Bonaventure, QC

Today was one of those days for story telling around the campfire. 

Our campfire day started when I went to take out the slide with the kitchen. Went out about 6” and stopped, seemed to be binding. We could live with this since it was getting dark. Tried to move the slide several times and same problem.

In the evening(Monday) as we were watching TV all of a sudden the TV and other electrical died. Tom discovered the inverter was not charging the batteries. Couldn’t find anything obvious(in the pitch black). He will tackle it tomorrow. 

Tuesday comes and he starts checking, fuses, circuit breakers etc. Nothing obvious. The batteries charge when we start the MH so they will charge up when driving. As a precaution we went out and bought a battery charger, returnable for 90 days. We were lucky that this occurred in a major town that had stores.

Put our route into the GPS and said we would arrive around 12:45, great gives us the entire afternoon to trouble shoot. Just a couple hour drive. Only problem is, there is a time change and we had no knowledge of it. NB is on Atlantic time while QC is on eastern time. 

We did not notice anything amiss until I looked at my watch and it was 11:30 and we still had well over 100 miles to go. Our phones kept telling us we were still in Atlantic Time. Only the GPS thought we were on Eastern time. 

OK, we can handle all  this. Just drive a little longer. Then the next shoe drops. We had found the CG in our GPS and just told the GPS to go there. We pulled down this road based on the GPS and I knew it was wrong, just felt wrong. One lane road, no turnaround large enough for us. We found a parking lot but discovered it wasn’t large enough(we thought it was). Managed to get ourselves hung up blocking  the road. No traffic, no problem. Went to unhitch the toad. Couldn’t get it unhitched due to the angle we were at. Now a car comes. She speaks French, I speak English. I managed to communicate that it would be 5 minutes before we were sorted out.

We had to unhitch the toad and its tow bar from the MH, Tom held the tow bar up while I backed up. Then I backed up the MH and cleared the road. We felt we were good Americans as we provided entertainment to the car driver and someone who lived in the house next to the parking lot. I then pulled out the computer to see if I could figure out where we were vs. where we should be. 

In addition to all this we had rain/mist all day plus several construction zones. The car got the worst of this and is totally mud covered. Looked to see if there is a car wash in town, none. I guess I will hose it down tomorrow to give it some semblance of cleanliness. 

We had to go back 2-3 miles and then turn off on a different road. Tom followed me in the MH as I drove the toad. We are now in the left turn lane, and the street I want to turn into is one way out. Quickly signal to the right, wait for traffic to clear, continue down the road looking for a turnaround. I found a street to turn down but there was  construction going on. They allowed us to turn right, we parked the MH and I went to find the cg in the car. Found the correct street this time. Went back to get Tom.  Back through the construction, crew stopped traffic for us to get out. More entertainment for the locals. 

We checked in, went smoothly, she spoke some English, enough. She asked if we had pets. Told her 2 cats, She was very surprised we travel with cats. I guess that is not normal in Canada. 

Only 3 hours after our planned arrival and we finally settled into our site. Decided to stay 2 nights so we could tackle our electrical problems and slide. We need a rest for a while, been a little stressful.

I took out the slides and the kitchen slide made a strange noise(not a good noise) and then went out all the way. Tom was outside and saw a part come flying off the slide. Seeing the part we had a similar problem when we first picked up the MH. The part that broke is a deflapper so the fabric over the slide doesn’t billow. All that is needed is a screw needs to be tightened. We have added that to our pre-travel check list. Slide now works fine.

Lovely cg, town owned, right on the water. I will take some pictures tomorrow. 

Tuesday:

Batteries were dead this morning. I refused to open the refrig due to temps until Tom found problem. He found the problem in 30 minutes, a fried wire inside the inverter. Probably came loose and fried, we have been on some very bad roads.
One thing I never realized was how much the US has in fast food/convenient food. Since we have been in CN we have not seen anything except a Subway and they are far and few between. Even supermarkets are in short supply.