Apr 11, 2022
We made it home safe and sound
We woke up yesterday, April 10th, to 27F outside and 39F inside. None of us wanted to get up. Colin bravely did and turned on the furnace and our Mr. Buddy. We were thirty minutes late but on the road at 8:05AM. Exactly 20 minutes later the same troublesome check engine light came on 🙁 but Colin did have power to keep driving. Needless to say it was very stressful. Then the low fuel light came on and we began to wonder if we were losing fuel. We did not want to stop and check because what if the RV does not start up again? So much pressure and anxiety. We made it to Oroville which is 5.5 miles from the Canadian border but decided to stop and get diesel. The only station in town that we could fit into was out of diesel 😯 So we limped 5 miles to a fuel station within actual sight of the border. We never shut off the RV as we refuelled, just in case. The price here was $5.38 per US gallon vs $5.59 at the first station we checked. We saved $17.00US/$21.50CAD.
Almost in Canada.
Our official entry appointment through the new ArriveCan program into Canada was for 9:15AM and we are only 7 minutes late. Here we had to shut down the RV. However if we got stuck at the border we had one foot into Canada so to speak. We had the loveliest & friendly border agent in all of our years of travel. First thing he commented on were the girls and how nice they were and asked if they had travelled south with us ( no we did not get them outside of Canada ) and did we have their paperwork. One of the questions he asked was how much alcohol did we have and I admitted to 1.5 extra bottles. I explained that I had imported wine to take with us for the winter and had this much left. He asked why did I not buy it in the US, I replied that our BC, Canadian wine is much better. Then we started talking about wineries and better wines and so on. We asked and he explained that we now had a profile linked to our passport which will have to be used for every trip we take out of Canada in the future. The next trip will be trip number 2 and so on. He also added that in the future there would be many more questions added such as how much alcohol we had and what exactly, how many veggies and fruits and so on. Likely one question would be about cannabis. It is legal in Canada but illegal to bring it across the border. If you say that you don’t have it but they find it on you then you would go straight to jail. If you say that you have it, then you can throw it away and continue on your journey. This was going to be a permanent entry requirement and that the border agents would then be prepared to ask questions based on our statement to see if we were lying. Such a wonderful travel future to look forward to 🙁 The RV did restart and the check engine light was off. We have way too much drama in our lives. Needless to say but we will be having Cummins pay for us to get the engine rechecked here in Kelowna at Freightliner. I won’t be traveling in our unit again until all is 100%, mind you we all thought it was when we left Cummins in Las Vegas.
I was surprised to see this sign.
We dumped our tanks in Summerland for $10.00. Yes we live in an RV park but there is no place for residents to dump their tanks if they have a home on their lot. Finally we turned into the park at about 12:30. Took a while to unhook and then park the RV. The girls didn’t know where we were until we took them into our yard. They were so very very happy, they zoomed around the yard for two hours straight. The girls came in for a few moments to check out the house but they wanted to only run and run and run some more. They had not had that amount of freedom since March 22nd and their last beach run.
We certainly live in a very scenic part of Canada.
New rules here at Holiday Park, we can now only leave our RV in front of the house for two nights vs three nights. That means less time to unload, clean up and reload. We started right away Sunday afternoon. It was sunny and warmish at 13C/55F with a cool wind. Certainly not our usual lovely spring weather. We managed to get the fridge and bathroom unloaded and put away. All I wanted to do was curl up and take a nap but I pushed myself. However I went to bed at 10PM and stayed there until 8AM. It certainly did get chilly last night. The girls were good and stayed in their crate until 6AM when they began to whimper. Turns out they both needed to go out and do both.
I set up a window station for the girls to look out at the RV to see all the back and forth. If they behave and don’t bark we will let them use it to see the street view and folks walking past. They are so used to seeing all the beach activity on the Isla from the RV dash.
A raft of coots on the lake all being led by one in the front. There are about as many not seen in the photo. They sometimes were in a tight formation or spread out like this but they were moving quickly, you could see their feet paddling rapidly.
Today was another long and busy day. Just had dinner at about 9:30PM and now doing this post. Tub bath and long soak next and then bed. Happy to be home and we did take time to stop and enjoy the view. The girls were in and out all day. If we didn’t open the one door soon enough after they rang the bells, they ran to the other door and rang those bells. Ciela even managed to sneak down to the beach. She is not even wanting to use the ramp on the stairs. We will deal with that another day.
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Sounds like you are still having an electrical problem, possibly a broken wire from vibration.
Glad to read you are Safely Home.
Enjoy!
It’s about time.
I think that you might be right with your diagnosis.
Welcome home! Sounds like the girls are excited to be out of the rig and home where they can run wild and free. Hope you figure out what is going on with your rig so you can travel stress free again!
Well the next post gives you a hint as to our future. Glad that we did not make any reservations. So nice to see the girls run again. Colin finally took them for a walk today and they totally remembered the route.
What a relief, you are safely at home in HPR. You now have the whole summer ahead and that beautiful home and garden. Congrats on surmounting all those terrible times, all behind you now.
I shall raise a glass to you tonight at dinner. Well done. KenB
Thank you Ken for following along and being there for us behind the scenes. I shall join you with my own raised glass. I can’t begin to think about the vegetable garden yet nor the flowers but I will get there.
Glad you are home. Was quite a trip.
I can’t believe how much I relaxed once we got here.
Welcome back to your home. Always good to be home after a long trip and what a trip it was. Now to enjoy the lake in front of you and all the birds, ducks, geese and more.
PS that path to the beach sure looks like it could have been taken in North or South Carolina.
Exactly what I was thinking!
So lovely to see nature around us here. We are spoilt. Yes it was quite the trip.
WELCOME HOME!
Time to start planning for next year’s trip.
Love reading your blog
Catheline
I worked on that as we drove back home. Leaving early then this year. So glad that you are out there.
Contessa / Colin glad you made it home !
So are we.
Welcome Home! May your future days be uneventful and stress free!
Fingers crossed.
It’s so nice to travel but so nice to come home!
True but we do love being in the RV.
Great you made it home..
We are as well.