Hooray! We finally have the trailer! Before we take the trailer for a long camping trip, we decided to try it this past weekend to work out any kinks and help us remember all the things we forget to bring when we camp. Last year I finally put together a check list on the computer so now we don't forget the same things over and over.
So we packed up and headed out to the lake. It was a beautiful weekend and we had lots of fun. We discovered we can only go about 80 km/h while towing the trailer, and I'm glad we live in Saskatchewan where there aren't any hills. I'd hate to think of all the nasty things people behind us would be saying if they had to wait for us to get up the hill with the trailer.
Bruce had been worried about hitching the trailer up, but he does it better on his own than with my help. Seriously. I tried directing him, and got it all wrong. When he did it himself without my help, he got it on the first try. And he can back it into a space okay, too. He was worried since we had many troubles with our U-haul going places we didn't want it to. But with the trailer being 22 feet long, it seems to go where he wants it to. I haven't tried driving with the trailer, yet. To be honest, I'm a little more than nervous and don't mind that Bruce is doing so well. He can keep driving. =)
But what made the weekend so nice was this was the first camping trip where we just sat. Our site was close to the playground, so the kids were able to go play while we were getting things ready or cleaning up or tending the fire or even just sitting in a chair. And while they were at the playground they met two friends that were their ages. So they spent the whole weekend playing and not asking us to entertain them. I even managed to read a whole book! I read Sister Light, Sister Dark by Jane Yolen. It was a really good book. The first time I started it, I stopped because I didn't understand what was happening at the beginning. Now that I've read the book through, I re-read the beginning and it makes sense.
Pause to give my thoughts on the book: Sister Light, Sister Dark is told as a story, but it a story based on history and myth. Or, maybe, it's actually better described as history and myth coming from a story. Either way, the book has interjections of myth, history, prophecy, ballads, songs and the story. It is based on religious belief and weaves a tale of a young girl and her destiny. What I didn't realize when I bought the book is it's part 1. (I have the second book, White Jenna, on order at the library.) I enjoyed seeing how we can sometimes see history through our eyes rather than through the eyes of those who lived it. This young girl, Jenna as she is fondly called, begins life rough and is raised by a group of women who worship the Great Alta and walk through life with their dark sisters whom they call to their side when they reach a certain age. The tale is woven leaving suggestions of the greatness that she may possibly be, yet she is not treated as being great. Nor does she think of herself as great. And in the reading, I became quite attached to Jenna and cared about what happened to her. In my opinion, an author has done a good job if I care about his/her characters. I have read books where the people in it are two dimensional. This is definitely a three-dimensional book. I am eagerly waiting for time to sit and read White Jenna to find out what happens.
But to the trailer - we hadn't de-winterized it before we left, and when we got to the campsite, I could smell the anti-freeze. So today Bruce tried to run the water through the taps but had no luck. He tried various things to get the water to run through with no luck. I think he would have been willing to push it off a cliff if we had any close by.
All-in-all, though, we treat the trailer more like a tent. We used it to sleep and store stuff. It was nice not being on the ground. I could definitely get used to that. We'll see how we feel after being in it for a week.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Saturday, June 09, 2007
Trailer Troubles
We attempted to pick up our trailer today – for the 3rd weekend in a row. A few weekends ago we went looking for a trailer. Both Bruce and I are getting to the age where we think the ground is getting harder, or our bodies are getting softer (or maybe a bit of both). The idea of sleeping off the ground is much nicer. Therefore, we went on a trailer hunt. With some of the money from mom’s estate and the accident settlement, we intended to get a used trailer or tent trailer. Something we would be okay spending time in if it was raining while we are camping. We love to camp every summer, but the kids are getting so big now that the tent feels very small if the four of us are stuck in it for any length of time.
To begin with, Bruce had gone to a couple places to inquire about trailers. Then we picked a Saturday to go looking together. The first place we went to looked at our van and said they didn’t think there was much we would be able to get. I guess we’d need a heavier duty engine to pull a trailer. But they had one to show us. It was really nice and I loved it. But it was about $20,000 more than our price range. I was beginning to think that we were going to either have to give up on the idea of a trailer, or be willing to spend double what I had intended.
