Camper Capers

Last week I went to a workshop down in Kananaskis, a gorgeous little place in the Rockies. Because I was off to such a wonderful place, I was of course followed down by a crazy lady who brought four kids along for the ride, never mind the 8 hours or so that it takes to drive there.

By coincidence, we’d also been advised that the camper trailer would be available for collection in Edmonton (just in time for the snow of course) so we planned on picking it up on the way back to Fort Mac.

That was planned for Saturday. So after a couple of drinks with the McColls in Calgary Friday night, we retreated to our hotel and then planned our get away for Saturday. There were a few things on the agenda: Get to Ikea to buy a desk for the basement, get to Costco to bankrupt ourselves and of course get to Morinville to pick up the camper. All of this after the drive from Calgary to Edmonton.

There were some tricky logistics involved. Ikea is on the south side of Edmonton, Costco on the North and the RV place 20 minutes north of that. The biggest hassle was that we really needed the camper first so that we had somewhere to put the desk so that we could transport it. Especially because when we set off from Calgary, the wind was gusting in excess of 100km/hr, giving some of those nice big buses a good 5 degree list as they drove up the highway, shifting sideways a foot or so before being jerked back on course. It was great fun.

We finally came up with a plan at Ikea. They didn’t close until 9pm that night, so we ordered the desk that we wanted, then I dropped Caroline and the kids at Costco and went to get the Camper.

Other than the outrageous cost of the camper repair, all went well and I met them back at Costco where we had to put the camper up enough to squeeze in some of the shopping.

Now at about this time, Old Man Winter decided that it was time to give Dave a reminder of just what it was that he was in for and perhaps a little warning. Because as I made my way around the camper, stuffing stuff in it and trying to get it all back down where it was supposed to be (tricky with a chair in the wrong spot apparently) those 100km/hr wind gusts continued. And as if that ‘Old Man’, bastard that he is decided to have a little chuckle and add a little snow into the mix. And the joy of 100km/hr winds mixed with snow is that it means that it comes at you horizontally, right into your ear hole. So it was no surprise that just as I was finishing, I noticed that the bars that keep the slide out in the right place weren’t where they were supposed to be, so that meant another 10 minutes in the lovely fall weather. At least it stopped snowing.

But I survived and we got under way, went all the way back to Ikea on the other side of town, loaded the desk, grabbed some dinner and set off for Fort McMurray, wind be damned.

It was going to be a late night. Petrol consumption was high (though I did get a shock when I got a complete tank of gas for about $80! Can you remember the last time you got petrol fro 94c per litre?) and it was a bastard of a drive with the wind playing havoc. I was glad that it was just a tent trailer behind me and not a full sized caravan.

I’d had two real bastard drives up highway 63 prior to this one ... once due to heavy rain and the other because of a bloody blizzard that blew through. This one rated right up there with those bastard drives.

And because I’ve bothered writing this much, you know there’s something coming, don’t you? Well yes there is. We were around the half way mark from Edmonton, some 200km short of Fort Mac (which is the start of a 200km, stretch with no services) when something didn’t quite feel right with the car. I slowed down, concerned, but with the way that the wind had been moving the camper around, throwing us sideways, I’d been fighting it all the way and it didn’t really feel any different. So we continued on.

It wasn’t much further though until once again, things didn’t quite feel right. This time I decided that I really should stop and take a look. We weren’t in a great spot. I couldn’t get right off the road and we weren’t that far from the end of a bend ... far from the right place to be stopping. And when I got out and surveyed the trailer, my stomach lurched.

It wasn’t just that we had a flat tyre. It was the fact that we had NO tyre. In fact, not only did we have no tyre, the rim had collapsed as well. It was four letter worded.

Post traumatic analysis tells me that the first time I felt something, the tyre had blown and because the wind was so bad, the fact that I was then driving on the rim didn’t really register ... not until it collapsed and we were rolling on the drum.

