Getting Leaks Fixed

We drove yesterday into Premier Coach in Anchorage to have the hose under our fuel tank replaced. They are the garage for a tour bus line but they do outside service work. They had been recommended to us by a driver on one of the tour buses. They don't start work until noon as most of the work on the tour buses comes in late in the day. They were ready to start on our bus shortly after noon. They looked things over carefully and agreed with our assessment of the source of the leak and what needed to be done to repair it. All went reasonably well but it was time consuming draining and filling the tanks and they had to get hoses made up after they had the old ones off (we agreed that all four should be changed not just the leaky one), so it was approaching 6 o'clock when it was done.

We drove around and did a bit of shopping and familiarized ourselves a bit with Anchorage while we waited.

We had talked with the service manager about a leak in our coach air system that we recently noticed when we applied our air powered door lock on the road. It is so bad that we were afraid to use the lock even though our compressor could keep up with the leak. We were able to show approximately where the leak was coming from. They had identified that a hose needed to be replaced, but said that it was too late in the day to get one. The hose is from the auxiliary air tank and would affect operation of the windshield wipers as well, so it seemed important to get it fixed. So we agreed to come back in tomorrow. They don't allow anyone to stay overnight in their lot but said that others have stayed on a quiet dead end street between the garage area and a city park. So we stayed there.

Parking on the street turned out to be surprisingly quiet and pleasant with the possible distractions of a nearby airport, major thoroughfare and the tour bus facility itself. Dennis took Roxie and walked over to the park that evening and watched a few innings of a slow pitch softball game. Haven't done that for a long time.

We had visitors the next morning. It turns out that the Anchorage Police had been called to investigate a couple of homeless individuals living in cars in the area we were in. After talking to them they came by to see us. They asked how long we had been there and we said just overnight and added that we were waiting to have our coach worked on that day and that we planned to leave about noon. They said fine and were pleasant but implied that staying longer would not be welcomed. We had the morning free as we were going to have our air leak repaired in the afternoon. We took the opportunity to visit the Alaska Zoo which is a rather small zoo that specializes in northern wildlife including such things as Polar Bears, Musk Ox, and Dall Sheep.


Just love this guys face



Big Bare Bear Butt:

Profile is much better:
This one is the big pappa bear







Musk Ox




Dall sheep, they are really beautiful





This one says I'm watching you too!!



This is an unusual camel


We brought the coach in and dropped it off for repair to the air hose. It was not a problem but took a bit longer than expected.

It was after 4 when completed. We decided to wait around and have dinner and drive through Anchorage after rush hour. We had investigated staying at Centennial Park in Anchorage as an affordable option in the city but found oddly that the campground had closed for 2 days. So we drove back toward Palmer and ended up staying the night at the same spot along the Matanuska River where we had stayed on June 20. Even though it was a very nice spot we hadn't planned to stay there again but other spots that we considered didn't look as good so we went on.