Manning to Hinton

We left Manning early on Monday morning and drove straight to Grande Prairie, only a three hour drive. Arrived at McGoverns RV and Marine Center service department just outside the city limits. They were the people who repacked our wheel bearings on our way to Yellowknife. After a few moments wait we got to speak to Dale, the Service Manager, and show him our problem. Although he and his technicians were rushed off their feet, it only took another couple of minutes for a technician to come out and start to fix our problem. He was able to use two of the existing screws to fasten the floor of the slide up in place but needed to locate three more screws of the same size. The ones they had in stock were too short. Dale sent one of his staff to Grand Prairie to try and find the necessary screws. After searching the town for two hours he was unable to locate the right size screws and it would take a couple of days to order them in. We opted to go with the temporary repairs and get the job done when we get back home. Dale did not charge us a penny for this fantastic service as he said it was a warranty claim. McGoverns have only been a Keystone RV dealer for a year, but a lot of dealers could learn some very important lessons about customer satisfaction. I can highly recommend this dealer to any RV traveller who is passing through Grand Prairie.
After leaving McGoverns, we drove to the RV park where we were going to stay for the night. Did some running around town for groceries etc.
We headed out the next morning later than usual because we only had a short drive to Grand Cache.  We encountered some of the steepest hills we have had on this trip. The scenery was ok but the driving was tough. The truck was really working hard, especially when you had a sharp curve at the bottom of a hill and then a climb of 5 km with grades up to 10%. We finally arrived in Grand Cache and found that all the RV parks were full of workers who were there for the entire season. We had no choice but to drive another 190 km to Hinton where we checked into a lovely KOA RV Park. Nice level site, cable tv and all the other necessities of life. We settled in for the night and decided that we could reach Cochrane by the end of the next day.

Quote for the day:

Time sneaks up on you like a windshield on a bug.
  - John Lithgow

Cheers

P & N