Friendly Manitoba

Noonish or is it already past 1pm? We are sitting at the side of the road, waiting for roadside assistance... thankfully I brought a shade umbrella - and stowed it in the side compartment. Thankfully too we have the cooler bandanas, as it is 32C - hot, hot, hot and hardly a breeze.

Are we really going to drive all day again?

Later in the day - sitting beside the camper at the Kal Tire shop in Steinbeck, Manitoba. This was not one of our scheduled stops, but after a blow-out on the Trans Canada about 10km east of St. Anne (where we stopped for gas and the prairie ended), we have to re-evaluate all of our tires. It seems that the abrupt stop the other day did some major damage on at least two of the tires. Time to replace the rest.

As we were driving down the highway, Carm caught sight of something in his side-mirror. He quickly pulled over so we could take a look. One of the driver side tires was totally shredded, and in the process it took out the hydraulic brake line. Ouch.

The ERS service was good again, but it did take a while to get a tow-truck to us on a Sunday afternoon. The guy (Jason) that did come was totally awesome - he changed the tire in no time flat (thank goodness Carm got that new spare yesterday), and then directed us to the Kal Tire where we are parked now. He got there ahead of us and ran an electrical cord outside for us, cleared a few truck tires from a breezeway, helped Carm put a bit more water in the tank, and helped us back into a covered breezeway. He really could not have been more helpful - and way cheerful to boot.

And speaking of Friendly Manitoban's, almost as soon as the blow-out happened a person from a neighbouring home was out to offer assistance. We chatted for a while and once he was sure the ERS was coming he headed back on his way. Not long after another neighbour dropped by with offers to help. He even left us with his phone number and offers to take us to his house.

what are we doing now?

No one on the Trans Canada stopped though. Perhaps we looked like we had stopped for a picnic with our umbrella and picnic blanket. I suppose we could have had one while we waited, but both of us had lost our appetite.... (for the moment!).

So now we are sitting outside, we've got the carpet out so the dogs don't lay on the dusty cement (good luck with that, Bella and Spike are on the cooler cement), we've got our folding chairs out, and we've had a little snack and a cold beer. There is a nice breeze blowing, making it much cooler to be outside than in. In fact the inside of the trailer is at 92F. It might be a rough sleep with no air conditioning tonight. We have power, but only 15amps, just enough to run some fans and hopefully the coffee maker.

 

So much for Rushing River - for tonight. Hopefully we'll be good to go by noon tomorrow and we'll get there at last.

 

Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.

Rabindranath Tagore

Tire’d

I mentioned earlier that it was a "taking easy" kind of day, and it was... for me. Carm was busy throughout the day taking care of tires.

The ERS (emergency roadside service) tow truck came by this morning around 10:30. It took about an hour to remove the damaged tire and put the spare on. Luckily our spare was a brand new tire of the same make as the rest of our tires.

After the ERS guy left, Carm took the old tire with him to look for a replacement. He couldn't find an exact match, but what he did find should do the trick as a spare if we need it.

By the time he got home and we got everything sorted it was time to walk the dogs and get ready to go out for supper. I had gone onto Trip Advisor to look for restaurant suggestions. In the top 3 was a restaurant called "Hansel & Gretel's schnitzel House". The reviews were good although there were remarks about the decor and music.

The last time we used Trip Advisor for restaurant suggestions it pointed us to the wing & milkshake place in Moose Jaw, and we all know how that turned out (burp), so we felt confident putting our trust in it again.

We weren't disappointed. The building wasn't much to look at, and the decor was kitschy German decor (cute). The music was typical German polkas and beer drinking songs, including some great yodelling numbers. I don't know about you, but I LOVE kitschy decors and crazy music.

 

We ordered the schnitzel patter for 2... 2 armies I think. Everything was delicious, including the pork & chicken schnitzel. The spetzels were great, the veggies were nice, the gravy was tasty. We are FULL, FULL, FULL - and we have enough leftovers in the fridge for a light supper. If we were to pass through again we'd eat there again.

Now we'll just have a quiet evening (we may join our neighbours for a campfire later), and then tomorrow morning we are off to Rushing River Provincial Park just outside of Kenora, about a 4 1/2 hour drive.

I don't know if you remember all the way back to before we left, but we purchased some "cooler bandanas" at the flea market - they have been a god-send in the hot, humid weather we've been having the last few days.

There has been a distinct change in my mood as we’ve traversed the last few hundred miles. The down of having the vacation come to an end has already started… I have to remind myself that we still have a week of vacation/travel time left – don’t waste it in a bad mood...

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.

Melody Beattie

Lazing around and Testing

Today has turned out to be a bit of a rest day- and that's a good thing. I'll post more later, but I wanted to test my blog writing software on my tablet. It has been refusing to post anything with photos. I think I've fixed it, but won't know for sure until this posts