Sunday July 23: Alaska Updates

 

Lots of updates on members:

  1. David & Ann Eilers have been adding signatures to Patterson, including a couple female LDS missionaries. They were very excited to sign it.
    2017-07-22-lds-signaturesHugo and Fernando Vidal finished up their Operation Pineapple stickers. They are great! David, Ann, Hugo and Fernando head off this morning bound for Fernie, BC, Canada. Hugo and Fernando at work:
    2017-07-23-hugo-fernando-stickers4 2017-07-23-hugo-fernando-stickers1
  2. Scott Gilbert, Bob Christy, and Rick Pacholski reached Barnesville, Minnesota, where they will stay at Chris McKay’s. Last report is the wagon is finally running dependably. Saturday night they spend the night at Joe DeYoung’s place in Madison, Wisconsin, where they wrenched the night away (a big shout out to him). The night before Scott was forced to stop at Harry & Jo Sheets of Midwest Willys in Indiana, where they also had to work all night. Another big shout out to them as well. It takes a village to power a wagon.
    2017-07-23-scott-joe-deyoung
  3. Jim Fowler is about four hours behind Scott, motoring away in his CJ-2A. He lost his speedometer, but he’s got an app to keep track of his speed.
    2017-07-23-jim-fowlerJim’s Camping setup:
    2017-07-23-jim-fowler-tent

4. Marcelo and Dario Riera are trailering Andreas Gruson’s truck up to Dawson Creek. They were supposed to reach St. Paul, Minnesota, last night.2017-07-23-marcelo-andreas-truck

5. Bill Reiss gets the award for the first Canadian crossing. He’s now motoring east through Michigan.
2017-07-23-bill-reiss

6. Merlin and Brittany and Joe and Emily reached Madison, Wisconsin, last night. For a short time they had to wait out monsoon-like rains under an overpass, as Joe doesn’t have a full top (but everyone is smiles as the second photo shows). He’s also got to deal with a leaky pinion seal. Hopefully he got that buttoned up last night!2017-07-23-joe-bee-merlin-rain2017-07-23-smiles Joe was able to hook up with Joe DeYoung and, for the second night in a row, saved a member of the Alaska Or Rust adventure. Thanks Joe!
2017-07-23-joe-bee-joedeyoung

7. Rob Stafford’s jeep was all ready, but yesterday he discovered a small leak in the radiator. So, he’s got to get that fixed.
2017-07-23-rob-stafford-jeep

8. Marty Tilford was doing some work on his rear pinion when he discovered some missing teeth. Glad he discovered this now! He and Rob don’t leave for a couple days.
2017-07-23-marty-tilford2017-07-23-Marty-3Marty did a few more things to his jeep as well. He writes, “Installed new gears and locker and fabbed up a receiver hitch. My previous tire carrier was removed, replaced with a new one so I can carry a full size spare on a 10 inch wheel. In addition, the new tire carrier can swing open or swing down to access the spare and tailgate. All the fab work and gears has been done by American machine and Fab”
2017-07-23-Marty-hitch 2017-07-23-Marty-2

9. Russ and Tom are making there way northeast from Illinois in Russ’ Jeepster. I don’t have a specific update as of this post.