First day Yukon to Teslin

When we got up in the morning there were quite a few mosquitos in the trailer but when we opened the door we were met with a swarm! Ryan zipped the screen back up quickly, went to get the headnets he had purchased for our trip and slipped one in the door to me before I got out. We packed up as fast as we could with headnets and thick sweaters on. Ryan still got a lot of bites on his fingers, palms and ankles. All we had exposed were our hands but even working really quickly you couldn't keep them off your hands. They were the hungriest, quickest and most fearless mosquitos we have ever encountered-they just hung on if you shook your hand, but even if you managed to shake your hand hard enough to dislodge them they were back within a second. We got the boys out of the tent at the last moment, put them straight into the car, and left the campsite at 8:15. It already was +18 when we left! The boys ended up staying in their pajamas all day.

mosquitos video

We quite enjoyed the scenery in the Yukon!

"Motel"

About an hour and a half later, just coming into the almost completely abandoned town of Swift River the left trailer spring broke when we went over a 'jump' in the road (it would launch an RC car quite well). The tire moved back, hitting the mud flap bracket which locked up the tire. Ryan pulled over, let the tire rubber solidify, removed the mudflap and rolled the trailer into the nearby maintenance yard which is all that was left of the town. The maintenance yard people kindly let him make a few phone calls since there was no cell service and he found out that Whitehorse was the only town in the territory that might have a replacement spring. He then removed the spring to take along, left the trailer there and we decided to do the 7 hour round trip to Whitehorse. 

A mile down the road Ryan stopped for an older couple who were broken down on the side of the road in their truck and large camper trailer, thinking that if he needed a part, we could get it for him while getting our new springs, but we were not able to help him. 

3 miles later there was a couple with a trucktop camper stopped by the road and Ryan stopped to ask if he could help them as well but the guy was hoping his makeshift repair was going to work and said no.

When we got to Teslin which was an hour away from where we broke down Ryan wanted to check the local wrecking yard/repair shop, to see if we could get used springs. There weren't any, but the man there offered to weld our spring for $50 saying it would hold together till whitehorse saving us the extra driving so we quickly talked it over and decided to do that, instead of going to Whitehorse without the trailer first. The boys and I were very tired of sitting by then, and very hot, so Ryan dropped us off at the library, while he went back to fetch the trailer. 

I could use the library's wifi, so I worked on the blog a while, but the boys were very restless, so after a while, I packed everything back up, and we hiked to the town's playground. Joshua didn't want to walk at all (I figured out  later that he was beginning to get blisters on his ankles, from his boots. The closing velcro had come off of one of his shoes, and I hadn't really had time to sew it back on yet), and I wasn't able to carry him, because my arms were full, so it took us a while to get there.

When we got to the playground, the boys played happily while I wrote blog posts. 

I was beginning to get a bit concerned, because it was getting later, and starting to think about walking to the RV park we'd seen when we got to Teslin, when Ryan finally got back. He had replaced the spring but stopped to talk to both broken down people on the way back. The older couple from montanna with the big trailer had a wheel bearing go bad, lost their tire and brake drum and the spindle threads and nut got wrecked beyond repair so they couldn't install new components. They had been on the side of the road a day and a half waiting for a tow and said they were unable to even sleep in the trailer because they couldn't put the slideouts out. He said many people had stopped but no one had been able to successfully chain up his axle so he could get off the road.

Then the younger camper couple from oregon had been there 2 days. They had a homebuilt camper on a newer truck, the truck developed an exhaust leak and the computer wouldn't let the truck run. He spent 2 days trying to fix the leak but gave up and hitch hiked to town to ask for a tow shortly before I got back the second time.

I drove carefully on the welded spring but it broke going around a corner a mile or 2 before Teslin in a different spot on the spring. I just drove it like that into town.

 We hopped into the car with Ryan, and he drove us to the RV park, where we camped for the night, even though it was expensive, dry, and very dusty. The power at our site was off and they told Ryan to figure out how to fix it himself so he spent quite a while searching the campsite for breakers. Not a place we would choose, if we'd been able to. Set up, then Ryan went for a walk while I started on supper. He talked the the guy who welded the spring and the guy agreed to reweld it in the morning. The nice thing about that RV park was that we all got to have hot, long, unmetered showers that night. Ryan did the laundry and I showered the boys. We were fairly discouraged about the spring breaking the second time, the loud and dusty campground and not knowing if the reweld would get us to Whitehorse but the showers helped and we finally got to bed.

This was the day before the summer solstice and it was quite light out at midnight still. These photos are from midnight.