One Man's Alaska

Waiting for new tires in Dease Lake, British Columbia

March 23, 2010

Another two inches of snow here in Dease Lake, British Columbia this morning, even though none was predicted. It may still be snowing now, but it's hard to tell because the wind is blowing, and what I'm seeing may just be blown snow.

The insanity of being "stranded" in a small motel room in a small, remote town is beginning to set in today. On one hand I don't feel like talking to anyone, while on the other hand I'm anxiously waiting to hear if the "winter tires" I ordered through the local car repair man have come in yet. They are supposed to arrive some time today. It's noon now, so they clearly won't be here until this afternoon, lol.

I just went outside to clean the snow off my car and warm it up a little bit, so I can get over to the repair shop just as soon as I get the call. Honestly, I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that the right tires come in, and that the repairman will be able to put the new tires on my car asap.

As for my old "summer tires" (as they call them here), they are a lost cause, and I'll leave them with the repairman. I was going to replace them when I got to Alaska anyway, so that's not a big deal, but paying over $1,000 for these winter tires just to get through Canada is kind of a big deal. The current plan is to keep the RAV4 as long as possible, so hopefully these tires will come in handy again next winter.

Lesson learned: When the people in Stewart warned me that I should get winter tires, I should have taken them much more seriously, though in my defense, I hadn't seen any snow on the ground at that point, except for the fresh snow the morning I didn't leave Stewart. I don't know that I could have gotten the tires in Stewart immediately, but I would rather have stayed there than be here (no offense to Dease Lake intended, but there are more things to do in Stewart), and I really liked the mechanic at the Petro Canada in Stewart. Had I done that, I believe I'd already be in Alaska by now.

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