Wednesday, August 11, 2010 (Saskatoon, SK to The Pas, MB)

Before leaving this morning, we had to go back to the dealership to call Whyte Communications so they could pay the bill via phone. By the time work had been completed last night, they were closed. After we were all squared-up, we said our thank you’s and goodbyes and we were off...not very far, though, just across to the mall to pick up a few groceries at Walmart. Steve also needed to buy some axes (since we had forgotten ours back home) but had no luck at either Walmart or Home Depot.
It was 11:30 by the time we were on the road, trusting that Serena would guide us safely out of the maze of roads to Hwy 41. We were heading northeast. After yesterdays rain, it had been very foggy when we first got up but the fog had burned off and it had turned into a nice day.

A couple of hours into our drive, we stopped at a pull-out to have a stretch and our lunch. It was by a neat old railway trestle...

Once back on the road, Steve noticed that the “Service Engine” indicator had come on in the truck...great, what now? And the cruise control wasn’t working. Good grief, we seem to be plagued with problems! Gee...and we just left a GM dealer...go figure! After our conversation with the GM Customer Service person the other day, we knew that there was a dealer in Tisdale which was on our route. As it turned out, there was also one in Melfort so we pulled in there. They were unable to help us but he called ahead to Tisdale (about a half hour down the road). They would be able to plug us into the computer and at least see what the problem was. After leaving Melfort, the cruise control started working but the “service engine” light was still on. The mechanic in Tisdale said he had never seen one of these trucks but should be able to get the fault code for us to see if it was safe to continue on eventually to a dealer in Winnipeg after our visit with Dave at Reed Lake. The fault code said EGR (exhaust gas recirculation) so it was safe to continue on. The mechanic said it was normal for the cruise control to stop working when the service engine light comes on. Eventually the service engine light went out.

Tisdale was the deciding point on which route we were going to take...carry on east until just inside the Manitoba border then head north...or...go north up to Nipawin and then east to The Pas, Manitoba. We chose the later...which proved to be a mistake. About a half hour or so out of Niapwin, heading east, the highway all of a sudden turned into a gravel road...what the heck?!There was no warning and according to the map, the highway was marked in red, not gray. So we had a very slow, bumpy ride all of the way to the Manitoba border...it took us over 2 hours on the gravel road. At first, we were lucky if we got up to 30 kms per hour but eventually the road did improve somewhat and we were up to 60 or 70. We were very happy when we finally reached highway 283 in Manitoba...pavement, yay!

We arrived in The Pas at 7:30 p.m...okay, where are we going to stay? I don’t think they have a Walmart parking lot here...but they do have a casino! After filling up with water at the Shell station, we found the casino just a short distance down the highway and pulled into a corner of their huge parking lot. Before we got all set up, we thought we should go ask in the casino if it would be okay. After checking with Security, she gave us the green light and we went back out to level the trailer and put the slides out.

After a couple of drinks and dinner in the Casino restaurant, we returned to the trailer. It was 10:00 p.m. and Steve was exhausted from the drive so it was right to bed for us.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010 (Prince Albert National Park to Saskatoon, SK)

We were up and on the road this morning by 7:30. There was a light cloud covering today...hey, what happened to our nice blue sky?? We took the main route back to Hwy 2 rather than the so called scenic route. The road was in much better condition and we found it more scenic than the other one, seeing deer along the way.

We passed through Prince Albert, only stopping at the Flying J to fuel up. It was a pretty uneventful drive as we headed south but we did notice that the cloud covering was starting to look thicker. There hadn’t been any rain in the forecast when we checked yesterday...nah...it won’t rain. Well, about 45 minutes outside of Saskatoon it started to pour! Great...no wipers! It was a very stressful 45 minutes aided by Serena who kept telling us to turn off the highway where there weren’t any roads. There is a lot of highway construction/maintenance going on so perhaps that confused her....

We finally found Sherwood Chevrolet-Truck Centre, our destination. Steve went in to take care of the paperwork while I waited in the truck...just thankful we had made it! Steve returned and said I can’t believe it...their medium duty mechanic is on holidays and the mechanic he spoke to went into this long explanation about how Isuzu and GMC had a falling out years ago and they no longer service Isuzu. Steve told him it’s known as a GMC in Canada with an Isuzu engine and is known as an Isuzu in the USA. The mechanic leaned back and looked out the bay window and said oh it’s the T series GMC not the smaller W series Isuzu. Sorry about that. They told Steve they did have a mechanic on that was able to trouble shoot wiring.

There is a gravel lot across the street where they store their new pick-up trucks and they said that we could drop the 5th wheel there. So away we went and did that and brought the truck back...to wait for its turn with the technician.

Jennifer, our service rep, directed us to the customer lounge and also said they have a shuttle that could take us over to the mall if we wanted. We took her up on the offer thinking it was an “inside” mall but it was a big strip mall with Walmart, Home Depot plus a bunch of other stores with a few fast food places. But there was a Tony Romas Restaurant, so that is where we headed for lunch. It was just noon and we hadn’t had much to eat this morning except for a couple of granola bars. We had a great lunch, sitting watching it just pour outside. Well, we won’t be “wandering” around this mall...so we called for a shuttle back to Sherwood Chev.

Once back, we learned the fate of the truck....what had happened is that when Al (fellow from Whyte Communications) put the fuse block back into its receptacle (in the cab dash in front of passenger seat) he ended up stripping a wire which shorted and blew a fuse in another fuse box that was located back under the ATV box of the truck. Nobody knew this other fuse box existed and all of the fuses in the truck are very unusual...not your standard automotive type. So they were just waiting for a replacement fuse to be delivered. Whew...that doesn’t sound too bad. The first fuse delivered was the wrong one so they had to source it again. So it was something to do with the camera installation. Steve called Al and explained what had happened. He was very apologetic...Whyte Communications would be paying that bill. We had arrived at the dealership at 11:30 am and finding the problem didn’t take them long...however the fuse fiasco held us up until 6:00 pm!!

We spent the night at the gravel lot where we had dropped the trailer. We were going to watch a movie—Steve had even hooked up the generator (at least we didn’t have to worry about bothering our neighbours with the noise)—but by the time we had dinner and cleaned up, it was late. So Steve decided to go to bed and read while I worked on the blog. I knew that it would likely be awhile before I had internet connection again, so I wanted to get it up to date.