Troubled Trip

On May 8th, Ed and I left Penticton with Jasper in our RV to visit my Mom in Toronto.

After tens of thousands of miles on the road with our RV, who could have guessed this would be THE trip fraught with problems?

1. Presented itself within 5 minutes of our border crossing into Oroville, Washington. Only 3 of the 4 packages I’d ordered were available at Ship Happens. We picked up the 3 and arranged to have the 4th sent ahead to our next closest border destination in Saulte Ste. Marie Michigan, when and IF it ever arrived.
2. We were alerted to this one by a bus driver while passing through Bozeman, Montana. He indicated that one of our bikes had escaped its tether and was dragging along the ground. Sure enough, upon stopping we saw that the gears, handlebars and saddle on Ed’s bike were completely chewed up. Our estimate of 400 bucks in repairs proved accurate.

   

   

3. The power cord that connects the truck to the RV disconnected enroute.

   

4. Ed’s GPS goes a little nuts at times. So, instead of taking us through Brainerd, ND and the Detroit Lakes area of Wisconsin enroute to the south shore of Lake Superior, it took us almost ALL the way to Minneapolis before heading north again. Note: I am NOT a fan of GPS without maps AND I’m not a fan of arguing the finer points of navigation, so I let this one go and we ended up losing a day on the road and ending up in Hinckley, Wisconsin instead of on the Lake Superior shore.
5. After spending the night at the casino RV park in Hinckley, I noticed a big wet patch underneath the front end of Ed’s Ford 350. He checked the fluid, which appeared to be coolant. Fortunately, we had an Internet connection and were able to make an appointment to see a Ford dealer in Moose Lake the following day. We headed up to Moose Lake State Park, where we spent a brilliant day and got the leak fixed the next.
6. On arrival at Brimley State Park just outside of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, it took Ed and I almost an hour to get the 5th wheel unhooked from the truck. This has been an ongoing issue with the hitch since it was installed back in 2010, but never had it taken so long for us to get the RV unhooked. Despite 3 winters away, Ed prefers to swear about the hitch rather than take it in to have it fixed. Yup, this is the guy who NEVER gets pissed off… swearing blue bloody murder at a hitch that doesn’t work and yet doesn’t do anything about it.

   

7. Jasper had SO much fun running along the beach and into Lake Superior that he sprained his tail. Therefore, when we arrived in Toronto to visit mom and the cousins (one of whom isn’t crazy about dogs), he didn’t appear too friendly, inasmuch as he could not wag his tail.

   

8. I subsequently sprained my arm.
9. We went to pick up the package containing the screen door that had been missing back in Oroville (#1) and it was mangled to the extent that it was useless.
10. Ed’s truck fails at passing expeditiously. Seriously, a Ford 350 even with a 10K pound RV attached should pull out to pass with power to spare. NOT so. Instead, it decides to chug, chug, chug along to the point where it can’t be trusted. (In retrospect, after ANTHER $500 in repairs, it turned out to be bad diesel that we picked up enroute.)

    

11. We hit a BIG bump on the road somewhere along the way. We’ve hit others in the past and have done our best to secure cupboards and drawers to prevent flying dishes. However, this time, the High Country cap covering the slide mechanism simply dropped off its tether. SO grateful that no one happened to be sitting underneath it at the time.
12. The place we stayed at near Toronto (Indian Line campground) was a dump… will blog about that soon.

    

That may have been all the issues, but somehow I doubt it. 🙂