As it turned out, the place next door to the first one began by asking us what our budget was. When I told the sales lady, she stopped for a moment before saying anything to us, and then she took us to look at two trailers. The first one was kind of the thing that I thought we would probably end up with. It was older and small. But we needed to make sure we could sleep four in it. The next one was great. It was a 1967 Airstream. Inside looked really 60’s-ish, but I fell in love with it right away. We made an offer and they accepted. We signed the papers, paid the money and were told we could pick it up the next weekend. Yay!
So the next weekend we booked the babysitter so that we could give our full attention to learning about our new-to-us trailer, and headed out to pick it up. When we got there, blank looks met us and we were told that our trailer hadn’t been looked at yet. (They were going to look over the trailer before letting us take it to make sure everything was in working order.) We had two options – we could wait and they would have a quick look over for us to take later that day, or we could leave it for a week and come back the next Saturday to get it. I didn’t want a rush job over my trailer, so I opted for coming back.
So we went home and booked a babysitter for the next Saturday. Friday night we had a call saying that no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t get the fridge to work. They could replace the fridge for us, and would we think about it. So we spent the evening looking up RV fridges and Airstreams on the Internet. We learned a lot more about our trailer that evening than we had known previously. It turns out we made a fairly good purchase. Airstreams are built to last and we don’t just have an old trailer. We have a vintage trailer. Our research led me to believe that we shouldn’t just replace the fridge, though. We should attempt to have it fixed instead. So we discussed the matter with the owner who said he would look into it and get back to us. A few days later we got a call saying that, yes, the fridge could be fixed. But it’s going to cost about $750 and they would be willing to pay for half if we pay for half. Okay. That’s about what they were willing to give us in the first place by putting in a new fridge. And a new fridge would look out of place in our trailer, as well as not fitting properly. So I’m okay with that. The only thing is, it’ll be about six or eight weeks to wait for the fridge as it has to be shipped to Calgary. We don’t have anywhere in the city that will fix it. And since we are intending to go out to Bruce’s parent’s sooner than that, we will just do without the fridge for the summer and bring it back in the fall to be sent away for repairs.
So, we booked another appointment to pick up the trailer. It turns out we were going to have a busy day as Brendan had a soccer game at 11 and our appointment was for 1. We rushed home, grabbed the babysitter and sped to go get the trailer. Once there, we were told there was going to be a delay, and would we like to have a coffee while we wait. Alright. We sat in a new Airstream drinking coffee and chatting while waiting to get the tour of our Airstream.
An hour later someone came to get us. Then we find out the guy who is going to teach us about our trailer has to learn about it first himself. Someone else had done the check up, and so he didn’t know where everything was. Well, more than the fridge wasn’t working, and to his credit, the guy helping us did everything he could to get everything right for us. Okay, good. Now we could take the trailer home. Bruce got the van and backed it up. We put the trailer on the hitch and then went to hook up the lights. Oh, no! There were two different connections. The lights on the trailer wouldn’t hook up to our plug in on our van. Again, no problem says the guy helping us out. I’ll just do this and that and adapt your wires to fit. Well, to say his day wasn’t going well would be an understatement. He couldn’t get the signal lights to work with the wires and can’t figure out why. *shrug* I don’t know. All I know is that it worked when we towed the U-haul from my mom’s last year. So he figured maybe we had a fuse that was blown. After taking the time to figure out how to get to the fuse panel (another comedy of errors - keep in mind, neither Bruce nor I know much about cars), Bruce and I checked each of the fuses to find out that all of them are okay. Then we waited. We hadn’t been the only ones waiting for service. There were two other trailers that needed work and so while we checked the fuses, our service guy went to help the other trailers. In the end, we have to take our van to have the wiring redone so that we can actually tow our trailer without getting a ticket for having no lights.
On the way home Bruce said it would have been nice if someone had thought to check that out for us before because we could have had that done before today. Oh well. I was so excited about getting our trailer, and now we have to wait again. I sure hope it’s going to be worth it once we finally have it. And I hope we can figure out how to drive with it and back up. Neither of us are very confident about getting into tight places with the trailer. That will be another adventure.
To begin with, Bruce had gone to a couple places to inquire about trailers. Then we picked a Saturday to go looking together. The first place we went to looked at our van and said they didn’t think there was much we would be able to get. I guess we’d need a heavier duty engine to pull a trailer. But they had one to show us. It was really nice and I loved it. But it was about $20,000 more than our price range. I was beginning to think that we were going to either have to give up on the idea of a trailer, or be willing to spend double what I had intended.
