2024 Bigger Truck across Canada day 2

OK - we had a fantastic plan for today, and things went quite well after a disastrous experience last night at the KOA. Wrong site, next site didn't fit, very angsty/uncooperative person at the counter, tons of mosquitos, etc. Today, however, was a new day. Full Cousin Eddie (at the site - one bonus, full hookup), quick top off on the fresh water, and we were on the road by 8:10am. If you know the female contingent of this family, that is like leaving at 3am for most families.

Once on the road, we made great time, getting to Montreal at around 11:30am, with our admission to the Montreal Botanical Garden starting at 12:30pm. Plenty of time. We made it through a couple of tunnels (more on that later), and as we were about to take the final left turn onto Rue Viao, I noticed the Jeep appearing in my driver's side mirror. When we tow the Jeep, it is not visible in the mirrors, only via the backup camera. As I glanced down at the camera screen, I then saw the Jeep in the passenger side mirror. Not great, Bob.

After a moment of sheer panic, the realization set in. Something had gone very wrong with the towbar, and we needed to stop that moment. Halfway into the left turn lane, almost into the intersection. I jumped out, assessed the carnage, and ran around to the passenger side to grab the tools out of the storage compartment. Somehow the towbar had completely snapped in two, leaving only the safety cables and one arm holding the Jeep to the motorhome. I found myseld saying "stay calm" to no one in particular, I guess to myself.

Once we had the Jeep separated, it was time to quickly assess if any damage had occurred to either the Jeep or the Big Truck. Luckily the most damage appeared to be to the road, with some pretty deep gouges in pavement from the broken towbar. Kimberly then jumped into the Jeep and followed me to our destination. Jordan assumed shotgun duties, and had Kimberly on speakerphone. We didn't even discuss what had happened, just attempted to navigate the motorhome-width lane of the road to our destination.

What happened next, I'm actually quite proud of. While I went immediately into problem solving mode and spent the next half hour on the phone getting the run around in French from every RV dealer in the surrounding Montreal area, Kimberly and Jordan calmly navigated us to the entrance of the garden and put the entire situation behind us. I finally resigned myself to the fact that we weren't fixing anything until Monday, and realized that we were still completely self contained, we were just now traveling with 2 separate vehicles for the time being. Things could be worse.

Cue the botanical gardens to the rescue.

This place was huge. It is on the former Montreal Olympic grounds, so this thing is always looming in the background.

From there, it was on to the Biodome. No, not the 4% on rotten tomatoes Pauly Shore vehicle (do yourself a favor and watch that trailer, so many incredible cameos), but an actual dome containing multiple different exhibits based on the St Lawrence River region. Super cool, and very educational. But more importantly, since we were sunburned, hot, sweaty, and exhausted - it had a hallway made of ice.

This led to the penguin exhibit, always a favorite. Then a real life ROUS

From there, the place continued to amaze. It had a bit of a Truman Show feel, but the exhibits were impressive and the architecture was incredible.

Before we headed back to the campsite for the evening, we decided to grab a bite to eat at a local brewery. It did not disappoint, although our distinct lack of a grasp of the French language made it a bit challenging. This place was great, and I can attest to the quality their beers. This blog post is brought to you by their Belgian Quad, which while incredible, is only slightly better than their Tripel.

And finally - an acknowledgement that although today started off pretty much as poorly as it could have, we were quite fortunate. About 2 minutes before the towbar unalived itself, we were driving through these two tunnels.

I hate to think of how it would have gone had the tow bar exploded in the tunnels, so all in all today was still a pretty good day.

Tomorrow - 2.5 hrs to Quebec City, thankfully Kimberly can drive a stick (support Save the Manuals) so we're good until we get this rig patched up on Monday.

Cheers!

2024 Bigger Truck across Canada, day 1

Ok - it's been a bit since we fired this blog back up, mostly because the last 3 trips have not involved the motorhome. One ridiculous trip to a castle in Yakima (thanks Dimeses!), one incredible cruise to Alaska (thanks Papa Koster!), and one destination wedding in Maui (thanks Burgers!). This year, it was time to get back to rolling cross country (or in this case, intra-cross country? inter-cross country? semantics...). We've been to Maine a few times and have always enjoyed it, but have always wanted to visit Bay of Fundy while we're out there and have never been able to pull it off. This time it is our primary destination, with the bonus of being able to stop in Montreal, Quebec City, and plenty of other Canadian landmarks along the way. We're attempting to pull this off in less than 2 weeks, which is going to involve a few ambitious travel days. Take today for example - 11 hours, 537 miles (or 864km, eh), and a lot of this

and this

and a bit more of this

I believe this traffic was Canada's retribution for what was the most uneventful and efficient border crossing we have experienced to date. After much weeping and gnashing of teeth during the week (several circumstances led to Jordan's passport arriving via mail the afternoon before we left), our border agent asked for said passports, asked if we knew the motorhome's license plate #, and asked where we were headed. After telling him Bay of Fundy was our ultimate destination, he said "oh, that's a long haul, what about today?" to which I responded "Kingston". He said that was equally aggressive, handed us back the passports, and wished us good luck on our travels.

