Will it Ever End :-(

Yesterday before we loaded up and prepared to leave Brandon, Manitoba hubby went out and started the truck and we were very please when it fired right up. Since that went so well, and it was early, he decided to check out Maxx’s brakes and bearings and that’s when he noticed one of the tires had a slash in it! It appears that a piece on our main slide hit the tire on one of the many bumps we hit during our travels from Russell to Brandon and almost sliced the tire right open. On the positive side, at least he noticed it before the tire blew and it was one of the tires we had planned to replace anyway. Last summer we replaced Maxx’s two rear tires and had planned on changing the two front tires this summer but they still had lots of life left in them. So off we went to the tire store and $396.03 later Maxx now has two new shoes and we were finally able to leave Brandon after dropping more than $1,000, I hope they appreciate our contribution to their economy.

The weather wasn’t great yesterday, foggy, warm, and very humid, so instead of stopping in Winnipeg for the night we decided continue on.

I guess hubby felt like driving because we drove for seven hours and we made it all the way to Dryden, Ontario.

Actually I think we were both just done with Manitoba and didn’t want to spend any more money there 🙂

Until next time …

Up And Running :-)

Yippee! It appears the truck is back in tip top shape 🙂  We were up early yesterday and arrived at the dealership at 7:00 a.m. After more investigation and thought hubby was pretty sure at least one of our batteries needed replacing so he had the shop check them out first. Sure enough one battery needed to be replaced and since we were replacing one we decided to replace both of them, $361.00 dollars later the new batteries were in and the truck appears to be running well. We also decided to replace the windshield wiper blades so all totaled it cost us around $410.00 … much better than I was expecting.

I am so happy that we were able to get the truck fixed in Brandon, Manitoba because I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to visit Deloraine, Manitoba, which is 112 km south of Brandon. It really is out of our way on our trek across Canada and you may ask, what was so important about visiting Deloraine that you would make such a detour. Well the 83^rd richest man in Canada in 2015, fashion designer Peter Nygard lived there as a child when his parents immigrated from Finland. Along with that, the town is home to one of only two stone bank vaults still in existence in western Canada and it was once home to the only commercial coal mine in Manitoba’s history. Although all of those are very significant historical facts the real reason for our visit to Deloraine is the fact that my mom was born there and I wanted to see the town and visit the cemetery where some of my ancestors lay.

So after getting our new batteries we headed off for Deloraine. Along the way we were very surprised to see two pelicans swimming in the water beside the highway. We had no idea that pelicans lived in Manitoba, but it appears that it is home to the American White Pelican.

And then we arrived in Deloraine, population around 900.

The rest of this blog is probably only of interest to my family … and really probably only my sister, but here is what we saw.

The first thing we came across was a huge tower that looks like a cell phone tower but it is actually full of metal bird cages.

We then parked and took a walk through town.

Main Street

Town Square

After a walk through town and on the advice of some friendly ladies at the Post Office we headed off to the Municipal Office to see if I could find out were my mom lived. Not really expecting them to have any information about residents some 80 years ago we were really surprised when they pulled out a book about residents of Deloraine from 1890 to 1980! And I was even more amazed when I found my Great Grandparents and their descendants; it even listed my mom’s name and where she was living in her later years.

We weren’t able to find the family farm but we did visit Lovett Street where my Great Grandparents moved after they left the farm. On the corner is the Anglican Church where my Great Grandmother was very active.

Lovett Street

Obviously not the original church but I think it is the same location as the original.

After lunch we drove out to the cemetery expecting to find a very small cemetery where I could easily find my family members. Fortunately for us a volunteer was working on some landscaping and she was more than willing to look up information for us because it turned out Deloraine has a very large cemetery!

I spent a very enjoyable few hours visiting with my Great Grandparents and some of my Great Aunts and Uncles, while hubby cleaned up their tombstones. My grandparents moved out to Vancouver, British Columbia when my mom was young so their graves are not in Deloraine. I will share the following pictures with you because I was amazed at how well one of the tombstones turned out after hubby spent some time with a wire brush cleaning it, and seriously who drives around with a wire brush in their truck! I think hubby has a never-ending pit in his tool chest because he is always pulling out weird and wonderful things when we need them 🙂

My grandfather’s sister who passed away as a baby.  (Before)

My grandfather’s sister who passed away as a baby.  (After)

Beautiful tree lined streets

It was with a little bit of sadness that I bid farewell to Deloraine, Manitoba but we sure enjoyed our visit.

Farewell Deloraine Manitoba

Until next time …

Another Late Start :-(

Well yesterday didn’t start off any better than the day before; once again the truck wouldn’t start. Hubby switched the two batteries around and when that didn’t work he took the starter apart, made sure everything was working, installed it back in the truck, and confidently jumped in to start it … and nothing 😦

Now he was stumped and we knew we would have to take it into a dealer to have it fixed. The only problem was, we were in a very small town with no option for service, and somehow we had to get the truck into Brandon, Manitoba two hours away. Well a call to the Good Sam Emergency Roadside Service proved that it is impossible to get any type of towing service on Sunday’s in a small town. They did agree that we needed a tow into Brandon, once they figured out where Manitoba was :-), but we would have to wait until today to get any service. Rather than sit in Russell overnight hubby decided to put the generator on the batteries and see if he could get enough of a charge to get the truck started and finally after almost an hour, and when we were about to give up, the truck started! We quickly got Maxx ready and headed off for Brandon where we spent last night and hopefully we can get the truck into the Dodge dealer for servicing today. Hubby is pretty sure it is more than just the batteries because we couldn’t get the fan or air conditioner to work either so it sounds like something electronic. Fingers crossed it doesn’t cost us a fortune to fix.

Until next time …

A Late Start But On To New Roads!

We had planned for a little later start yesterday as hubby was helping out installing a new garage door on the shop at the farm but it ended up being much later than planned. The garage door was at the point that they no longer needed extra muscle so hubby jumped into the truck to hook up Maxx but it wouldn’t start 😦  After a little trouble shooting he finally decided the problem was corrosion on the starter connection. Well that was good news, he could easily fix that problem but in order to do so he wanted to get the truck into the shop so that he could jack it up and get underneath and that meant he had to help finish up the garage door. Once he had the truck up on the jack it was an easy fix and the truck started like a charm … let’s hope that really was the problem.

So after a quick supper, which is better known as lunch, we got on the road. We now feel like we are really starting our trip across Canada because we are on new, to us, roads. We arrived in Russell, Manitoba around 5:00 p.m. last night. Russell has a population of 1,611 and is mainly a grain and cattle farming area.  We rode our bikes through town and were totally impressed with how tidy and pretty it was.  Most of the houses are heritage homes and beautifully maintained and all of the residential streets are lined on either side with huge Dutch Elm trees.  I can just imagine how pretty this town is in the fall!

I only had my cell phone with me so this is not the best picture.

The town very thoughtfully provides RV sites at Russell Peace Park in the centre of town.

The park has nine sites, all with power, and it’s totally free! They do ask for a donation and we were happy to give it as the park is very nice and we enjoyed a quiet night.

Until next time …