At this point in time it was 11:30 pm (strangely reminiscent of the time of night at which i found out that it wasn’t going to go up prior to repair). And we were stranded. We were only 1km from the last point of contact with civilisation that we’d passed and we were 200kms from getting to real civilisation (haha, I just called Fort McMurray real civilisation, how funny am I?) Oh and it was at this point that having jacked up the camper, I realised that although the brace from the car would remove the nuts from the spare tyre, it was the wrong size to get the dead rim off. Oh shit.

Our options were limited: Call the CAA, turn around and drag the bugger back to Wandering River (1km back) or advance to a point where we could abandon the trailer and hope for the best). We called the CAA to discover that we weren’t covered for the trailer and so then faced calling a contract from a hundred k’s away at $250 (if they’d come) or some sort of abandonment.

We moved up the road to where there was an entrance to what we thought was a gas plant so that we could at least get far enough off the road to be a bit safer from the traffic. That was when we realised that we weren’t at the entrance to a gas plant, but to the very last farm house before Fort McMurray. And the lights were on.

So feeling like a depraved character from a b-grade horror movie, I walked up to this middle of the nowhere farm house, wheel brace in my hand to knock on the door. A woman walked out and spotted me and I received an appropriate, extremely cautious look as she went back in the direction that she’d come from. That was when a rather large guy in his boxers came to the door.

All I’d hoped for was a socket that would fit the nut. But he offered to pull on some clothes and bring his truck down for a look. I met him back down at the camper and we attempted to get the rim off, but it was free-wheeling and we couldn’t get enough purchase to turn the nuts. So up to the workshop we went, loaded up the compressor, pulled out the impact wrench and back to the camper. The rim was off in moments. That was when we could see the wire from the tyre that had managed to wrap itself in around the brake drum. That left us in a quandary ... to take it further and risk not getting to Fort Mac (and with no spare) or to abandon it.

At that point, Tim (the farmer) offered to allow us to leave the camper behind and have his brother (who happens to be a heavy vehicle mechanic) take a look at it in the morning. We opted for option, “Sent by an Angel” and took off for Fort McMurray, sans camper.

We did finally get home at about 3am (despite the old man’s attempts, throwing snow and wind at us the entire way).

When I got up at 11am the next day, I called Tim to find out if there was anything that I would need to bring from Fort McMurray to assist. I was informed that it was all fixed. His brother had had it off, checked it out, made a minor repair to the brake and it was waiting for me to come and get it.

So after searching in town for a new rim and tyre, I went for a casual 2 hour drive to get it and tried to give his brother some money for what he’d done (I’d dropped some bills in Tim’s hand the night before). Barry adamantly refused to take my money with a ‘pay it forward’ Karma based attitude ... “some day i’ll be stuck out there and looking for someone to help me,” he simply said.

Another casual 2 hour drive back the other way and both I and the camper were home again.

And so that’s where I pondered what to call this one ... “Why Dave should buy a tent ...”? or “Blessed or Cursed?” Because I have to wonder if the camper and I should never be together, but we were truly incredibly blessed in terms of the location in which this occurred and the assistance that we received.

All I can say is that we’ve been looked after.

At the Cinema

We went down to Edmonton for the long weekend that just passed (Thanksgiving) with a couple of things on the agenda. First was to get some of our warm stuff (like my winter boots) from the camper (yes, it’s still down there) before it’s too late. There was also the fact that young Thomas had an excessive amount of money burning a hole in his pocket from his birthday, which meant Toys ‘r Us was unavoidable.

There was a potential trip to Costco – wholesale warehouse, where you buy your washing powder in containers big enough for boat people to swap continents and your candy in quantities to employ an army of dentists.

And of course there was the fact that we were staying with the Duells and thus a thanksgiving dinner was in order.

Oh, and perhaps a bit of shopping – after all, one can’t escape Fort Mac and not do a little shopping.

We got away Friday night without drama (always nice) and collapsed in St Albert around 11:30pm with the only disaster being that the DVD player decided not to work in the car on the way there and the only near disaster being a random elk that decided to wander across the road and cause me to go from 100 to 10km/hr in a short space of time. The next day we went to the RV repair shop, retrieved our stuff (and drooled over a few new Jayco vans) before continuing down into Edmonton.