As it turned out, the place next door to the first one began by asking us what our budget was. When I told the sales lady, she stopped for a moment before saying anything to us, and then she took us to look at two trailers. The first one was kind of the thing that I thought we would probably end up with. It was older and small. But we needed to make sure we could sleep four in it. The next one was great. It was a 1967 Airstream. Inside looked really 60’s-ish, but I fell in love with it right away. We made an offer and they accepted. We signed the papers, paid the money and were told we could pick it up the next weekend. Yay!
So the next weekend we booked the babysitter so that we could give our full attention to learning about our new-to-us trailer, and headed out to pick it up. When we got there, blank looks met us and we were told that our trailer hadn’t been looked at yet. (They were going to look over the trailer before letting us take it to make sure everything was in working order.) We had two options – we could wait and they would have a quick look over for us to take later that day, or we could leave it for a week and come back the next Saturday to get it. I didn’t want a rush job over my trailer, so I opted for coming back.
So we went home and booked a babysitter for the next Saturday. Friday night we had a call saying that no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t get the fridge to work. They could replace the fridge for us, and would we think about it. So we spent the evening looking up RV fridges and Airstreams on the Internet. We learned a lot more about our trailer that evening than we had known previously. It turns out we made a fairly good purchase. Airstreams are built to last and we don’t just have an old trailer. We have a vintage trailer. Our research led me to believe that we shouldn’t just replace the fridge, though. We should attempt to have it fixed instead. So we discussed the matter with the owner who said he would look into it and get back to us. A few days later we got a call saying that, yes, the fridge could be fixed. But it’s going to cost about $750 and they would be willing to pay for half if we pay for half. Okay. That’s about what they were willing to give us in the first place by putting in a new fridge. And a new fridge would look out of place in our trailer, as well as not fitting properly. So I’m okay with that. The only thing is, it’ll be about six or eight weeks to wait for the fridge as it has to be shipped to Calgary. We don’t have anywhere in the city that will fix it. And since we are intending to go out to Bruce’s parent’s sooner than that, we will just do without the fridge for the summer and bring it back in the fall to be sent away for repairs.
So, we booked another appointment to pick up the trailer. It turns out we were going to have a busy day as Brendan had a soccer game at 11 and our appointment was for 1. We rushed home, grabbed the babysitter and sped to go get the trailer. Once there, we were told there was going to be a delay, and would we like to have a coffee while we wait. Alright. We sat in a new Airstream drinking coffee and chatting while waiting to get the tour of our Airstream.
An hour later someone came to get us. Then we find out the guy who is going to teach us about our trailer has to learn about it first himself. Someone else had done the check up, and so he didn’t know where everything was. Well, more than the fridge wasn’t working, and to his credit, the guy helping us did everything he could to get everything right for us. Okay, good. Now we could take the trailer home. Bruce got the van and backed it up. We put the trailer on the hitch and then went to hook up the lights. Oh, no! There were two different connections. The lights on the trailer wouldn’t hook up to our plug in on our van. Again, no problem says the guy helping us out. I’ll just do this and that and adapt your wires to fit. Well, to say his day wasn’t going well would be an understatement. He couldn’t get the signal lights to work with the wires and can’t figure out why. *shrug* I don’t know. All I know is that it worked when we towed the U-haul from my mom’s last year. So he figured maybe we had a fuse that was blown. After taking the time to figure out how to get to the fuse panel (another comedy of errors - keep in mind, neither Bruce nor I know much about cars), Bruce and I checked each of the fuses to find out that all of them are okay. Then we waited. We hadn’t been the only ones waiting for service. There were two other trailers that needed work and so while we checked the fuses, our service guy went to help the other trailers. In the end, we have to take our van to have the wiring redone so that we can actually tow our trailer without getting a ticket for having no lights.
On the way home Bruce said it would have been nice if someone had thought to check that out for us before because we could have had that done before today. Oh well. I was so excited about getting our trailer, and now we have to wait again. I sure hope it’s going to be worth it once we finally have it. And I hope we can figure out how to drive with it and back up. Neither of us are very confident about getting into tight places with the trailer. That will be another adventure.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Random Thoughts
Well, another month has passed without an entry. Believe it or not, I have attempted to post a couple of times, but the home computer is just picky sometimes out our internet connection. We are on the lowest connection (just short of dial up), and sometimes pages just won’t load. I get frustrated and impatient and quit. This will be a random posting of various thoughts I’ve had over the last while. So, in no particular order:
Becoming Orthodox
I was chrismated on the May long weekend. Seeing as it was a long weekend, half of our regular attenders were away, but that was good because we filled up the church with our friends from Living Hope (and others). It was so good to have that much support. When I think of it, I almost feel like crying – happy crying. We have been so blessed with so many who are loving and caring and supportive. We’ve left one amazing church family to join another, equally amazing church family.
