We reluctantly left our wonderful free lake camp and headed for Fairbanks. As we drove in, the beautiful clear day disappeared in a haze of smoke. We had no idea there were even wildfires around so it was a shock.
Apparently lightning strikes over the weekend have caused a lot of fires to sprout up. There was a wildfire near the bush camp we had a few days earlier. Scary.
We stopped at Walmart to try and get a spare tyre for our van. The lady on the desk stressed that we needed a light truck tyre to match the others, but they had none in stock.
Mike rang a place just around the corner and they had one at their warehouse that they would get in for us and it would take about an hour.
So we did some shopping at Walmart. We got a few essentials as well as some other stuff. We bought a cheap tent for emergency use. After the petrol leak episode I like the idea of having somewhere to sleep if it happens again.
At the tyre garage, we got the guy to check our spare to make sure it needed replacing. He said it looked good, nice tread etc. then he noticed the cracks Mike had noticed. When they took it off the rim, it was really bad and would have caused a blowout. Lucky we hadn’t needed to use it!
When they went to put the new one on, I wanted to confirm it was the right one, the Walmart lady’s voice echoing in my ear. Just as well I did as they had ordered the right size, but it was a passenger tyre. We told them this was no good but they didn’t believe us. The tyre guy had to ring an expert in Anchorage.
Meanwhile, Mike googled it, unsure ourselves about taking the word of a Walmart employee. Sure enough, under no circumstances should you put a passenger vehicle tyre on with light truck tyres. It’s a blowout waiting to happen.
The tyre guy finally got off the phone to the expert in anchorage and confirmed our findings. It’s crazy that a lady at Walmart knows more than these guys who deal with tyres everyday! So thanks Walmart lady, you saved us a potential blowout should we need to use it.
Eventually they got the correct tyre in and fitted, and we didn’t leave until after 6pm. We just wanted to get out of the city. We drove, heading towards thick smoke. I was terrified, but figured they would close the road if it was too bad.
It was not a pleasant experience. Thick smoke, poor visibility, and the darkest it’s been for weeks. It was like this for about an hour before we eventually came out of it and it was such a relief to see blue skies again.
It was about 10.30pm by the time we found a wonderful free camp beside a lake, just off the main road. No sitting up to watch the midnight sun tonight, it was straight to bed.