After surviving Toys R Us, (if Thomas walking out with a nerf gun almost as big as he is is surviving) where we met up with Bob and Nancy and their girls for the Costco extravaganza. I must say that the control exercised by Caroline and I was quite remarkable and probably assisted most by the fact that we knew there was bugger all room left in the car after clearing out the camper trailer.

Part of the plan for Sunday had been to send Caroline off shopping whilst I took the four kids to the movies, but by the time that we got around to the movie bit, Caroline decided that she didn’t really want to do anymore shopping and so she’d go to the movies as well.

I think that the last movie that I saw in the cinema was Return of the King. Yes, the third installment of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. It’s been that long. So imagine just how much I’d enjoyed going through the now screening list to find a movie that all four of our children would sit through and at least enjoy a little. Think about how excited I was when the result of the search was, “Beverly Hills Chihuahua.”

But of course with Caroline going as well, Michael quickly seized on the concept of one parent going with him to see something he wanted to see and the other taking everyone else (or at least those that preferred) to see the dog movie. There was the briefest glimmer of hope that I wouldn’t have to be that second parent when Michael was quite firm on wanting to be accompanied by Daddy to the movie. Sadly, so were the other three. And of course majority ruled and I got to see the dog movie.

The funny thing is that when I was taking four of them, I was quite resigned to the fact that I was going to see it. But with an alternate option, a glimmer of hope emerged. A glimmer was quickly smashed against the rocks, reason dispersing it to the furthest reaches of the universe and dog movie it was.

Did I enjoy my first trip back to the cinema. Well, it wasn’t as bad as getting a needle stuck in my eye, but the fact that I had to pay so much to watch that movie …ouch. Now I remember why I love DVD’s and a home projector so much.

After the movie it was time for Thanksgiving dinner. Which in true Aussie style, meant a BBQ and good red wine. But then, thanksgiving isn’t really about turkey anymore than Christmas is (apparently) so we were lucky to get to share it with friends from home and to have escaped Fort Mac for the day. I’ll tell you about the harvest festival in a whole other tirade.

Third Eight

So it would be wrong of me to let such an occasion pass unmentioned, even if I do happened to be five days late or so. Yes, on the 2nd of October, Thomas turned 8. And, although at risk of saying this upon the occasion of every birthday from this point on … “I can’t believe my little man is 8!:”

So how is Thomas at 8? He’s still a delight. He still struggles with his speech at times, but it doesn’t seem to be holding him back too much. Its mainly when he decides to go off on a whine that he tends to become les decipherable.

There were moments late in the last school year where we thought that the school was going to recommend that he stay back a year to ensure that his reading and hence his writing was up to scratch. We resisted on the basis that he’ll be spending 18 months in what ever school year he ends up returning to school in.

He’s reading has certainly come a long way … I don’t get the opportunity to compare him to his peers, but within himself he’s improved a long long way. His writing I can’t say quite the same for, but we’ll persevere and I’m sure that with effort he’ll get there. He is certainly showing an aptitude for math similar to his older brothers.

He retains his wicked sense of humour and is often smiling, wanting to keep up with the two older boys and at his most frustrated when he finds himself excluded.

He has an Aussie friend Harry over here that he has a lot of fun with, they’re both into starwars in a big way and share other interests as well. He’s playing ringette again this year, in Emily’s team, but sadly not Harry’s. That was almost enough for the commitment to the team to be over before the season began, but I think after scoring a couple of goals and realizing that he’ll be one of the power players on the team that he might start to change his mind.

One of the nicest things that can be said about Thomas at the point in his life is the bond he seems to have formed with Harry’s youngest sister, Bridget; who’s all of 2 and a half years old. If we happen to be sitting down and having a couple of drinks, Bridget is quite happy to go and plonk herself in his lap and he’s quite happy to have her there. It’s very cute.