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Fifth wheel trip to British Columbia

Yep. That'd be me. Are we there yet? Personally I'd be happy to just keep on trucking and get home. It's been a loooong two weeks. I'm dragging a$$

We made it to our campsite south of Winnipeg for two nights. The girls were talking about a museum this afternoon. I may skip it.
 
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The drive across the prairies was boooorrrriiinnnngggg. 3 days of this.....
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And where do people in Manitoba and Saskatchewan learn to drive? Two lane road straight as an arrow for 100km and there's a lineup of cars behind me too afraid to pass. The first ducks out then back in for 10kms too afraid to pass. Finally the second one in line pulls out to pass us both and the first one pulls out and damned near sideswipes the second one while almost rear ending me. All the while I'm sitting there with my cruise set at 110 in a 100km zone holding my own. That was just one episode this morning. There were several. Idiot drivers 🤬. That said, we stopped at princess auto aka man's heaven in Winnipeg where I picked up the tires I ordered.
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And drove to the campsite. I'm done. I'm wiped. The girls headed to the museum. I stayed back at the camper to rest. As far as campsites go, this'll do. It's not huge but it's pull through and level. Full hook ups with laundry services available for $40 per night. We're here two nights. I started this trip off with 2 full 30lb propane tanks. Both the refrigerator and hot water tank were running using propane. The refrigerator switches to propane automatically when I disconnect the power. The hot water tank only heats with propane. That's not bad. I just switched over to my second tank of propane.

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At the last minute before we left as I was walking out the door before leaving on this epic journey, I grabbed this Adirondack chair cushion I have sitting on my chair in the living room. It has made a huge difference in allowing me to be able to drive this long. I put it in the truck the other day and it was a game changer as my back is hurting to where I can barely stand at times let alone walk. Amazon $35 I believe.

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NorthernRedneck said:
We made it to roblin Manitoba today. After driving halfway across Canada in 2 weeks, I can safely award Saskatchewan with the roughest roads in Canada. After leaving Loydminister this morning heading east on the transcanada hwy, I had to shake my head. What a patched up mess for over 100km. Two lanes and rough as hell from the patches upon patches which have patches over those. Tomorrow is on to Winnipeg. The weather was crap today. Strong winds and rain along with a lightning storm. The truck handled it fine. We stopped for lunch at a park along the road. Leftover fajitas. I left it pinned up and only dropped the back jacks again. Not even level tonight but we're on the road again first light.
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I can't accurately state the route i took recently, but many of your destinations where included. I went from wisconsin to just short of Tok Ak. And returned on a different route for a change of scenery. In the last decade, Ive been up to timmons, up and down sas mani and alberta and loved the roads but yes, times are changing I travel canadian highways going to eastern USA destinations as the toll system and routes under the great lakes are horrible. I share your sentiment about the highway system. But know its not any better anywhere else. I feel as dispensaries pop up the quality of the rural experience goes down. The cities are busting with people and it appears the resources are being deployed there. The trans can hwy has stretches that are awesome but it seems only by military bases. I have been scammed or skimmed on my credit / debit card 3x in recent years. All 3x it was outside large metro areas. All in canada. Im getting pretty good at picking less busy petro stations but the trailer forces me into the big stations. If the pump looks janky, i walk in and prepay. Make eye contact and get a little chit chat pull out a phone ect.
Your post about the plains and transition to hilly regions put me right back on that trip.
I had some crabby mounted police that did not care for the crappy trailer condition and the load upon it. "I was/am just passing through" was probably not an appropriate stance. The officer that discussed my situation the second time even asked me why i was on the highway i was on.... i just said google put me here.... (patches on patches is accurate)......
Your trip looked like a blast. Im not sure i could do the camping endeavor. i tried when the kids were young but being an educator my fuse with people is pretty short
Safe travels!
 
