We live in a small space, and yet there are times we can’t find our stuff.

Today was hot and sunny, so off to the river we went, Winston in tow. After the excursion, we could not find Barb’s sun hat……..until Winston moved onto the floor on his towel to dry off. HOW he got on the couch without us seeing is beyond me. We didn’t know the hat was there! To be fair it needed a bit of a wash and it did pop back into shape after a while……

You don’t have to limit yourself when out on the road. These pics are examples of our brunches, Lori’s most memorable meal from childhood, snacks and other healthy dinners. Lori does admit she is still working on her presentation skills. Barb however, does a great job making afternoon snacks! And while one tries to be healthy, how can you resist a bakery and a nice lemon loaf….

The host of the City RV campsite in Trail, Brian or BJ as he preferred, allowed us to borrow his car for the day. It was nice to get out and about to explore. What does one do when you are limited to the time you have with an alternative source of transportation? Laundry, picking up a large bag of dog food so you don’t have to carry it yourself from the pet store, go to a fancy grocery store called Ferraro Foods (one of Lori’s most exciting things to do here – see pic below), and enjoy the local art instalments in town.

Yes we are still in Trail at the City RV Campground. While one would think, being here since July 12th, that we would know everything there is to know and have seen everything there is to see in the campground. There are only 14 RV sites and another 16 campsites to be fair. However if you wait and be patient, you encounter other residents of the area you were not expecting, like wild turkeys. We also had some very proud moments and a few not so much. We learned along our journey that we occasionally judged inappropriately, and self scolded. One such moment was when we saw a camper living in a very run down utility trailer, and had a very old car who appeared to be living here full time. This, along with his scruffy look, caused us to assume mental illness, drug addiction and the like. So we avoided eye contact as we walked by with Winston on a daily basis.

Later in the month we learned from the park host Brian, that this man had grown up locally and was a talented carpenter and handyman. He had fallen on some hard times, after a lay-off in this small town where jobs were not plentiful. He had made the choice to live a nomad life, so he could drop everything whenever he was called to a short contract job somewhere. The rest of the time he did one-off small repair work.

Interestingly, we had a small project of our own on the go. We had realized that the RV floor was widest near the front door however it was unusable real estate given the stairs were there. So we brainstormed how we could cover them for extra space for Winston to lounge on. So an idea came to life. Off to the hardware store with measurements in hand where we purchased a piece of thick plywood and had them cut it to our specs. Once back at the RV we added our newly purchased felt furniture leg protectors to allow the wood to easily slide in and out of place. Wow are we brilliant! We then decided it would work even better if we could add finger holes to enable us to more easily pick the board up when not in use. Hhm, how were we going to do this. Well we thought, there is this handy carpenter living in the park. So our next walk past we engaged. He was very nice. We explained our project and he quickly said he would be happy to help and he would pop by later with his tools. Not long after, he indeed did come by and quickly drilled the appropriate finger holes and our project was complete. We got into some great chats and he taught us that the turkeys are native!? He was very bright and loved the outdoors and knew a lot about nature and the area we were now calling ‘our summer home’.

What we learned about ourselves – we know we are not supposed to judge. We thought we were non-judgemental and yet we fell prey to assumptions based on visible clues, versus true understanding. Shame on us. We agreed for the rest of our travels we would check each other whenever this occurred.

It has been almost 1 week since our last post. What has happened since then? Well let us tell you……