The night before my chrismation: I didn’t think that it was going to be a big deal being chrismated. I was prepared for whatever God had in store for me, but wasn’t expecting anything spectacular. What I wasn’t prepared for was that the night before I got the “pre-marriage jitters.” My honey had posted on a mailing list of his about a possible patron saint for me. He had written about my hearts desires (which are very lofty and sometimes I think unattainable), and the first post in response was that I should not desire so much but should pray that I would be more humble and that I would not sin. Yes, I need humility. It has been revealed to me more and more lately that I am full of pride. I am proud. I struggle against authority as much as I respect authority. I question everything and don’t take much at face value.
Before Bruce posted the request, I was worried at what the Orthodox community would think of my desires. What I want is so un-Orthodox, but it’s still what I want. The comment in response, and the timing of it, made me so upset and question what in the world I was doing joining the Orthodox church. I keep saying that I’m not sure they really want me, and yet at the same time, it’s where I want to be. So I spent the evening doubting that I should be going through with becoming Orthodox.
I didn’t back out. But it made me realize that becoming Orthodox was a way bigger deal than becoming a member at any other church I’ve been a part of in the past. Even before my baptism I didn’t have any doubt. I didn’t quite fully comprehend what I was doing and was simply being obedient to what I thought God was asking me to do when I was baptised. But maybe, too, it was that I was younger. *shrug*
But anyway, I did it. I took the plunge - made the commitment. It still sounds weird to me to say, “I am Orthodox.” I told that to someone in my office, and he laughed and said, “You’re anything but Orthodox! You’re, like, new age or something!” I still don’t know quite what he means. But if he means that I’m not a stuffy traditionalist, I can live with that. ^-^
Neopets
In one of my last posts I’d blamed being busy on the reason for not posting. Neopets was one of the places I said I’ve been spending my time. But since they changed the layout of Neopets I actually haven’t been around as much. I’ve been thinking about quitting and giving up all my stuff and pets and such. But there are many things there that I have enjoyed. Maybe I’ll wait a while. Real life has been so busy that I haven’t had as much “waste” time to spend in neoland.
Real Estate
I love my job! I have been swamped, but I love my job. A little while ago, my hubby and a co-worker both gave me a Dilbert cartoon. I’ll try to link it here.
Real estate in Saskatoon has been crazy, and so that means I’ve been really busy. It also means that my dreams of moving into a bigger house are quickly flying out the window. When we bought our house, it had been with the intention that it was the first step toward a house that would fit us better. Now with the housing market, my house is looking pretty good! We have a huge yard, but a small house. Renovating or rebuilding may be the options we’ll have to seriously look at to expand our indoor space – especially when the kids get to be teens. Oh, well. We’ll blow up that bridge when we get to it.
Stress?
I’ve noticed that the last couple of months it seems as though we’ve had something planned almost every night of the week. Meetings, soccer, going for coffee, having people over, volunteering….. it all takes time. I had someone comment to me earlier this year about how in North America we are all so tied to time. She had been in a country (I can’t remember which one) where relationship meant more than time. So if you were supposed to meet someone at 9 a.m. and on your way ran into a cousin, for example, and didn’t get to the meeting, if you said, “Oh, sorry I’m late. I ran into so-and-so,” everyone would just nod and understand. And here we have road rage and people shooting people because they can’t get somewhere fast enough. I saw a news report on CBC about driving in Toronto. They said that that most accidents happen from changing lanes – the more you change lanes, the more likely you are to get into an accident. Then add speed, and you’d be an accident waiting to happen. They did a test where two drivers had to race around this really busy section which would take about an hour in rush hour. One driver was allowed to change lanes as many times as she wanted (she was a professional car driver), but she was not allowed to speed or break any traffic laws. The other driver was only allowed to change lanes if he had to. The result: the driver who could change lanes as often as she liked expressed extreme anxiety over trying to get to her destination while the driver who was to maintain his lane as much as possible said at one point, “we’re going a lot faster than I thought we would.” The changing-lane driver did beat the other driver to the destination – by about 5 minutes. Personally, my health is not worth 5 minutes. I’ve decided not to freak out so much while I’m driving.
