I booked Friday June 28th off from work to extend the long weekend out for an extra day. The forecast was calling for hot, sunny weather. We packed up the trailer and hit the road on Friday morning, intending to explore some ghost towns in southwestern Saskatchewan. We drove for most of the afternoon and by late in the day we were rolling towards the town of Coronation. As we were driving down narrow, undivided Highway 12, I watched as a large truck pulling a flat deck trailer approached. Suddenly I saw something come flying off the truck and come skidding across the road towards us. I managed to swerve the truck and avoided it, but the new trailer took a direct hit. It turns out the truck had lost its fender, and we had driven over it knocking out both wheels on the driver side of the trailer. The driver brought his truck to a stop about half a mile down the road. He was decent about it and provided us with all of is contact information and insurance policy number. But here we were, stuck on the side of the road with two flat tires and only one spare...
A lady passing by stopped and used here smart phone to get us the phone number for the tire shop in Coronation. By this time is was nearly 5:00PM and we managed to contact the tire shop just before they closed for the long weekend. One of their service guys came out to give us a hand. We needed three jacks to get both axles lifted up high enough to get the two damaged wheels off. The service guy took the one good rim back into town to put a new tire onto it. I stayed behind on the side of the road and installed my one spare tire to replace the rim that was damaged beyond use. I had the flashers going on the truck and trailer, and Margarit was directing traffic as I lay on the side of the very narrow highway working on the tire. We just about got wiped out by some idiot that was towing another vehicle with a tow rope, and no driver in the towed vehicle. The driver swerved around us, but the towed vehicle, with no one to steer, missed us by just a foot or two.
The tire shop didn't have an extra rim the right size so eventually we were ready to roll, but our only spare was on the trailer. We were annoyed and disappointed, but thankful that no one was hurt and that the damage was minor.. relatively speaking. We decided it wouldn't be wise to head out into backroads Saskatchewan with no spare. So we were forced to change plans and decided to head to Drumheller for the night. By around 9:00PM we finally rolled into the ghost town of Dorothy, set up the trailer for the night, and had a late supper.
The next morning after breakfast the girls hit their favorite playground and we explored the restored churches in Dorothy. A short time later we hit the road for Drumheller, hopeful that we could buy a new spare tire there. This whole incident taught me a lesson. From now on whenever we travel we will have two spare tires for the trailer, and three jacks. With these tandem axle trailers if you hit anything on the road that knocks out one tire it is virtually guaranteed that the one following will suffer the same fate.
We rolled into Drumheller around noon and the tire shop there not only had more trailer tires, but also a rim the right size. So we bought a new spare, and feeling a little safer, we carried on our way. We promised the girls that we would take them over to the local spray park to cool off from the heat. We had to live up to this and spent a couple of hours while the girls splashed and played. By this time it was too late to consider heading over to Saskatchewan. We decided to stop in and say hello to my friend and business partner Frank and his family. Frank was home and we stayed and visited for the rest afternoon. The girls had a blast playing in the pool in Franks yard. By evening we headed back out to Dorothy to camp for the night. Frank and Chris came out and joined us for an evening BBQ and a fire. The mosquitos were really bad and we all spent the evening slapping and suffering. Frank and Chris eventually headed back home for the night. The next morning we got up and packed to move along. But, the slideout on our trailer would not close. We spent an hour or so fighting with it. Eventually by working it in and out, and with me pushing on it from the outside, we got it closed up so that we could hit the road.
We headed northward to the TL Bar Ranch, hoping that the girls could do some trail riding the next morning. Along the way we stopped at the School Museum in East Coulee. This old school has a number of rooms set up with artifacts from the coal mining days of the town in its heydey. Hailey and Annelise really got a kick out of the old schoolroom.
By evening we rolled into the campsite at the TL Bar Ranch. They are shutting down operations at the end of the season this year, so we need to get out here a few times this summer so the girls can do some riding. The mosquitos were unbearable, and the heat was unbearable with temperatures well over 30C and the humidity approaching 100%. We fired up the generator and got the air conditioner going and pretty much just hung out in the trailer. We didn't dare extend our slideout for fear of not being able to close it again, so we were a little cramped for the evening.
The next morning we discovered that the girls could not go for a trail ride. All the ranch staff had headed over to the nearby town of Trochu for the Canada Day parade so there was no one available to take out any trail riders. We decided to head over and check out the parade. All of the local businesses and organizations that were taking part in this small town parade were tossing handfuls of candy into the crowds and the girls had a blast gathering them up. It was almost like Halloween and by the end of the parade the girls had a pretty good sized sack of loot. There is something to be said about small town life and if it was not for the fact that I have a business to run, I'm not sure that I would continue living in a bigger city.....
Once the parade ended we decided to just pack up and head for home. We were all somewhat worn out by all the adventure of the weekend. We eventually got back home in the late afternoon. Shortly after arriving home we got a phone call from my Mom. It turns out she was in the hospital recovering from emergency surgery. Her colon had been punctured during a routine colonoscopy on Friday and she had spent the last few days alone in the hospital. Yet another incident to add to our list from this weekend.
As I write this entry, now a couple of days later, Mom is doing well and is back at home recovering. I sure hope the next weekend camping trip is not so filled with the issues and problems that plagued this weekend. We all survived unscathed and will remember this weekend for years to come. All the same I would have preferred if things could have been a little more low key, and not so stressful....
No comments:
Post a Comment