1. We have driven a total of 8 km. From campground, to hotel, to truck auto-shop, to hotel, to campground
2. We have learned the “shaking” issue we had on the downhill was the rotors. They are warped and blue according to photos from the truck mechanic.
3. We now understood the gravity of the brake situation. The mechanic tells us that every summer he sees multiple big rigs in his shop for this issue from the same Salmo mountain descent.
4. Parts have been requested, which will take approximately 3-4 weeks as they are on backorder and coming in from the states. You know, that supply chain thing we have been hearing about, it is real….. Barb has been diligently calling Ford Canada and US, who are each advising it’s the others’ responsibility to approve the warranty claim. Why …because the RV is US manufactured however the incident, owner’s residency and registration is Canadian. What a sh#$% show! We continue to press this issue as the cost for parts and labour is over $2,000.
5. We are learning to love our campground, and limited amenities/activities and we are fortunate to have a nice grocery store, pet store, $ store to get our day to day items within a 5 min walk. There is also a pet bathing station in the pet store which we will be introducing Winston to, much to his chagrin.
6. We had a door latch issue, easily fixed with lubricant (WD 40 for those of you in the gutter)
7. We had an awning issue where it no longer wanted to extend out. Well we rectified that by using our knowledge gained in Brandon Manitoba where we recalibrated the slide motors. Lori climbed up on the roof while Barb was at the controls. Barb hit the power button while Lori gently pushed the one side of the awning where the motor was slower to respond. Voila!! It is working perfectly now, with the exception of a piece of plastic that apparently covered an essential motor part, which came off in Lori’s hand, which is affectionately now what we call exhibit C in a plastic ziplock on the kitchen table. Which will be presented at our annual service appointment back in Ontario…..if that ever happens….

What we are now looking forward to, NOT, is the hot weather upwards of 40 degrees coming over the next week. Our non shaded site will certainly test the RV AC capabilities. While there is no pool or beach here, we have discovered a beautiful freshwater creek coming from the mountains with a spot for us to easily get into to cool down and Winston to lie in.

Well we have an appointment at the garage!!

We got a motel room for 3 days to start as we don’t know how long they will need our RV to fix it. We packed up Winston, Safiya and filled a cooler with food as the RV will NOT be plugged in so things in the fridge and freezer had to come with us, and the heat in Trail is stifling.

The motel has an outdoor pool and BBQs for us to use. The motel allows dogs, but we had to get special permission from the owner for Safiya as they don’t normally allow cats. Lori had to promise that Safiya would be in her kennel 100% of the time in order for us to move in. So we got everything from the RV into the room, which was a huge chore, locked up the motel room, and headed off to drop the RV at the garage and do some shopping at the store which was just across the street. We had BJ’s car, so Barb drove the RV and Lori followed in the car.

Side note, well a bit more than a side note: While we said that Safiya would be locked in her playpen 100% of time, we all know that wasn’t going to happen, and what could possibly go wrong! Well, did we mention this is a motel? The doors to each room are street level, the motel is on the main highway, and the motel is a little old. While we “thought” we closed and locked the room door…..apparently not! So while we went to drop off the RV, and do a little shopping to kill some time, things were developing back at the motel. Lori at some point decided to check her phone, and we have probably been gone from the motel for an hour or so. Lori had a phone message, which stated “do you own a dog and a cat, they are wondering down the lot towards the highway”. Well that didn’t throw panic into us!! And how did this happen?! We dropped what we were doing, hopped in the car, and rushed back to the motel. The maid, who evidently rescued both Winston and Safiya was outside and stopped us right away, seeing the panic in our eyes. She explained the animals were safe in our room. She let us know that Winston was very easy to get back inside, Safiya on the other hand took some ingenuity. The maid had actually grabbed a willow brush and wiggled it in front of her to draw her attention and slowly bring her back to the motel room. OMG, seriously this could have ended up being a complete disaster. We ended up buying her a case of beer as a thank you, as that is what she wanted when we asked. We are also not sure how we didn’t get kicked out given Safiya clearly was NOT locked up in a kennel. We also think the following took place: The door didn’t latch, and the wind blew the door open just enough for Safiya to notice. Safiya opened the door enough for her to go through (yes, she knows how to open doors) and Winston seeing this, nudged the door open further, and followed her out. Then they went their separate ways exploring the area. Good grief!

Here are some pics of the motel. We wanted to show the outside where Winston and Safiya were wandering before they were ‘lured’ back into the motel room by a maid. The Motel is right on the main highway through town, and the road is VERY busy with cars and lots of semi trucks.

As discussed the evening prior, our first stop was the Trail Ford Dealership.  It seemed wise to have them check out the RV to ensure nothing shook loose yesterday and our brakes were still in strong working order.

