That worked fine for about 30 miles when the motorhome suddenly slowed down, so I pulled off the road thinking the wire had come loose and the engine had stopped. Unfortunately, the engine was running, but the Auto Park light was on which meant it was automatically applying the parking brake. After I realized this, I overpowered the parking brake to pull into a turnoff about 50 yards ahead. Since we did not have cell coverage, we drove about 2 miles north and found an emergency phone where we called a tow truck. It came from Anchorage so the motorhome was towed to Anchorage where we spent the night in front of the the towing company's building.

The picture on the left is the tow truck driver's feet sticking out from under the motorhome as he disconnects the drive shaft so the transmission does not turn. On the right, it is being towed out of the turnout at about 10:00 PM. He had to make a short stop to give a police report and then he continued to Anchorage, arriving about 12:15 AM.

Spence and Madi Schaaf stayed with us until they were sure we were being towed and on our way. They arrived at the Homestead RV Park in Palmer about 12:30 AM. Thanks again to both of them for all their help and support today.

We were not able to make it to Palmer for the city tour or for lunch. However our wagon masters, Phil and Sue Schaaf, were kind enough to buy two take-out lunches for us which they presented to us when we arrived about 3:00 PM

I received pictures of today's activities from Dave Wilson, Rocky McEwan Tom Wentling and Loren Mulkins. They all knew I wasn't there to take pictures, so they made sure I would have enough to put on the website for today.
Thanks very much gentlemen!

Palmer began in 1916 as a railway station on the Matanuska branch of the Alaska Railroad. In 1935, during the Great Depression, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal projects, established the Matanuska Colony. From Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, 203 families traveled by train and ship to reach the fledgling colony, arriving in the summer of 1935. Upon their arrival they were housed in a tent city during their first Alaskan summer. Each family drew lots for 40 acre tracts and their farming adventure began in earnest.

Each family had a standard house built for them as seen from the house and the plans above. Originally designed to be a log house, the logs in the area were too small, so it was redisigned as a frame house.

The failure rate was high, but many of their descendants still live in the area and there are still many operating farms in the Palmer area, including Vanderwheele and Wolverine farms. While the colonists had varying degrees of success with farming, Palmer is the only Alaskan Community that developed from an agricultural lifestyle.

The reason for all this generosity by the government at the time, was the government wanted to build a military base here and under the Alaska purchase agreement we purchased Alaska from Russia, we could not build a base unless there was an established colony first; so the US established a colony so they could build the base.