere called Otter Falls Cutoff. The operator asked me for my cell phone number and a cross street where the truck was broken down. I politely informed the operator I was in the wilderness of Yukon Territory and there is no cell service or cross streets on the Alaskan Highway.

We ended up pitching the tent in the ditch of the Alaskan Highway and stayed the night Remember that bear we saw only 15 miles away, I had the kids hide the bacon from the bear under their pillows (he'll never think to look there). It took UHaul 24 hours to get someone onsite to fix the truck, and another 2 hours to fix it and get us on our way. We had to camp next to the highway, but we were definitely not happy campers.

UHaul was able to temporarily fix the truck. We drove it 70 miles into Whitehorse, YT where they will continue working on it Friday morning. We ended the day staying in a hotel and polished off the night with well-deserved shots and beer at the Boiler Room in Whitehorse.