Thursday, May 29, 2008

An Epic Journey

Our move down to Nova Scotia took a great deal longer than was planned. We went to Cora's for a farewell breakfast on Sunday the 18th of May, then packed up the 2 cars and left around noon.

It was a lovely day for driving - a few clouds, sunny and cool so the cars weren't too warm and I didn't have to run the air-conditioning for our cat (note: I ALWAYS get the cat in my car - I think Wayne thinks I only hear him half as much as he would (due to my deaf ear) when he howls (which he usually does for the first couple of hundred kilometres)). Anyway, the cat was relatively quiet, Montreal was a dream for once, at least for east-bound traffic - 40 west-bound was tied up at a couple of places, and we progressed nicely. A minor shock at Levis where the gas was $1.384/l. Then disappointment as Canada lost to Russia in over-time.

As we drove down #185 from Riviere-du-loup to Edmunston, I noticed a trail of liquid from the van (I was in the Caliber in the rear). I called Wayne on the walkie-talkie and he tested out assorted things - it wasn't brake fluid, it wasn't the steering mechanism and the car did not appear to be overheating. We made it to Edmunston and stopped for the night.

The next morning, Wayne added antifreeze as the level seemed to be down. After only a few kilometres of the hills of New Brunswick, the van began to overheat. We stopped 3 km south of exit 58 on the TransCanada. Now our walkie-talkies may have been useful to talk back and forth but they didn't help us call the CAA. I stayed with the van and Wayne and Tiggs headed off to find a phone - this required driving south until he found a U-turn spot (for official vehicles only mind you) and headed back to exit 58 (St. Leonard) where there are lots of phones and gas pumps but NO mechanics. The CAA said they'd be there in 1/2 hour. Wayne and Tiggs returned to where I was sitting at the side of the road watching red foxes cross the highway. Over an hour later, Wayne and cat drove back to St. Leonard and called again - it turned out the CAA 1-800 number had sent the tow truck to exit 58 on the old TransCanada - now #144 which is close to Woodstock, over 100 km south of where we were. Finally, a truck arrived about 10:00AM and the driver took us to Grand Falls to a Chrysler dealer which of course was closed for the long weekend - the sign said Tuesday's hours commenced at 8:00AM. So we checked into the Best Western at 10:30AM.

Grand Falls themselves are very nice and with the very high level of the Saint John River, the Falls were spectacular. We drove around the rest of town, bought some books in a Shoppers Drug Mart and relaxed. At dinner time, we chose a small pizza/chicken place which turned out to have a fantastic view of the flood waters rushing through a deep gorge - the food was good, so dinner was very pleasant.

Tuesday morning we were at the dealership at 7:40 - it turned out to be a very busy garage with a lot of staff. Fortuitously, one of the 8:00 appointments was canceled so we were taken right away. The problem turned out to be the coolant line to the rear heater was corroded so although we lost a fair amount of coolant, not all of it went so the engine wasn't ruined. The line was replaced as well as the back shocks which were upgraded to deal with the heavy load Wayne had crammed into the car. By 10:30AM, we were back on the road, reaching Lockeport about 7:30 that evening (Tuesday).

I flipped the circuit breakers which we had turned off in the fall, plugged stuff in, put the flannel sheets on the bed etc as Wayne unloaded the cars - rain was predicted overnight and Wednesday. By bedtime, we still had no hot water and in fact, we went 3 days without hot water before we got the hot water tank replaced. Our plumber had moved to Alberta, so we had to find another - we actually found a local "handyman" and he tried assorted things but finally had to replace the tank for us. At least our plumber had set it up to only require a few simple tools to change it. We hoped to talk this "handyman" into finishing the installation of our washer and laundry tub in our new laundry room - but he doesn't work with plastic piping so we'll have to find someone else for that. Sigh!

This year's outside renovation project (new garage doors, new garage window, soffit, fascia, shingles and a cement step outside the back door of the garage) was almost complete when we arrived and it now is done -yeah!

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