Tomorrow morning, the wife and I will be returning to princess auto to um.....browse. yah. That's it. She actually said she had a couple of lawn chairs in the Amazon cart. Oh yah? Wouldn't you know it. They have the same one on sale at princess auto. I showed her the flyer and she's interested. The bait is set. I finally get to do something I want this trip even if it's just browsing a parts store. 🤣 🤣 🤣
 
Cheers 🍻 we're back where we started on July 8th. But not without some hiccups today. The truck ran fine all the way across the prairies. What happened as soon as I hit the Ontario border? #5 coil started missing. It was the only one left original. I swapped it out with another old one I had as a spare. A few km later I was on the side of the road doing it again. I finally found one that got us in to our destination but lost an hour total along the way. I headed in to town to pick up another coil when we got here. Napa had em in stock. It's changed and running good. But aside from that, we are 6300km into this trip. We had to keep it short as we have something this weekend at home then head out east for the weekend next weekend with the fifth wheel in tow again. Kind of a 16hr turn n burn at home tomorrow


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Sweet success.

In regards to those coil paks. I found that when i fail one coil, change them all and celebrate 7 or 9 spares. My Only other oberservation is widening sparkplug gaps. I feel that is what fails the coils
 
Thanks for the tips. Yes. I keep saying each manufacturer has their achilles heal so to speak. With ford, it's their coils. My wife's expedition has the same engine and coils and is just starting to go through the same thing at the same mileage mine started. I've got 6 spares, a code scanner and a set of sockets. Had it changed in 10 minutes on the side of the highway. I'm a scout leader. I'm prepared for anything. 🤣 In the meantime, the sun is setting on our last night before hitting home tomorrow. It's been a journey. I would have liked to stretch out the drive and make it 3 weeks but we were time crunched.
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redsqwrl said:
I used to get pissy about plugs and coul packs untill i realized i have something like 140k on the plugs and thought to myself. Hmm thats a really lot of miles
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Back in the fifties, we changed points and plugs like every 10 to 20 thousand miles.

Go diesel and you only have to change oil, and filters, every 3 to 5 thousand miles
 
We're home. I'm tired. The fifth wheel is unhooked and started to be unloaded. We're going to turn n burn heading out to our seasonal campsite for the weekend. So the dishwasher died while we were gone and somehow the rear taillight lense on my wife's vehicle was broken. Not the actual lense but the plastic tabs that hold it in place. Strange. Oh well. One more thing to fix. Overall it was a very long drive. I would do it in no less than 3 weeks. We were gone 16 days.
 
NorthernRedneck said:
We're home. I'm tired. The fifth wheel is unhooked and started to be unloaded. We're going to turn n burn heading out to our seasonal campsite for the weekend. So the dishwasher died while we were gone and somehow the rear taillight lense on my wife's vehicle was broken. Not the actual lense but the plastic tabs that hold it in place. Strange. Oh well. One more thing to fix. Overall it was a very long drive. I would do it in no less than 3 weeks. We were gone 16 days.
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I cannot thank you enough for your entertaining photos and commentary during your trip.
Enjoyed all of it immensely.
Glad it went well for you.
 
Just a quick update. We made it home last Thursday then turned around and went to our seasonal campsite for the weekend. I couldn't get much done due to severe thunderstorms yesterday but hit it hard this morning installing the new tires on the fifth wheel camper before we head out on Thursday for another quick weekend trip with 3hrs of driving time.
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During the trip, the hot water tank began acting up running roughly once lit and taking a few extra tries to light. The camper is 21yrs old and sat a long time. While I had it backed up to my shop to change the tires, I blew out the hot water tank Along with the back of the refrigerator behind both of these panels then lit the tank. It now works smoothly and has no problem lighting and staying lit.
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I blow out both the fridge and hot water heaters every year. Dad had a camper burn up a few years ago and we figure it started at the fridge, possibly leaves and debris or mice or a squirrel built in there catching it on fire.
 
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