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| From Skagway to Nugget City |
We headed east on the Alaska Highway for about ½ mile before turning south on the Cassiar Highway and after driving for 2 miles we crossed into British Columbia.
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| From Nugget City to Watson Lake |
The Cassiar Highway is a 2 lane paved road with no shoulder and is narrow is some places. This section looked more like a roller coaster
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| From Nugget City to Watson Lake |
and then there were long almost straight sections.
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| From Nugget City to Watson Lake |
We had driven about 21 miles on the Cassiar Highway when I heard a “pop” and then “whoosh”. I told Mike that we “have a flat tire” and it sounded like it came from the right rear tires. Mike pulled over to the left lane and put the left wheels just off the road – remember, there are no shoulders to pull off on.
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| From Nugget City to Watson Lake |
We got out and checked the rear tires and it was the inside right rear tire that had blown. Mike put out our orange cones and road hazard flashers. Of course, there is no cell phone service here and no OnStar service either – we have OnStar in the Vue. We disconnected the Vue and I put a sign in one of the windows saying we had a flat tire and had gone back to Watson Lake.
We hadn’t seen much traffic on the road but a couple of RVs came by and stopped to see if we needed any help and a couple of cars also stopped to offer help.
We drove the car back north to Watson Lake which is 34 miles from where we had the flat. It was 11:30 when we got into Watson Lake and we decided to eat lunch at Kathy’s Kitchen and call our roadside service. We both had the bacon cheeseburger and fries and it was really good.
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| From Nugget City to Watson Lake |
We had had cell phone service when we stayed in Watson Lake on our trip north and now we couldn’t make a call! We had added the Canadian calling plan on our Verizon phones on the trip up and decided to save the extra cost this time – bad choice!
We drove over the Visitor Center and told Rena about our problem and she used the Visitor Center phone to call our roadside service (we have a calling card, but went off without it). When Mike tried to explain to the girl at Coach-Net that we were calling from the Yukon and the RV was in British Columbia, she had a hard time understanding it. Then she couldn’t locate Watson Lake on her map & finally Rena got on the phone to see if she could help and gave the girl the phone numbers of 3 tire businesses in Watson Lake. This was Saturday just before 1 p.m. and Rena said some of the businesses were closed on Saturday afternoon.
The girl from Coach-Net was supposed to call us back on the Visitor Center phone, but when it was 12:45 and we hadn’t heard from her, we called her back. She hadn’t had any success in getting hold of any of the businesses and then told Mike that changing a flat tire was labor and they don’t pay for labor. Mike told her the contract said they would pay for changing our mounted spare tire, but she was adamant about it being labor.
We drove across the street from the Visitor Center to Watson Lake Motors and spoke with Pat about sending someone out to change our tire. His truck was out on a call and wouldn’t be back until late tonight. Pat said the only solution would be for us to drive the RV slowly back up to Watson Lake and have it changed there.
We drove back out the Cassiar Highway to where we had left the RV and got there about 1:40. Since there is no shoulder and the road is very narrow, we were lucky that a few hundred feet from the RV was a place where we could back up the RV and get it turned around. Mike drove the RV and I followed in the Vue so I could watch the back tires in case the outside tire on the right went flat. We drove the 34 miles to Watson Lake at 20 mph and got there around 3:30.
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| From Nugget City to Watson Lake |
It cost us $36.75 CAD to have the tire changed and Mike tipped Gordon $5 because he knew to torque the lug nuts at 450 ft. lbs. There is so much mud on the tire that went flat that we haven’t been able to see what the cause was.
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| From Nugget City to Watson Lake |
We stopped at Watson Lake Tags Gas, Convenience Store and RV Park and got gas in the car (24.974 liters) & RV (93.499 liters) at $1.349 a liter CAD or $5.15 a gallon.
While Mike was getting gas in the RV, I went inside and checked us in for the campground. We are in site #5 with full hook-ups (30 amp) for $26.25 for the night.
It was 5:30 by the time we got to our campsite and we are 14 miles from where we spent last night.
After dinner we went back over to the Visitor Center to use the pay phone (we have our phone card with us now) there to call Verizon to see if we can get our cell phones to work here. After spending about 30 minutes talking with tech support we still can’t make calls on our cell phones.
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