At Home

 Well, we have been home for just over two weeks now. We have been fairly busy getting the Montana unloaded and in to the dealer, Bluenose RV, for a bunch of little things that can occur after 25000km of driving across the country. We told them not to hurry and do it right! The rig is still there and I have to go in tomorrow and add a couple more things to the list that have to be done.
We got the truck cleaned up, finally. It took a couple of days to get four months of bugs and tar removed. Quick washes throughout the trip got road grime and mud off, but the tar and bugs needed some special attention and a lot of elbow grease. I think I might have a bit of transmission problems with the truck. It seems to shudder a bit on downshifts. Noticed it in the last three days of our trip. Talked to another Ford owner, actually an oil pipeline contractor from Alberta, who has 27 Ford trucks. He says the transmission shudder is in all of them and Ford can’t find the solution. He also said that it does not seem to get any worse, just annoying! However, I don’t like annoying and am going to chase Ford on this one. The tranny fluid has a slight smell of burnt brown sugar but seems to be the proper pink color. I’ll go back to the dealer and if nothing comes out of that I’ll go to a commercial transmission shop and see what they say. Sure would like to get it solved before we head south this winter.
Our going south plans are progressing, but slowly. Too many options out there which seem to complicate planning. We are loosely setting a departure date for late in Dec. or early Jan. Broad plans will have us going directly south, down I81 to Cajun country and then west through Texas towards Arizona. The number and lengths of stops in between will vary. What we are doing is looking for that special spot that we can consider calling home for 5 months each winter. There is a lot down there to look at.
For those of you who might be interested in what it costs to make a trip like we did this summer, my dedicated navigator, accountant and money manager came up with the following numbers.
To keep these numbers in context, here are some of the factors. Our total combined weight (truck & trailer) was 21,750 lbs. Total mileage driven was 25,135 km and our fuel consumption averaged 24.4L/100km or 11.6mpg. My driving speed on good highways was between 90 and 100kph and probably averaged out at 95kph. It was much slower on secondary roads, rough roads (of which there were plenty), long mountain uphill grades etc.
We also cook almost all our own meals. In fact I think we only ate out three times during the whole trip.
We were gone for 124 days and stayed in 54 RV Parks. Two months and one week of this time was spent in Alberta, BC, the Yukon and the North West Territories.
Our costs have broken down like this.
Food (includes cleaning supplies & toiletries) $16.67/day
Campgrounds $27.71/day
Diesel Fuel $49.82/day
Misc. (Truck & Trailer Maintenance, eating out
Wine & spirits, museum admissions and anything
else that is not included in the above.) $34.25/day


We could have reduced our costs somewhat if we had spent at least one night a week at Wal-Mart or Truck Stop parking lots at no charge, as well as no services. We always planned to do this but never did.
This is all for now. We will post occasionally to keep you up to date on our winter travel plans.
Quote of the day: I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult.
  - E. B. White

P & N

On to Nova Scotia.

We left Renfrew early on a Sunday morning planning to get as far as Quebec City by the end of the day. This leg of our travels is more of a transit stage, as we have driven this route from the Ottawa area to Nova Scotia many times. We also wanted to try to by-pass as much of Montreal as was possible to avoid the constant traffic jams and continuous road construction work.
The drive down through Ottawa was easy with minimal traffic, although the traffic levels increased considerably going through Ottawa. Everyone was in a hurry at 9:30 AM Sunday morning. There were a lot of people either rushing to church (which I doubt) or a lot of people who thought they were important or what they were doing was important (which is possible when you look at the number of politicians and their staff that live in this area).
We drove along the Ottawa River on old route 17 to Hawkesbury and crossed the river into Quebec. Our plan was to travel route 50 to 15, then south to 640, east to 40 and then on to Quebec City on 40. Things went smoothly until we hit the junction of 15 and 640. Last year when we travelled this route, this junction was under construction, and it still is this year. Not a lot has changed. Traffic was bumper to bumper and there were six police cruisers with cars pulled over in a 1 km stretch. It appears they were really enforcing the 50 kph construction speed limits, which was great. However, where they had cars pulled over it narrowed down the traffic lanes and further slowed things down. We eventually reached route 40 and the traffic eventually thinned out.
DW then suggested that we cross the St Lawrence River at Trois-Rivieres and link up to route 20 east. We had never crossed here before so it would be a bit of new road for us until we got on 20. Route 20 was it's usual self. Lots of traffic, mainly transport trucks, and lots of construction which we were able to get past quickly as no one was working at the sites.
We finally reached Levis and pulled into a KOA campground, just off route 20 and settled in for the night. This is a nice spot with full service, clean and modern. Great place to stay if you want to tour "Old Town" Quebec City. They have a shuttle service to the Old Town which means you can leave you vehicle at the campsite and not have to worry about where to find a parking space in the city. The other advantage is that you can visit as many wine bars and bistros as want and not have to worry about driving back intoxicated. The only requirement is that you have to remember where the shuttle is going to pick you up and what time the last run is! We plan on doing this on our next trip up through this area.
We left the next morning and continued east on 20 until we got to Riviere-du-Loup and then headed south to New Brunswick. The drive through the rest of Quebec and into NB was colorful with the trees in full fall colors. Once into NB we drove down the St. John River as far as a RV Park in Gagetown. We have stayed here before and it is now under new ownership and is called Coy Lake Camping. A lot of changes have been made and this park is slowly being improved. They still have a lot of work to do to make their sites comfortable for big rigs.
We left on Tuesday morning for the short drive to Amherst NS where we were stopping next. We arrived in Amherst around noon, got set up at Loch Lomond Campground in Nappan and then spent the rest of the day visiting relatives.
We got a later than usual start on Wednesday morning but knew we only had a short day's drive to Lunenburg NS. This was our last official day of travel for this trip and we were both a little sad that this one was over. On the flip side, we were happy to know that we would be spending time with old friends and family for a few months until we leave again, probably around Christmas time when we plan to head south to warmer climes. We will be posting occasionally over the next few weeks keeping everyone updated on our future plans. We regret that there are no photos in this post but there is a new album posted called fall colors in Ontario. Not many photos, but beautiful color.