With quick stops at Delta Junction to celebrate surviving the Alaska Highway and North Pole to make sure our names were not on the naughty list, we rolled into Fairbanks on a Sunday afternoon. We had a hotel room for two nights to allow for some sightseeing. Our first stop was the Great Alaska Salmon Bake. Of course, you have to have the salmon at a salmon bake. It was cooked over an open fire and was a great introduction to this Fairbanks tradition.
First thing Monday morning I started the quest to get the brakes fixed on the Jeep. There was a “national brand” brake shop just down the street, so I started there.
“What can we do for you?” said Guy 1 in a gruff it is Monday morning and I don’t want to be awake let alone do anything for you voice.
“I have a brake line that needs to be replaced. Is that something you can help with?”
“We’re pretty booked up. We won’t be able to even look at it till Thursday.”
It was starting to look like we would not be making our planned trip to the Arctic Circle.
“Um, okay. Is there any place in town you would recommend?”
“Your best is to call around and see if anybody can get you in. But they are all going to be pretty busy.” Then the fellow looked down at his phone to indicate he was done with me.
“Ok. Thanks?”
I was almost to the door when the other guy working the desks, Guy 2, chimed in, quietly, as if he didn’t want to piss off Guy 1. “Try Peger Road Auto. They are probably your best bet. Just turn right at the light and you’ll see it on the right. Can’t miss it.”
I gave Guy 2 a thumbs up and silently mouthed “thank you” so as not to induce the wrath of Guy 1.
Peger Road Auto looked more promising. It was clearly a locally owned business, and the giant muffler spinning on a tower and old tow trucks displayed out front just seemed to whisper “we know cars.” It turned out to be a family-run business, and by the end of the week, we would feel like an extended part of the family.
At first, I was greeted with the same grim outlook, “We are really booked up, and not sure when we can get a look at it.” The disappointment on my face must have registered as I shared the story of our journey, our current predicament, and the impact this downtime would have on our plans. Cori, the part-owner, shop manager, dog wrangler, and babysitter agreed to have one of the mechanics, her son Junior, take a look at the damage.
Junior agreed that the line needed to be replaced before we took off into the wild, and he was confident they could fabricate one if they could get the line. The daughter, Angel, called their local parts store and got the line ordered. In less than an hour the courier dropped it off and Junior got right to work. Unfortunately, he was back in just a few minutes. They had sent the wrong size line. Angel immediately called the parts house, and had another, properly sized line, in the shop in less than an hour.
Things were looking up! And then they weren’t. The factory Jeep lines use a special ball style fitting that the shop did not have any way of duplicating. We would need a “Genuine MOPAR part.” That made my heart sink. It had been hard to get parts recently, I was certain it wasn’t any easier out here on the edge of the great frontier. The local Jeep dealer wouldn’t be able to get one until the next week – when we were supposed to be in Anchorage.
The hunt was on! Both Cori and Angel were on the phones trying to track down the part, calling every contact they had, with no luck. Finally, they found one. In Seattle, Washington. If we made the shipping cutoff it would be flown up to Anchorage and then sent north the next day to Fairbanks, hopefully arriving sometime Thursday afternoon. With any luck, we would be back on the road first thing Friday morning! Which was a good thing, as we needed to be down in Anchorage to pick up Carrigan and Travis on Sunday. If things didn’t work out, we were going to have a “significant logistical problem.”
While Junior was putting the Jeep back together, I was mentally scrambling for Plan B. We only had one more night in the hotel, and we were not going to be able to make it to the Arctic Circle. The Jeep was still drivable, but not any further than you would want to have it towed if things came undone. And I did not want to risk a tow from the Arctic Circle!
Fortunately, Cori was very helpful with recommendations for local sights and attractions. The problem was going to be lodging. There was not a single hotel room available in all of Fairbanks – apparently a common thing in the summer. We didn’t want to have to spend the week camped out in the shop’s yard. This is where Junior saved the day, sharing some of the family’s favorite primitive campsites along the Chena River – close enough, and on this side of any mountains, to be a comfortable layover for a few days.
With an appointment for 8 am Friday morning and the part on the way I thanked the Peger team and headed to report back to Pati. We had a plan and I was armed with a whole list of recommendations to keep us fed and entertained. Now, all we needed was a whole bunch of things out of our control to go just right!
Photo: Bureau of Land Management - Alaska via Facebook
As a side note, we found out the next day that the road to the Arctic Circle was closed due to smoke and wildfires, and the area where we would have been camping had been evacuated. That made me slightly less disappointed that we had to abandon that part of our trip.
Next Up - Exploring Fairbanks
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