The Lost Voyage!?
The following happened over several weeks beginning around October 1st 2016, as best as we can make out from the pictures that have been found.
On or around October 1st 2016 Matt, Jen and Scout hit the road headed south back to the lower 48 states via the Alcan Highway in their 40 ft bus named Roll'n Home. The trip would be a perilous one wrought with snowy roads, closed campgrounds, and freezing temperatures.
Being born & raised in Alaska, they both should have known that leaving Oct 1st was poor planning, but alas their timetable was unavoidable, and they weren't about to spend the winter up there.
If you've been following along you'll know that Matt and Jen have been traveling up to this point without a functioning generator, this can lead to quite the situation when traveling the Alcan after September 15th or so. If you didn't know most of the RV parks along the Alaska Highway shut down around mid September (yes that includes power). We believe because of this they purchased a portable generator in Wasilla AK, in case of emergency. They stayed two nights at a friends house before heading to Tok the next day. It seems they got delayed by a few hours because a short circuit developed which affected the headlights that Matt had to track down.
Records indicate they stayed overnight at the Sourdough RV park in Tok Alaska the day before that park closed for the season.
They stopped at pull off for lunch at Kluane Lake where their dog Scout got to chase birds across the sand bars turns out he isn't faster than the birds.
Later that night they overnighted in the Wal-mart parking lot in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada. This was one of their first tests. As they went to bed that night they turned off all non essential electronics set the propane furnaces for below freezing temperatures.
If you don't know, the Detroit Diesel 8v92 engine does not like to start below about 40 degrees, so with low temps in the mid 20's there was some serious concern. Which is why the bought the portable generator, so if they had to they could turn on the engine block heater. Well it turns out that the 8v92 is such a beast that the block was still warm overnight and it actually started within a few seconds.
Back on the road again things were about to get a bit dicey (with captions!).
As far was we can tell they made it through unscathed, but we're pretty sure that Jen wasn't too happy about the situation. Out of the snow Scout seems happy.
They got lucky in Watson Lake, the power company missed their appointment to turn off the power at the "Downtown RV park" so the hosts let them stay overnight with power.
They dropped out of the mountains at Ft Nelson, Alberta, Canada. There, it was still fall and Triple "G" Hideaway RV Park & Campground was still open with full hookups, which made our travelers breath a bit easier.
After interviews with Jen's Canadian relatives it was determined that the Roll'n Home adventurers stayed 3-4 days at a farm near Grande Prairie AB, to wait out a winter storm. They met with family during the Canadian Thanksgiving holiday, and had a great time visiting and exploring.
Pictures with captions!
After the snow had cleared they hit the road again, according to an anonymous source after sitting for 3 nights in subfreezing weather the old Detroit Diesel did not want to start, they used good 'ole farm engineering (aka loads of starting fluid in the intake) to get her going again.
From this point we mostly have to speculate because photographic evidence seems to be missing, but after tracking down another of Jen's cousins it seems they parked overnight at a casino parking lot in Calgary AB, and had a good dinner out with said cousin.
From there they made it back into the States and stayed at a very nice small RV park called Trails West RV park in Shelby MT for a few days to get re-acclimated to US soil.
Eventually they made it to Oklahoma and spent a few days there, then headed back to Texas where their trail has grown cold...at least for now!
Or until my cousin takes over the investigation.
Here are some additional picture evidence (with captions!) from that fateful trip.