Unfortunately the Ford dealership is too small to take us, but Mark referred us to Mike at another service company that is able to handle big rigs. So off we went, only to find out and to no surprise, that Mike is fully booked.

We have found a place to stay, the City RV Park, and Brian the host was incredible trying to help us out in our time of need. He has found us a site for tonight and another location until next Tuesday. Fingers crossed we will be able to get into Mike’s to get checked out. We can’t do much until we do, as we don’t want to chance our lives/motorhome just to get to our next destination. Stay tuned all as we continue our adventure, the good, bad, and ugly. We do LOVE IT ALL !!

Another great sunny day.  The drive from Creston to Trail, BC was very beautiful with 1700m of elevation which was not much of an issue.  The grades however were a totally different story.  We encountered many 7% grades in Northern Ontario and east of Creston. However, they are no match for the length of the 10-13% grades just east of Salmo.  Unfortunately because of this we had to use the brakes more, along with the tow/haul.  While we drove incredibly well, in our opinion, up and down and around the curves, the RV seemed to have had a mind of its own on the steepest descent and went into a 30 second shake event that we had never experienced, and hope we never will again. It was rough, loud and unexplainable, we thought the sides of the RV were going to fall off.  There was no warning light of any kind. It was like your car ABS system kicking in x1000. Frankly this is the first time we went beyond nervous to concerned, and frankly we will admit we were scared.  We remember Lori saying when it started, “I don’t know what to do”. We stopped as soon as we could at a local gas station, as once again there were no shoulders nor runaway lanes on this stretch.  We did a walk around and smelled the tires and area to check if there had been any burning, but found nothing. We stayed for about 20 minutes for things to cool down and by things we mean brakes, our nerves and the animals panting.

While it should have been an easy drive for the remaining 40 km to our HH location at a local Kootenay Lake winery, we were still quite rattled.  As we pulled in, Barb recalled Lori had exclaimed right after the shaking incident “This winery better have F#$% amazing wine!  After this we deserve it”.  

The property was beautiful, with a lot of cherry trees! We had a ton of fun picking as much as we wanted, and we took a few bowls on the road with us. Our host Ben did warn us about the bears though, of course there are bears around after the crap drive we had, as they also love the “free” cherries. UGH

We had arranged ahead of time to have a charcuterie and wine tasting. Ben laid out an incredible spread for us to pair with his apparent award winning wines. He was extremely generous serving us 9 different whites and reds. We say ‘apparent’ award winning as despite awards up on the walls, the wine was unpalatable.  Can you believe that between the two of us we couldn’t find any wine worth drinking. Barb totally took one for the team after Lori very directly told Ben “I can’t drink this. It’s terrible”. Barb said “I don’t know Lori, I like this” and kept on downing glass after glass to be polite. Well….partially to be polite and partially to recover and hopefully forget ‘the death rattle’ experience.

We have decided, after discussing with Ben, that it would be prudent to seek out the Ford dealership in the morning to check out our brakes before we hit another steep mountain decline.

We have arrived in Creston BC, at Scotties which is a very nice small campground with lots of tree shade. Barb drove all day as she wanted the experience of mountain driving. We started getting anxious about our weight (to be clear not our weight but the RV weight) and how it would perform on the hills. Barb did an awesome job using the ”tow/haul” feature to keep the vehicle in a lower gear to provide stronger engine breaking as well as improve acceleration. We got to Creston and had a glass of wine to celebrate our successful journey across Crowsnest Pass. What we failed to understand and only found out the following day, is that Paulson Pass & Kootenay Pass are the higher hills, so we really haven’t done the big stuff yet, and it is now Lori’s turn to drive. Good grief.

We have been able to relax and enjoy our quiet time here in Creston, and we booked a private tour with a local company, Creston Valley Tour Co. This tour company owned by Gillian Kemle was just OUTSTANDING! They go above and beyond to make you enjoy your day. We were greeted with fresh fruit and water to start, then we moved onto fresh veggies and dip. We decided to go healthy and decline the chips and other treats available for us. If you are ever in Creston BC, reach out to Creston Valley Tour Co. Gillian also owns the Valley View Motel in Creston and it is NOT what you would expect!! It is a cozy gathering of quaint cottages that look over the Creston Valley.

