It poured rain (literally) last night. The sound of the rain pounding on the top of the RV and the sound of the CN train whistles throughout the night kept us from sleeping too soundly. I awoke at 4am to the sounds of the birds who seemed to rejoice at the substantive amounts of water poured into, what I understand from the locals was previously, a thirsty land.
I did my best to rest until about 730am when I got up to bring in the awning as the wind was beginning to blow. Shortly after I showered, shaved and checked out the fresh eyebrow growth (it’s coming along nicely). Connie was a dear and got up to perk me a cup of coffee on the outside stove. Thanks to the wind and later (mid morning) sun things were drying out quite quickly.
I opened up the truck to see how well the tonneau cover kept things dry. Everything apart from Zach’s keyboard (packed inside the original box) and the camping chairs was dry. Fortunately, the keyboard is encased in it’s original packaging so, it remained dry and we laid out the box in the sun and wind to dry.
I decided to take a quick trip to buy propane. Hint, if you want to find a gas station that sells propane, ask someone and don’t trust the GPS lady, Google or Apple. The first gas station I went to didn’t sell propane, so I decided to Google propane suppliers. I chose the first one about 13kms away and drove there. To my surprise it was no longer in business. I then picked the next location on the list (32 kms in the other direction) and proceeded to drive there.
In the meantime, Zach and Connie wondered what happened to me (I’d been gone for about 45 minutes) and called me to ask what was up. I was somewhere in downtown Winnipeg, a place I’d rather not revisit, and about 10 minutes away from my new destination. Zach’s first question was, “did you ask someone?” Within 2 minutes I found a Co-Op gas station that sold propane and pulled in. A young gentleman with a fine set of protruding top teeth seemed excited to see me (I think he might have been new at pumping propane) as he enthusiastically told me to put the tanks down while he finished pumping gas in a customer’s car.
Upon taking my tanks to the scale, he took an inordinate amount of time calculating the amount of propane I would need. He seemed to be doing long division. After what seemed 10 or 15 minutes, he handed me a slip of paper and told me to pay the cashier located in the hut nearby. I obediently did as he asked and paid the well weathered lady behind the counter. Upon my return to the young man, he seemed quite distraught. He was pulling and pushing nobs and levers and with exasperation said “I’m very sorry but I’m going to have to refund you the money because I can’t get the pump to work.” Naturally, I was very pleased with the situation and followed him into the hut. He explained to the lady behind the counter the situation and she gave him a sound tongue thrashing for charging the customer before he’d pumped the propane.
Fortunately, another lady emerged from the back of the hut and whispered something into his ear. Upon hearing the news, he bounded past me and out the door and around the back of the large propane tank. Within seconds, he returned to the location of my tanks, reconnected the first and flipped the switch. Voila! The pump began to dispense propane. A great feeling of relief passed through my body and he looked up to me and apologized profusely. “I didn’t know there was a power switch on this side of the tank.” I told him not to worry. I was just relieved to know that I wouldn’t be returning to the campsite empty handed and humiliated even further.
After returning to the campsite, I reconnected the propane tanks and downed a couple more cups of coffee. By this time it was approaching noon and I had a maintenance appointment for the Tundra at 130pm. While I was there, Connie and Zach would tour The Forks. Unfortunately, these two locations are at opposite ends of the town, so we had barely enough time for me to drop them off and make the appointment time.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get to experience The Forks but here are a few photos they took while there.
I spent the better part of 2 hours waiting for my truck to be serviced. However, I was very impressed with the level of service provided at Crown Toyota and in particular my service advisor. Darryl. He was a most pleasant and talkative fellow and we got along famously. He was able to pull my service records from Kelowna and determined what I needed and then provided me with a fresh cup of coffee in the lounge while the mechanic worked on my truck. I should point out that Darryl approached every customer with the same exuberance he did with me. This dealership has a terrific employee – one who acts like an owner. If only all employees were like him.
At about 330pm, I returned to The Forks to pick up Connie and Zach and return to the campsite. Zach stayed behind to play his sax while Connie and I went out to pick up some groceries and gas. When we returned, Zach was playing and one of our neighbours, John from Dryden, Ontario popped by to say how much he appreciated the live music.
Tomorrow we head to Regina, about a 6 hour drive. Here’s hoping for dry weather as I’ve heard Alberta and Saskatchewan have had their share of thunderstorms and Alberta a tornado!
Here tonight there is a beautiful sunset and I am so grateful. I love sunshine from the moment of dawn until dusk.
Mal and Connie's Cross Canada Adventure 2.0 