Make it stoppppppppppppp!!!!

Today is Sunday – one week on the road and we are only to Whitecourt in British Columbia – yes…….the unbelievable happened………….again.
We got over the border with no problem on Friday nite and stopped at a little town named Milestone for the nite. When we woke up in the morning we were shocked to see how many cars had filled the empty parking lot…….it was the ice arena and they were having Saturday hockey tournaments and women’s curling!! We got off to a good start and made it all the way to Mark Hartum’s house in the evening (about an hour east of Edmonton, AB). We presumed that they would not be there because they had invited us to a race at Elkford, BC for this weekend and we figured we couldn’t make it and kept heading north. We stayed at a park near his house for the nite. In the morning we unloaded 2 dogs he wanted, 4 50# boxes of dehydrated eggs and some harnesses and collars from Windago. Left there about 11am and had stopped to drop dogs and everything seemed to be going fine thinking we would make it past Grand Prairie yet today and BAM!!!! Loud noise like a small explosion! Randy got out and looked and looked trying to find out what had made the noise – was it tires again………….it was the air intake hose in the engine that had blown off. So Randy replaced it in it position and we took off again – only to find out that we had no turbo power…………..essentially lamed the truck. So we limped in 11 miles to the next town, that thankfully I saw a sign that said there was a heavy truck repair shop in, and we found it amazingly and called their 24 hour number and they said they can look at it tomorrow morning and if they have parts, we could be back on the road tomorrow nite!!! Already fed dogs and Grandpa and I are settled in for a long winter’s nite……….not too cold right below freezing for temperature so we are warm and comfortable and full from a microwaved soup dinner!

Monday morning up at 7am (or so I thought when I set the alarm – we were really one hour earlier so we had a little extra time before the shop opened at 8 am!!) They had us pull the whole shebang – truck and the trailer – into a bay – took about a ½ hour looking things over and found that most likely the hose clamp that blew off yesterday from the turbo air flow hose caused it to de-pressurize (how do you like that for “pretend technical”?) so we lost the turbo power – the mechanic did take the turbo off to make sure it was intact and it was……..so for the mere price of $144 we are back on the road again!!! 500 miles to Ft. Nelson where we can drop off one more “passenger” at Streepers!
Side notes: I don’t think I have already mentioned the wildlife sitings for this year- snowy owl (Randy first thought it was a seagull and thought it funny that it was so far away from any water – it was so close and beautiful), moose, coyote, eagle, and of course (thanks to Beth identifying it last year) magpies!
Our new toy – the Garmin Nuvi GPS – is turning out to be very helpful – Randy mentioned last year he wondered how it would work on our trips so I bought him one for Christmas and we are finding it’s great to know how far you are from towns and we have even used it to find a Walmart and the auto fix-it place!! The only problem I am having now is that until yesterday it was not only showing the speed we are going (which is great because the speedometer doesn’t work) but it showed what the current speed limit was – I have tried looking in “help” and everything else I can think of to no avail – so if someone out there knows, let me know!
Wonder of wonders……..we are to Dawson Creek and the real beginning of the ALCAN highway – we are stopped to fill up with diesel before things get really expensive farther north at Fort St. Johns and Fort Nelson – for sure we should be able to make it to Fort St. John tonite and maybe even half way to Fort Nelson.
We just stopped an hour ago to clean the windows – the roads are wet and every time someone passes us it totally blocks vision out the windows – when we were stopped I went in and got milk, eggs, bread, 12 pack of Coke and 2 rolls and it was $24!! The milk was $5!!!