Weyburn, SK
You can still see a bit of smoke in the air. It doesn’t smell anymore though. So we boondocked once again in the Walmart parking lot. Again we had neighbours as you can see from the photo. It was amusing to see the exercise bike come out, the BBQ, the table and chairs. Making themselves right at home. A bit later in the evening, I happened to look outside and saw their dog running down the boulevard, dragging its leash. It wasn’t really a safe street – there was a major highway close by and a train track. Just as I was about to go let them know their dog was loose, one of the owners came out and looked for the dog. I pointed to where it was going. They managed to get the dog back. That is my greatest fear, to loose either the dog or cat. So we thought our batteries were going dead. The solar panel is supposed to charge them while we are driving so that we can use them at night but the inverter panel was telling us that they were at 24%. What the…So we went to bed as soon we couldn’t read our books anymore. We could see that there was an RV dealer just up the road and decided to stop in in the morning and have them check things out for us. Minard RV is a very large dealership and they have a great service department and store. While Don was having the rig’s electrical inspected, I was inspecting another 5th Wheel. It was pretty much the same size as ours but had 3 bump outs. Wow! Nice! Hmmm, the salesman even gave me the trade in value on our rig. Wow was I tempted. I think the only reason I resisted is that it would once again delay us for a couple of days. I am really anxious to get to Newfoundland. Turns out the inverter panel was not reading things properly. Our batteries are fine and our solar panel is working as it should. We just can’t trust the readouts. I guess we will know when the batteries go dead when they don’t turn on anymore. Then we can worry about things. Tonight we are parked at the Arrowhead RV Park in Ile des Chenes, Manitoba. Sure a lot of francophone communities around here. Could almost be...
Read MoreDog River
I was really disappointed that the small town of Roleau didn’t take Corner Gas more to heart. This is what is left of the TV/movie set. There were a couple of other buildings (The Howler) that had remnants of being in the show but not too much else. I looked for a store that might carry t-shirts or some kind of souvenir but there was nothing. It was disappointing. The elevator did say Dog River, though. It really makes me sad to see all these small towns dying. There are so many that just have no life left in them – all the way up north and down south. Sad. ...
Read MoreSouth to North Battleford
We were really tired when we left after listening to barking dogs, people partying and a noisy generator. I had another nice walk along the lakefront with Lucy before we left. I am getting a lot of walking in. We left around 9am and made our way east. It was really smokey. At one point, we took one side road where the pavement was extremely rough and decided to find somewhere to turn around. Thank you Mr. Farmer! Just enough turning room taking up his whole driveway, the road and the dry crossing across the road but we did it. Then we got on a better road to North Battleford. We decided to “boondock” at Walmart and pulled in along the edge of the parking lot. Next thing we knew, a huge motorhome pulled in three feet from us, put out the slides and made themselves at home. Thanks much! The whole parking lot to choose from and they decided we looked safe to park next to. Little did they know Psycho Santa drove this rig! Haha! I tried to take Lucy for a walk along the green area but found a dead gopher and tons of garbage and decided it might not be the best place to walk a little dog. Who knows what killed that gopher. I had really wanted to visit Batoche on the way down and Fort Battleford but we decided to skip them. There was just too much smoke. Our throats were scratchy and Lucy had a sneezing fit. Smoke still there in the morning. I am very disappointed but have seen both before. I am sure I will find something to make up for it. 🙂 I was surprised but Walmart filled up in the evening with rigs of all descriptions, even cars and vans, that stayed overnight. It was really quiet except for our neighbour’s generator. We got solar panels so we wouldn’t have to listen to a noisy generator and it is kind of irksome. Oh well. Too funny to see trucks pulling trailers and boats or cars behind. Even motorhomes pulling travel trailers! Only in Alberta and Saskatchewan. You can see the smoke in the pic with the truck, trailer and boat....
