CAPTAIN’S LOG - DAY 3
North Star Date: 11/29/2012
Location or Route: Whitehorse, YT to Watson Lake, YT.
Travel Miles: 273 (Cumulative 862)
Weather Conditions: Clear skies quickly became overcast for the rest of the day and just after mid-route the wind picked up causing blowing snow over the road surface. For the last 60 miles or so the wind died down.
Road Conditions: Mostly bare first half of the day then mostly patchy hard-pack and ice. The wind buffeted Ruth’s Jeep, making it less secure on some icy patches. The truck clung well to all surfaces, but required more accelerator pedal finesse and less cruise-control.
10:45 AM (-27F/-33C)
After a good night’s sleep in a comfortable bed and a warm room we enjoyed a hot breakfast at the restaurant downstairs, packed up and readied ourselves for departure. Truck wouldn’t start. We hadn’t been able to plug-in and I had figured using the remote start to run the engine for 20 minutes every six hours would suffice; it didn’t. Ruth’s car started fine and we used it to jump the truck. Yesssss! Go Jeep! Even so, it took most of an hour to generate enough charge for two truck batteries and the amperage required for the intake manifold heater (which replaced glow plugs on this Cummins Turbo Diesel). So we got that going for us, which is good.
12:11 PM (-27F/-33C)
We’re on the road again. We just fueled and the fuel attendant came out to assist us. He was a really nice older guy - about my age - and after learning of our trip plans wished us God-speed, even while countenancing a hint of pity. I had looked ahead online and our next destination, Watson Lake, was -37F/-38C.
2:11 PM (-40F/-40C)
Minus 40 is where the two temperature scales, Fahrenheit and Celsius, come together. The current temperature is either -40, or below -40 (because my display gauge only reads that low), or above -40 (because after the truck-jump this morning the gauge may be stuck on “inaccurate”). I keep tapping my finger-nail on the plastic covering over the digital display to see if there’s a stuck needle or something, and the reading doesn’t change, so I think it’s -40 or below, or a little above.
In the atmosphere, water vapor condenses around tiny particles, like dust or space debris. The resulting liquid water droplet becomes bigger and bigger until it resembles a raindrop and falls out of the sky. You see, as the water droplet becomes bigger, it adheres to itself in a round shape, much like people, through the principle of hydrostatic cohesion, or something like that.
If there were no gravity, the water droplet would be perfectly round and would not resemble a raindrop. When it is in an updraft, also known as a rising column of air, and is equally balanced against gravity, it is in what is called a “zero gravity state”, like on a roller coaster, and it is perfectly round, like some people on roller coasters – really, check them out next time!
As it is carried further aloft, the water droplet may become colder than freezing and still remain in its liquid state until it bumps into something like an airfoil or tin foil or something like that. Then due to the principal of crystallization or crystal worship or something like that, it freezes instantly and then airplanes fall out of the sky on account of icing. At least that’s what 28 years of Air Traffic Bulletins have instilled in me. This H2O state is something called “super-cooled water”.
Overnight, my case of bottled drinking water on the floor of the truck had sat very still – unmoving even – and had dropped to about -40F&C (which is Canadian for friggin’ cold), yet the water had remained in its liquid state. In essence, it had become “super cooled water”! As I picked up one bottle I could see it wasn’t frozen, then as I jostled it while twisting open the cap it began freezing and I watched the ice-crystals form from top to bottom right there in my hand. It was froze! Fascinating!
So I picked up a second bottle, jostled it and watched it freeze. Then a third and a fourth; who needs TV! I had heard of this happening before, mostly from old Flight Service guys who were trying to sound knowledgeable, but I had never actually witnessed it. I ended up thawing water bottles over the defroster ducts all day long.
While driving today I had the following thoughts - based on food stuffs available from yesterday’s lunch which had also been left in the truck cab overnight.
• Frozen Carrots are good, somewhat soft, like a cooked carrot, but edible none-the-less.
• Frozen celery should be thrown out.
• Frozen cookies can be eaten frozen or thawed and make for a delicious treat.
• Bread thaws faster than the ham slices in between, but frozen ham sandwiches are quite edible. One should be careful here as too much frozen ham can lower core body temperature.
• Frozen orange slices make for a delicious treat.
• Frozen apples should be saved until tomorrow and then thrown out.
• Baking pecans are somewhat bland as is, but lightly roasted in the oven and added to the rest of the mixed nuts makes for a delicious treat. Frozen mixed nuts are quite edible.
• Freezing string cheese improves its texture.
4:11 PM (-11F to -19F/-24C to -28C)
After one particularly windy rest stop that felt relatively warm outside, I repaired the truck’s still stuck on -40 temperature gauge by shutting of the engine and allowing the computer to reset; it had warmed up considerably: -11 to -19. I don’t think we had so much crossed a surface frontal or air-mass boundary as we had just arrived at the top of the cold surface air and were now in the warmer air aloft; we had been driving through some higher terrain.
6:11 PM (-24F/-31C)
Just pulled into Watson Lake. We fueled up and located an acceptable hotel with accommodations to plug-in the vehicles overnight. On the truck we power an engine block heater, two battery heaters, an engine oil pan heater and a transmission oil pan heater. On the Jeep we have a trickle charger for the battery - not that it seems to need it; Go Jeep! So we got that going for us, which is good.
8:11 PM (-24F/-31C)
Ruth and I have decided there is nothing at all wrong with hotels - except maybe bedbugs, and generally the pillows, and sometimes you’ll find whiskers in the sink, and we’ve all seen that 60 Minutes program with the ultra-violet light source that those news investigators carry around with them. But it’s not minus 33 in this room!
We unplugged the strawberry air-freshener we found in one room outlet, mostly because it is over-the-top obnoxious and because Ruth can’t seem to get the song “Strawberry Fields Forever” out of her head, but also I needed to charge my Mobile Device (I just like saying mobile device). But, we wonder what the air-freshener was trying to cover up!
The restaurant provided adequate overly-processed food. The combination of its effects, along with our limited mobility, is starting to have a negative influence on how we feel. We’re looking forward to getting off the road and back into our exercise routine.
Day 3 Pics
