I woke up early this morning. I didn’t sleep well at all. It took too long to wind down, and then I had to much on my mind to stay asleep.

We found a business owner who was incredible enough to let us store Tramper and begin cleaning her out. They even loaned us their compressed air hose to help blow stuff out while they were at lunch.

When they looked inside, they asked how on earth we got that much dirt in there. They’ve done the Dempster. They know what it can do. They’ve seen the dust that can be dumped in an RV from the Dempster. They don’t see this much dirt in people’s RV’s.

At the moment, we weren’t sure, but we quickly found what we believe to be the culprit. We had a small level near the entry door. It apparently slid down during the drive, and the door got closed at one time or another yesterday with the level stuck in the door. It bent the door and entryway frame and dirt was literally being sucked into Tramper where the door got bent for 16 hours.

It’s a lot of dirt. Even the items in zipped bags (clothes) and totes with snapped on lids got dirt in them. This is a just a little of the stuff I dumped out of Tramper in order to begin cleaning out a little bit.

There is still a lot of dirt in Tramper even with everything we did today. We still have more to do before we can sleep in Tramper again. It won’t be spotless for sure, but we will not be breathing bad levels of dirt, dust and calcium chloride at least. The door needs to be repaired as well. Mike can do that thankfully.

We also secured a better hotel room for the next two nights. The one we landed at in the wee hours of the morning wasn’t one we cared to stay at for any longer than we had to, but it allowed us time to shower, sleep, and find somewhere else.

We need time to get through this and have a better situation going back down the Dempster Highway to get back to Whitehorse. We also just need to build up some strength. It was only a week ago tomorrow that we were diagnosed with COVID. We’ve been through a bunch since then.

When we get back to Whitehorse, we will decide then what our next step is in the journey. We may have to re-route due to the wildfires in Jasper. We are keeping a very close watch on that.

For now, we are safely in an Inuvik hotel. We are regrouping and will roll again. Oh yeah, we are only around 94 miles from the Arctic Ocean. We are going to leave Tramper here and do this day trip in the truck. We have come too far and overcome entirely too much to stop now.