fulltimedaniel
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Re: How Many Miles
joe b. wrote: I will stand by what I said. The cruise ships are fueled and provisioned at their home port in the lower 48, the buses are owned by the cruise companies, driven by out of state seasonal drivers, for the most part. They stay at company owned hotels when on land, eat at company owned restaurants, and the money paid for the trip by the tourists stayed with the company outside. Just curious, what your background is to be such an expert on Alaska? I have lived in rural Alaska for over 25 years, have made 13 RV round trips to/from Alaska and the lower 48, have made another half dozen or more round trips by car or truck, made 8 or 10 flying trips, with me as the pilot, following the Alaska Highway or the Cassiar between the lower 48 and Alaska, I have personally run river boats from the Fairbanks area to the mouth on the Yukon River and back, plus I have accumulated over 3,000 hours of bush flying, as a pilot . Did my best to wear out four different airplanes and a half dozen RVs, the years we lived there. Most of the Alaska tourist industry is only operating during the short summers. When many of the private businesses close for the winter, the owners head outside to live till the following summer. The Alaska economy has always been based upon extractive industry. Such as mining, timber, fishing, petroleum, etc. Tourism is much the same. Full time, tell us about your Alaska experiences, if you would please. I notice that while you have a long connection to Alaska you have no experience with the tourism/hospitality industry there. The facts I posted are easily found on the Web and I noted in my post where they came from.... CLIA Cruise ships do re-bunker and provision in Alaska. Those visitors dont just stay in company hotels, but many do, Overflow often fills other non cruise line owned hotels. And as for eating? They eat all over. Meals on land are rarely included. As for my experience in Alaska, it started with my driving the Highway in Nov of 1972 to my new duty station, Elemndorf AFB. Since then I have lived here, traveled here and worked here on and off over the years. I just made my second trip here in the lat 12 months and am now working here in.. yes.. a sort of Workcamper job for the season. Something I decided I wanted to do last summer when I was here. I have lived in Anchorage, Hoonah, The north slope...Deadhorse ( a long long time ago) and now Fairbanks. Two times I have worked in the tourist industry here as I am doing now. But this is off topic strictly speaking and we should return to the real subject about why the OP couldn't find the mileage to the Alaska Border even though he/she had access to the internet.636Views0likes0CommentsRe: Minot ND suggestions.
I lived in Minot for a while when I returned from living overseas. It's a horrible place in my opinion but the people are nice. Since you are just passing through I'd just stay at the Wal Mart for one night and go on to Canada the next day. Swensons RV Sales has an RV park that is right on the road and is easily seen. But whether they do nightly rentals I don't know. They seem to cater mostly to the Oil Workers. And the rates in Minot are High. On the west side of town on Hwy 2/52 is a Flying J which has lots of room for RV's without impinging on Truck Parking. I think they also have a dump. (but not sure)327Views0likes0CommentsRe: Cracked Rear Axle on 5er
JKwock wrote: I have to keep things in perspective. No one was hurt. I'm sleeping at home tonight. I'm wasn't stranded for hours and hours. Lets hope the shop is reasonable. Jason Before I just replaced the axle I would take it to a commercial Trailer Axle shop and see if they can diagnose what caused this. Otherwise it may just be repeated. Ten years is NOT old for those steel components. And I am not sure if you are talking about the AXLE or the SPINDLE. This makes a big difference. There could be underlying problems that you need to find and fix. Or it could be just a very hard shock to the suspension. But a shock of that magnitude you would have known about for sure.724Views0likes0CommentsRe: Closing posts vs Addressing the Problems
toedtoes wrote: You indicate that you are just "posing a rhetorical question and an idea". Why bother? If they are just rhetorical and not in need of any responses or feedback, then why post them on a forum? It seems you end up with a lot of frustration having to defend these questions and ideas that you don't want answers to anyway. Why is it wrong to pose a question? Why is it wrong to have an idea and share it? What is wrong with a dialog about that idea? And when did you become the arbiter of what can, should or should not be posted on this forum? I experience a lot of laughter and some head shaking moments when I read some of the responses and how they completely miss the point. I also have moments of incredulity at how worked up you and a few others get every time I post something. But of all the emotions this activity brings frustrations is seldom one of them...unless I am using the spell checker which is about on a 5th grade level.:)0Views0likes0CommentsRe: How Many Miles
joe b. wrote: From the Bellingham Washington area to the Fairbanks area is roughly 50 hours driving time. You, as the driver gets to decide how many days to spread that over. The RV segment of the Alaska tourist industry is actually quite small. Most visitors arrive by ship or commercial air travel. Very few of the summer workers are Alaska residents, but are up from the Lower 48 to work for the summer, and then return home. (Most are full of advice, some of which is correct, LOL) the tourist market have a much smaller impact on Alaska, than many think. The cruise ships and Airlines headquarter in places like Seattle, Portland or Vancouver, etc. very little of that money ever makes it to Alaska. Many of the outside tour companies own hotels in Alaska, staffed but out of state employees. Most Alaska residents can't afford to quit their full year job to take a seasonal job that probably is paying minimum wages. Out of the 2 million visitors in 2015 only half came by ship. There are approximately 27 different ships making hundreds of port calls within Alaska, and those folks and the others (all 2 million visitors) spent over 2 BILLION dollars and created 47,000 Alaskan jobs. (Data from CLIA) Now those ships all pay Port taxes, landing fees, docking fees, buy Bunker oil, re-provision and on their days off the crews go and spend money too and on and on. Spending millions that go to taxes alone for the state to say nothing of the businesses that profit. Those 2 million visitors will spend much of their money in restaurants, Flight seeing trips, Boat trips, raft trips, trips through Denali, and on more souvenirs than anyone could count. and this is just scratching the surface. A good share of their time in Alaska is on ground portions of their tours..not on the ships. The truth is vast amounts of that money stay in Alaska and fuel it's economic growth and health. Take for example just transporting these tourists around Alaska requires hundreds of buses which mean full time all year jobs for mechanics, logistics people and so on. This is just one small example. Many many Alaskans make a full time living in the tourist industry and many more depend on the seasonal influx of tourists and dollars. and I think they would disagree with the post by joe b. The quoted post above is just a bit too simplistic in it's viewpoint.585Views0likes0CommentsRe: Need Oregon Help for Big Rig
Good luck with your new trailer. Contrary to what most people think and I am sure you know this already having a 36 footer is that in most ways the longer the trailer the easier it pulls. Anyway my take on the RV park problem is that any place that can take a 40 foot motorhome will likely be ok for you. Since you have two pivot points your turning radius is actually less than that MH. My guess is that you probably have a very long rear overhang and as you undoubtedly know this can get a person in trouble if not watched carefully as you turn... Have a good trip.390Views0likes0CommentsRe: Spun motor home on I5
happycamper002 wrote: fulltimedaniel wrote: I grew up nearly at the foot of the Grapevine in San Bernardino where I accompanied my father over the original road in 1960's era tractor trailers. I have driven it many times in my life. The freeway version is nothing compared to what it used to be. And none of that changes the correct procedure for dealing with an emergency like described by the OP. You mean Ventura County. San Bernardino is a good 80 miles to the east while Ventura County to the west borders the Angeles National Forest which makes it at the foothills of the natural preserve. To get to San Bernardino you have to traverse the Mojave Desert from where Grapevine is. . . past the former space shuttle landing pad. Actually I meant what I wrote. There are many folks here who have no idea of the geography of that area there is no reason to bore them with the details. It's close enough to say "nearly" at the foot....336Views0likes0Comments
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