Sproing

The weekend just passed was a long weekend (Labour Day) and so we decided that whilst the weather was still somewhat passable, we’d take the opportunity to snap the camper on the back of the car and take off for a couple of nights.

We opted for Jasper because although it’s a long drive (let’s face it, everything worthwhile is from here) it’s in the Rockies and worth visiting every now and then. Friday night, I rushed home from work ready to put the camper down and get underway. In the process of putting the camper down, I thought to myself, “don’t forget the little safety lock that you put on to show Dad when he was here.”

Of course, I promptly forgot. That wasn’t a big drama, it just involved winding it back up to undo it. That’s where things didn’t quite go according to plan. You see the place where this lock was is on the opposite side of the camper and so as I wound it up, I was unable to see that part of the safety lock managed to hook one of the pulleys for the lifting mechanism. It wasn’t until I went back around there to release it that I found this out of course. And by that time, it had not only caught, but bent the lifting arm. It didn’t look good, but I did manage to get the camper back down again.

Then we took off on holidays, and found the rain. We had planned to stop the night in Athabasca, but when we got there, there was sufficient rain that the prospect of standing in it and trying to get the camper up without all the bedding becoming sodden was a little more than we cared for. So we drove on, hoping to find the other side of the storm, watching as lightning lit the sky all around us.

The rain stopped and it seemed that things were taking a turn for the better when we found a lovely little camp site to stop at. We detached the camper from the car, put all the jacks down so that it was close to level and then started to wind the camper up.

Somewhere in this process was where I heard it, “Sproing” and at that point noted that not all of the camper was winding up. At that point, just a little despair set in as I figured that I had managed to snap one of the lifting mechanism’s cables. At 11pm on the Friday night of a long weekend, several hundred kilometers from anywhere likely to be able to help us.

I swore a bit. Caroline was a trooper. I swore some more.

We hitched the camper back on and started driving on towards Edmonton where we were likely to be able to get help.

As we drove through Morrinson, we saw a sign – RV CITY – BODY SHOP. We checked the door. It appeared that they’d be open in the morning. One could only hope that they’d be able to help with the cable.

We drove on to St Albert and found some room in a motel before driving back to Morrison in the morning. At the first mention of ‘Tent Trailer’ and ‘Cable’ I believe the response was, “oh, that’s gonna be ugly.” Fantastic, what a perfect start to a conversation.

The first impression I got was that we were about to run into some ‘typical’ Albertan customer service when the woman basically responded that there was no way that they’d be able to help (though I think she was really referring to their ability to fix it on that day). Being somewhat desperate though, we hung around and suggested that maybe we should be heading further into Edmonton to their competition. About that point we started to talk to one of their technicians who turned out to be about as helpful as someone could be under the circumstances.

It took about 4 blokes to assist in lifting the roof to a point where it could be propped up sufficiently so that we could get in and retrieve our stuff and also at that point to see the damage that had actually been done. Turns out that there was no snapped cable .. just a pulley wheel that had come off where it was supposed to be and some significant damage to the lifting arm. Nothing that I was happy to see.

The end result of our inspection was that we needed to leave the camper behind so that they could repair it for us. That meant that we had to cram everything that we’d taken with us in the camper had to be crammed into the car and go with us (and we didn’t even have the luggage pod on top of the car). Not so squeezy? Considering that one of the greatest joys I’d had from our first trip was finally having somewhere to put all of our stuff and being able to remove the pod from the roof of the car, this was just a little disappointing.

So packed to the rafters, squashed back into something a travel mode that though accustomed to, we thought we’d left behind, we were left to travel on and attempt to find some accommodation in Jasper. On that last, good weather long weekend of the year. It turns out that we were unable to find any for the Saturday night and so stopped just outside of the national park in Hinton. We had been hoping to catch up with the McColls around the campfire Saturday night, but with those plans dashed were pleased that we managed to get a room in the same hotel for the Sunday night.

Turns out that the hotel that I’d booked over the phone for Saturday in Hinton had a swimming pool … and a waterslide. That meant for happy happy kids and an enjoyable stay. We went for a drive to some hotsprings (can’t remember the name just now) and although we didn’t partake in the overcrowded bathing, we went for a walk to the source of the springs where Caroline and the kids dipped their feet. I predicted that with kids crossing the creek someone was bound to get wet and was almost proven wrong. Almost, because both Sam and Thomas managed to get one foot dunked in the water on their way back.!

The following day we took off for Maligne Lake and Canyon and met up with Jim, Annie and their kids Emily and Angus for lunch at the Lake. We did the Maligne lake boat tour to the ‘famous’ spirit Island which was fabulous. The weather wasn’t quite postcard perfect, having snowed on us as we got out of the car in the carpark. Yes, that’s right, it snowed on us … in August! But the place was so beautiful that even without the sun’s warming touch, it was a magnificent sight.

Following our visit to the lake and a walk down to the canyon (well worth seeing) we headed back to the hotel where we dined with the McColl and then set about working out how we could manage to have a drink with our kids in separate rooms some 20 metres apart and around a corner.

We settled for sitting in the corridor whilst we had a couple of quick drinks but ran into something of a problem when we exhausted the limited supply that we’d brought with us. A trip to the bar downstairs addressed the immediate shortage and enlightened us to something that we simply wouldn’t have suspected. Hotel deliveries. A quick phone call to one of the local bottle shops and a little later … alcohol delivered to us sitting in the hall. Not a bad night at all in the end.

Monday was just a simply 9 hour drive back to Fort Mac. Oh and we’re still waiting to hear about the bloody camper repairs … one feels that it could be staying South for the winter. I might have to call it The Goose from now on.