During the tour we visited Kootenay Meadows Farm, formally known as Kootenay Alpine Cheese, some orchards, and Baillie-Grohman Winery. Our favorite part of the tour was the Kootenay Meadows stop. This farm is state of the art and the dairy cows are looked after with kindness, comfort and all the perks of living a great life in the valley. Each cow wore a collar that told the owners everything, and we mean everything about the cow. When they are eating & sleeping, if they are pregnant, sick, giving birth, you name it! In fact it also monitors their milking (they do this themselves, the cows that is). We have to expand on the cows milking themselves as we found this fascinating. Apparently you can easily train cows. The collars they wear open up gates for them IF they are allowed in. So when the cow wants to get milked they go up to a gate, the collar signals to the gate to open and the cow goes forward to the milking machine. The back gate closes and the cow is in a small penned area. A laser machine identifies where the cow is, washes the underside of the cow with what frankly looks like a car wash, then the machine finds each teet and milks the cow. While this is happening the cow gets a treat of some sort of grain. Again the collar notifies the owners which cows have been milked and which cows haven’t. One cow in particular tried getting back in line 67 times in one day (she likes the treat of grain apparently) and the collar knew that the cow was not to be milked again so the gate didn’t open for her, so back in line she went to try again. Unbelievable !! The technology that is, the cow story is just damn funny. The cheese and milk production was also state of the art. We purchased cheese, milk & cream from them. Can’t wait to dig in!!

Tomorrow we are off to Trail BC.

July 13th we were off in the direction of Creston BC, stopping first at a HH horse farm in Pincher Creek Alberta, called Windy Coulee run by Heidi Eijgel.  A little off the beaten path but well worth the trip!!  Heidi is a wonderful host and clearly LOVES the animals she has on the farm. She owns Canadian Horses which are a rare breed.  The Canadian Horse is the official national horse breed of Canada. Known as the Cheval Canadien, it was declared the National Horse of Canada in April 2002. This breed is famous for its strength, endurance, and versatility, earning it the nickname “Little Iron Horse”. It has a rich history, tracing back to horses sent from France in the 1600s.

Heidi joined us in the RV for a bevi which turned into a Q&A period with Barb asking most of the questions.  Good ones we might add.  As with all farms, you have livestock & you have deadstock (Jim Lindsay will appreciate that comment) so Barb was quite interested in learning if it is OK to bury a dead horse (obviously, not a live one) on the farm that is deemed “Native Grasslands and Conservation Land”. Like all good farmers, the shrug of the shoulders from Heidi, and the “no big deal” attitude, let us know that the burial of a horse is just a way of life and it is OK to bury a horse on her farm.

As we travel it is important to us that we give back any way that we can. This time at Heidi’s, it was Winston who did the contribution of giving back. It just so happened that Heidi wanted a video of her Canadian horses running, which is quite stunning, for her website but she has never been able to capture this yet on film. SO, in comes Winston. The horses were quite interested in him and always seemed to run towards him when he came out of the RV for a walk. So we had Winston run along the gate (Lori ran ahead and Winston chased her) and the horses ran along side him. OK for those of you who know Winston, it was more of a jaunt and gallop than a run but it worked none the less. Barb caught this on video and low and behold, we now have Canadian horses running for Heidi. Well done Winston!

Heidi has placed a conservation easement on her land to protect the natural prairie and riparian habitats, ensuring a sustainable future for both the horses and the ecosystem. It’s clear Heidi likes both the land and the animals on her farm. Her heritage chickens were beautiful, sociable and well taken care of. Heidi built an untreated wall of wood outdoors for Mason Bees to nest and lay their eggs. This was well placed by her large garden of veggies and flowers. These bees are excellent pollinators. We had the opportunity to introduce Heidi to black garlic and traded it for some garlic scapes fresh from her garden, which Barb is excited to try. This is one stop we will not forget.