I like to think it is because I was so trustworthy, confident, and handsome. I realize it is because they already have all manner of cameras, sensors, travel history, and all of the government surveillance (5G vaccine intel via cell towers? I digress...) and already knew our entire history.

Either way, we were in the clear and free to navigate at 0.73% the cost of a trip in the US. Until we arrived at the gas pump. Luckily I had filled up just before we crossed the border, so after driving all day through our home and native land, we stopped for petrol just before hitting the campground so we can just roll in the AM. Here is the damage, good luck with all the conversions.

A few highlights of an otherwise uneventful travel day. As we crossed the border and headed past Sarnia (I have had several memorable and unable to be memorable experiences here during and post-college. Those will remain with those who were in the know, but man did this bring back some memories), we encountered Jordan's nemesis. The spiky windmill.

Back to the Sarnia memories for a moment - back in the day, there may or may not have been an incident where a member of our party was overserved by the locals, and said member offered to buy the next round with "some of these beer tokens (referring to their national currency, coins with a duck or a bear in the middle)". If that didn't endear us to the locals enough, said party then fanned out a bunch of their 'monopoly money' and asked "which color gets us the most drinks?". Good to be back. In my defense, I humbly submit the following:

Back to the trip at hand. One dynamic that has changed significantly since previous trips is we now have another driver in the family. It matters not, no one is going to drive the big truck anyway, but this year she served a stint as navigator.

This same navigator has stepped up into more of a trip planning role, so some of our destinations in Montreal and Quebec City are completely her doing. If you know me, you know that was difficult for me to relinquish those planning duties, but we will all be better for it. As we were discussing the Montreal Botanical Garden, we noticed this truck passing us.

We noticed the stray onion sitting on the back of the trailer, and kept pace with the truck for at least 20 minutes. I was just waiting for it to fall so I could make this reference, but it never did. Before we got to the campground, at the gas station we got to experiece pure Canada. As I'm watching the gas pump dial scroll to infinity, I am treated to the buzz of a license plate rattling to Dangerous Toys. Now I am not ashamed, but rather proud that I immediately recognized those tasty riffs from this masterpiece.

Not only did I recognize the song, but when my eyes caught up to my ears, the source was majestic. A guy who might as well have been Billy from Stranger Things was backed into a spot in his Chevy Beretta (no word on whether it was the coveted Z26 or not) and reveling in his experience. There may as well have been a billboard behind him saying "Welcome to Canada". I love it here.

I will leave you with this actual (context free) quote from Jordan. "I'm not staying in this big truck alone when there's French people outside."

Tomorrow, on to Montreal.

Cheers

2021 Bigger Truck across Colorado, day 9

Day 9 started with me trying to figure out what these tracks were, as something clearly found the inside of the Jeep intriguing enough to explore with its muddy paws during the night.

 

I was about to bust out the guide to footprints to figure out what it was when I realized that we have no wifi, no cell reception, no connection to the outside world. I explained what I had found to Kimberly, and she said "Oh yeah, they said they have a pretty bad raccoon problem here." That made a lot more sense when we walked up to throw away our trash and recycling. Open trash bags, food, etc laying everywhere.

The people running this place were very, very nice. That said, it is a comical caricature of something out of Uncle Buck, Summer Rental, or some other terrible 80s movie. I'm sure they mean well, so I will leave it at this picturesque image and try to remember it as such.

Our first day trip from here was to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, something we had discovered during our trip research and was at the top of Jordan's list.

I will try to limit the pics as I'm sure you realize the animals were all cute. It started with the giraffe feeding, 

progressed to this extremely expressive and disinterested meerkat, 

and led to Jordan's current obsession, birds. Her own bird Rio is back home (thanks Hayley!), so she was thrilled to see more budgies and cockatiels, like this one that took quite a liking to her.

One thing that was missing a bit from our experience was the view. Normally this would be a spectacular view of Colorado Springs and the surrounding area, instead today it was smoke. 

This zoo was definitely well equipped to handle the big boys - elephants, hippos, rhinos, etc. The elephant exhibit was impressive, 

and definitely gave off some strong Jurassic Park vibes. The indoor elephant care center just needed Samuel L,

 Newman, 

and the guy that gets eaten on the toilet. 

We also learned an interesting tidbit about the African penguins.

The zoo was an amazing experience, something we would love to visit again when the air is a bit clearer.

We stopped in town to grab a quick dinner, then headed over to check out Garden of the Gods around dusk. What a fantastic decision.

If you haven't been here, its really hard to describe. Imagine having a miniature national park in the middle of your city. That's Garden of the Gods. We could have spent many, many hours here.

The twilight made for some fantastic visuals, and it also brought out all manner of wildlife. The backdrop everywhere we looked was straight out of a postcard.

We did a few short hikes, soaked in the experience, and headed back to the campground.  Once we got into the bigger truck, things got very quiet very quickly. 

Tomorrow, I have a morning bike ride planned to let the female contingent sleep, and we explore Colorado Springs a bit more.