Read MoreLac La Biche, Alberta
We reluctantly left Peace River and are now stopped at Beaver Lake, near Lac La Biche, right almost at lakefront. Lovely spot. It was super smokey and super hot when we arrived and asked for a spot. The attendant said she thought there might be a spot in the overflow and that before driving there, we should walk there and check to make sure we would fit. Hot, hot, hot, long walk. And to top it all off, I had looked at a map and thought I was going in the right direction but couldn’t find the OVF sign that she said would be there. Saw some posts that said OF with a number but didn’t put two and two together that that was the overflow that she was talking about. Walked back. She said, yes, that probably was the overflow and that we could go pick a spot and then come back and register. Off we went, picked our spot and then I walked that hot, hot, hot long walk back to the office. At the door I noticed a sign that said the license number was needed. Great. I didn’t remember it. When she asked, I told her I was NOT going to walk back and get it and come back with it. She took one look at my hot sticky face and said sweetly, that it was ok. Good thing too! We walked Lucy down along the lake when it cooled down. People out playing in the water and fishing from the shore. It was 29 degrees when we arrived but by evening it cooled down a bit. There are actually pelicans that come to visit the northern chain of lakes. The overflow was empty for a while but then company rolled in and put up their tents. Friday night party time. And they did till about 1:30. Mr. across the way with his trailer and kids ran his generator for several hours. Then first thing again in the morning. Nice to listen to! On to North Battleford in the...
Read MoreNewbies no more
Update on our travels. No longer newbies! Oh, my goodness the things we have learned that we did not want to learn! From smoking our brakes going downhill from Pemberton to Lillooet up to the things we learned today! The brake issue was because the brake controller worked on the horizontal and not the vertical, the way it was installed. Once we readjusted it, we haven’t had problems with that anymore and we did do some pretty terrific grades between 100 Mile House and Whitehorse and return. In Fort Nelson, before we left, on my walk around inspection, I noticed that one of the trailer tires was going flat. Great! Fortunately there was a Kal Tire shop there and the tech kindly changed our tire for our new spare that we had bought just for the trip. Our rig came with a spare but we wanted to have two with us and we bought a brand new one for “just in case”. When he was changing that tire, he noticed that the front tires on the rig were not wearing properly and thought perhaps the front axle was bent. He told us we could continue on to Peace River, Alberta, a 7 hour drive away but not to go further and be sure that we had things checked out there. My son lives in Peace River and he recommended Lonetech, a trailer repair service, as the place to have our axle checked out. That tech said that the axle was within tolerances but that we probably had the original 2007 bias ply tires on and that they were separating and we need to get them replaced asap. Great! He referred us to K&L Tire in Grimshaw. They checked the tires and said, yes, we need 4 new ones. The ones we had on probably had been unsafe from the start and should not have been left on the rig when it was sold. Newbies! Huh. They looked ok but we should have had them independently checked. So we bought four new tires. Then when the tech was putting them back on, he, out of habit, let go of the tire when it was sitting on the stud and instead of hanging onto the stud, it fell off. That’s when he saw that the holes in the rim had enlarged. At some point in the rig’s history, someone had not...
Read MoreReturn South
Yes, we stayed at the same RV Park at Watson Lake and when I went into the office to register, the owner was giving the lady in front of me a hard time. She was asking a lot of questions and he just said, Next! I told him that I had stayed before and he didn’t have to tell me anything. He took my payment and off I went. Had another nice walk around Wye Lake and looked again at the sign forest. Very nice. Sunday, June 28th, we stayed overnight at the Triple G RV Park in Fort Nelson. Very well laid out and welcoming. Even shown directly to our spot. While we were setting up, a lady walked by and said, “Santa! and you are not my husband!”. A few minutes later guess who I spotted walking up towards us! Santa, and he was not my husband! What fun! Next morning when we were doing our pretrip walk around, I noticed that one of our trailer tires was going flat. I will do a separate post on...
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