As Scottish poet Robert Burns noted: “The best-laid plans of mice and men, often go awry”. That was our experience last week.
Betty and I had an enjoyable stay camping at the picturesque Pancake Bay Provincial Park, on the north shore of Lake Superior. When we were preparing to leave, I hit the button to retract our living room slide out, and nothing happened. Oh, oh! We had experienced this same issue during the first leg of our overlandish odyssey, when we were in Dallas, Texas. A mobile rv tech was called, and he wiggled some wires and got us back in business. But when we joined the South Texas
Renegades FMCA group north of Houston, the same problem occurred. As noted in a post from that time, a commercial airline pilot and certified airplane mechanic, Rick, troubleshot our system and identified the likely cause of the failure to retract. He got our slide out in, but advised us to have an rv tech work on it when we arrived at our next destination.
When we got to South Padre Island, we called a mobile rv tech who came to our site to fix the problem. The problem, at that time, was that the slide out failed to NOT work. Yes, that’s a double negative. And it failed to not work every day from then until Pancake Bay, when it didn’t fail to not work. Wow, is that a triple negative, or just a convoluted way of saying it’s
busted? LOL! This time we calledGood Sam Roadside Assistance, being many miles from any populated area, and Darcy, the kind owner of Goulais River Truck & Tractor, got us on the road again. We now have an appointment this week at Hitch House, near Orillia, to have a new slide motor installed.
Just dealing with that issue would have been enough, but NO, there was more! My bbq hose also stopped working, which is a major concern when you love to grill. In this case, Peter and I did the troubleshooting, confirming that both the Weber and the tank were in working order. While checking on-line to see where I could purchase a replacement hose, I found a
review page on the Weber site, which noted that 95% of customers loved their Weber hose. In reply to anyone posting a low rating, Weber listed a 1-800 number to rectify the problem. So I called the 1-800 number, and sure enough, a new, free replacement hose is in the mail to me. (Which is great, except I now have to figure out how to get it from our son’s home, which is our mailing address when we are on the road.)
Also last week, as we were slowly exiting Neys Provincial Park, we discovered
that we had failed to close the upper cupboard where our plates and bowls are kept. The way we found this out was by the horrendous crash behind us, as the Corelle dishes shattered into thousands of pieces on our floor. The sight was most picture-worthy, but in our excitement to clean up the mess before Charlie got into it, we failed to snap any shots. Maybe we could re-create the scene now? Betty says NO!
As previously noted, we began this new leg of our adventure on fresh Michelins, manufactured in March 2018. While we had noticed a slight bounce in our front end between 50 & 60 mph, we put it down to Manitoba’s notoriously bad roads. But when we finally got onto smooth pavement in Ontario, the bounce was still there. I called our
tire store back in Winnipeg, and Rick suggested that one of the wheel weights, used to balance the tires, may have fallen off on the rough roads. So into a Hanover tire shop went our Cruisemaster last week, and it turns out the front tires were mismounted, causing a warped ride. The tires were turned 180 degrees and remounted, and we are back to smoother sailing.
After a wonderful visit with Bill and Heather – Betty’s brother and his wife – Betty and I are now set up in Rondeau Provincial Park on Lake Erie, visiting Betty’s other brother, Jack and his wife Christine, and friends Rick & Penny – a wonderful
surprise addition. (Yes, that’s the 3rdRick this post, a new record! LOL) Our Buena Vista add-a-room is up and performed well for a get-together last night, and our fingers are all crossed that we will avoid further mishaps for the next while, but as Robert Burns reminded us:
“The best laid plans….”
Cheers!
