SUNSET OVER CHAIN LAKES
Roaming the southern Cascades we crossed paths with our old friend Mark who we spent the better part of May travelling with (this is such a fun way to explore). And this turned out to be especially fortuitous for us because almost exactly as we ran into him the alternator on my truck went kaput.
It’s never a good feeling when your vehicle suddenly quits on you…but when you’re sixty miles out on a desolate forest service road… well… it’s worse (This is where having a support vehicle makes life better). Mark doesn’t travel light and by that I mean that I think he brought every tool known to man with him… and man were we glad he did. We used to give a hard time for bringing so much stuff… it looks like he got the last laugh.
Once we’d identified the alternator as the villain, I took the same first step I do with all electrical parts…I grabbed a hammer and hit it… and… as it so often happens… it came back to life (which explains why it’s always the first step). Mobile again we drove the remaining few miles to the really cool lake that’s pictured above and set up camp.
The next day we drove down the mountain to the nearest town (over two hours to cover the seventy or so miles) to buy another alternator. Of course it had to be ordered… and it was Friday… and we were some distance from their warehouse… so it wouldn’t arrive until Monday. But since we were all set up with nowhere to go… it really didn’t matter.
Over the weekend we hiked, and biked, and fished… and removed the old alternator so that we could eliminate the extra trip to get our core fee refunded…in case we decided to exit via a different route. It came off rather easily considering that it had been occupying it’s home undisturbed for more than ten years.
Monday… replacement part in hand… the fun began. With Mark as our technical advisor, Kaila on the wrench on top of the engine, Wyatt and Carson on lights, me providing what little muscle I have underneath on the belt tensioner, and Malia on the camera, we had the new alterantor on in less than an hour. Teamwork at it’s finest!