We awoke on Saturday morning anxious to see if our Do-It-Yourself tire repair held… and it appeared that it did!  We only lost one or two psi through the night and the tire still looked round and ready to go.  So… we got the spare back in its place and decided to head back to town to see if we could find ourselves a new tire-iron (aka breaker-bar) for the truck.  We got sidetracked yet again on the way back towards Glenallen, where were hoping would have our tool, by a roadside veggie stand and a “Native Crafts” sign.  We spent the next hour or so shopping and talking to the native lady who ran the place and got some good information on who might have our tool… namely, Wegners General Store just down the road… “If they don’t have it, they will know who does”. 

Wegners General Store is just what you would picture a typical country store to be in a place like this… a rugged, not-so-forgiving, cold-a lot, self-relying place.  Bales of hay and bags of animal feed were stacked out front.  You walk in the front door to the makings of a hardware store, 3 aisles worth, with the typical trimmings.  But look at the next 3 aisles to the right and lo and behold, there’s the grocery store!  All the basics that you might need are right there.  Then, as you are perusing the chips and dips, you look up and see the automotive department, complete with hoses, belts and filters.  And, just to be sure you remember you are in Alaska, in the back aisle is where they have the wolf pelts hanging for your winter craft days. 

We spoke with the owner and asked him about our needed tool.  After a little thought and some checking in with an employee, he decided he didn’t have one.  We walked outside as he made suggestions to us about where else we could look.  As we took notes, a guy approached us from his truck and asked what we were in need of.  We told him about the breaker bar and he said he had a tire-iron in his truck and that we could take one with us if we wanted… with the caveat of “If you guys happen to come back by this way then you can give it back.”  We thanked him for his offer but explained that a typical tire-iron wouldn’t work.  He said he had something that would work at the house and we could follow him there. We thanked Mr. Wegner and told him we were going to follow the other guy back to his place.  Mr. Wegner smiled and just said, “Now that will be an adventure.”  Well, why not, we are always up for an adventure.  About 2 miles down the road we made a right on a dirt road and followed him about a mile back.  We came upon a “typical” Alaskan home… which would fit right in back in Clifton!  Everything around was in some varying state of construction or decomposition.  2 houses in mid-build, cars and trucks either being repaired or dismantled (the latter probably supplying the former), supplies and tools spread around, blue tarps and corrugated steel sheets covering the important stuff.  We introduced ourselves and thanked Jimmy for the help. 

Jimmy is someone I think you all would like.  He used to be a freestyle climber in Boulder, Colorado in the early 80’s and then decided he had survived enough falls and moved to Alaska.   He is about Jim’s build, around 50 with a full, mountain-man style beard, a firm but gentle handshake, wearing worn and torn Carharts and sensible shoes.  He immediately went to one of the resident cars and grabbed two tire-irons off of its trunk.  Even before I could try them out to see if one of them would work, he had gone to his shed and brought out a box of sockets, rods and irons.  We evaluated the situation and decided nothing so far was going to work.  So, as I returned that box back to the shed, Jimmy found a ½” anchor bolt for concrete… you know… the type that has threads on one end and a 90-degree bend at the other so you can set it in new concrete and anchor your new building to it… you know.  Now we have an anchor bolt, I have a 1/2'” deep-well socket for the lugs so all we need is the breaker bar.  Jimmy thought we could grind the anchor bolt down so it would fit into the socket and then we could use another piece of pipe as a leverage bar.  So he grabs his angle grinder and fires up his generator.  I put on my safety glasses and hold the anchor bolt in place.  He grinds away and we finally get the round bolt to fit a square hole and give it a try. 

Round about this time, Jimmy’s wife, Sharon, pulls up with their 4 dogs and Susan introduces herself.  We are all over at the truck anxiously awaiting the results of Jim & Jimmy’s experiment.  Jim puts the socket on the newly grounded bolt and slides an extension bar onto the other end of the bolt.  He puts the socket onto the lug nut and gives it a good crank to get things loose.  Well, let’s just say it didn’t work out like we had hoped as the modified anchor bolt was too soft and just twisted.  It made this really neat design but didn’t do a thing for loosening the lug nut.  Jimmy, being the upbeat kind of guy just happy to be able to be out here helping us out while he drinks his “Hamm’s” beer (I didn’t even know they still made that!), didn’t look fazed by our setback at all.  He just looked around and said, “What can we try next?” About this time Sharon asked us what we needed and Jimmy explained it to her, what we really need is a ½” breaker bar.  She disappeared into her Jeep for a moment and returned with, ready for this, a ½” breaker bar, the EXACT thing we had been looking for in the first place, and asked Jimmy if this is what we were looking for.  We all had a good little laugh at that point and Jim tried out the bar on the lugs.  We had everything we needed now and asked them what we could give them for it all.  Their response was, “Nothing.  This is how we do it here.  Consider it your gift from Alaska.  You look like the kind of  folks that would do the same for someone else”  Then, they gave us their phone numbers in case we ran into any other trouble along the way.  Jimmy said he had seen us camping the night before as it turns out that they were both on the McCarthy Road where we got the flat.  They were in different vehicles but both said they thought about stopping and checking in on us but didn’t.  Now, after putting it all together, they got kind of upset with themselves for not stopping and helping us at that point.  We assured them we were just fine that night and REALLY appreciated what they were doing for us right now. 

We asked if they often went up to McCarthy and Sharon laughingly said, “No.”  What they were doing was one of their favorite activities, dropping really big rocks of the Kushkulana Bridge.  “No Stopping on The Bridge”, we do it anyway, said Sharon.  Jimmy chimed in that there was this one huge boulder sticking out of the river they would try to hit.  Quite a challenge it seems, but the rock you choose to throw makes a big difference, hence their driving back on forth on the road looking for just the right rock!  Jimmy has an older Toyota pickup with a wooden flatbed, perfect for backing into a bank along the road and rolling a rock onto it.  He then pulls close to the edge of the bridge and they roll it off and down into the river (525’) below.  You make your fun where you can in rural Alaska J

We left Jimmy and Sharon with a little Cherry Pie Liquor from The Annex and with a very thankful hearts headed back out their driveway.  This is such a perfect example of how things work out in ways that you never expect if you just let them.  How does that go?... “Sometimes you get shown the Light, in the Strangest of Places, if you look at it Right.”