Becoming Orthodox
I was chrismated on the May long weekend. Seeing as it was a long weekend, half of our regular attenders were away, but that was good because we filled up the church with our friends from Living Hope (and others). It was so good to have that much support. When I think of it, I almost feel like crying – happy crying. We have been so blessed with so many who are loving and caring and supportive. We’ve left one amazing church family to join another, equally amazing church family.
The night before my chrismation: I didn’t think that it was going to be a big deal being chrismated. I was prepared for whatever God had in store for me, but wasn’t expecting anything spectacular. What I wasn’t prepared for was that the night before I got the “pre-marriage jitters.” My honey had posted on a mailing list of his about a possible patron saint for me. He had written about my hearts desires (which are very lofty and sometimes I think unattainable), and the first post in response was that I should not desire so much but should pray that I would be more humble and that I would not sin. Yes, I need humility. It has been revealed to me more and more lately that I am full of pride. I am proud. I struggle against authority as much as I respect authority. I question everything and don’t take much at face value.
Before Bruce posted the request, I was worried at what the Orthodox community would think of my desires. What I want is so un-Orthodox, but it’s still what I want. The comment in response, and the timing of it, made me so upset and question what in the world I was doing joining the Orthodox church. I keep saying that I’m not sure they really want me, and yet at the same time, it’s where I want to be. So I spent the evening doubting that I should be going through with becoming Orthodox.
I didn’t back out. But it made me realize that becoming Orthodox was a way bigger deal than becoming a member at any other church I’ve been a part of in the past. Even before my baptism I didn’t have any doubt. I didn’t quite fully comprehend what I was doing and was simply being obedient to what I thought God was asking me to do when I was baptised. But maybe, too, it was that I was younger. *shrug*
But anyway, I did it. I took the plunge - made the commitment. It still sounds weird to me to say, “I am Orthodox.” I told that to someone in my office, and he laughed and said, “You’re anything but Orthodox! You’re, like, new age or something!” I still don’t know quite what he means. But if he means that I’m not a stuffy traditionalist, I can live with that. ^-^
Neopets
In one of my last posts I’d blamed being busy on the reason for not posting. Neopets was one of the places I said I’ve been spending my time. But since they changed the layout of Neopets I actually haven’t been around as much. I’ve been thinking about quitting and giving up all my stuff and pets and such. But there are many things there that I have enjoyed. Maybe I’ll wait a while. Real life has been so busy that I haven’t had as much “waste” time to spend in neoland.
Real Estate
I love my job! I have been swamped, but I love my job. A little while ago, my hubby and a co-worker both gave me a Dilbert cartoon. I’ll try to link it here.
Real estate in Saskatoon has been crazy, and so that means I’ve been really busy. It also means that my dreams of moving into a bigger house are quickly flying out the window. When we bought our house, it had been with the intention that it was the first step toward a house that would fit us better. Now with the housing market, my house is looking pretty good! We have a huge yard, but a small house. Renovating or rebuilding may be the options we’ll have to seriously look at to expand our indoor space – especially when the kids get to be teens. Oh, well. We’ll blow up that bridge when we get to it.
Stress?
I’ve noticed that the last couple of months it seems as though we’ve had something planned almost every night of the week. Meetings, soccer, going for coffee, having people over, volunteering….. it all takes time. I had someone comment to me earlier this year about how in North America we are all so tied to time. She had been in a country (I can’t remember which one) where relationship meant more than time. So if you were supposed to meet someone at 9 a.m. and on your way ran into a cousin, for example, and didn’t get to the meeting, if you said, “Oh, sorry I’m late. I ran into so-and-so,” everyone would just nod and understand. And here we have road rage and people shooting people because they can’t get somewhere fast enough. I saw a news report on CBC about driving in Toronto. They said that that most accidents happen from changing lanes – the more you change lanes, the more likely you are to get into an accident. Then add speed, and you’d be an accident waiting to happen. They did a test where two drivers had to race around this really busy section which would take about an hour in rush hour. One driver was allowed to change lanes as many times as she wanted (she was a professional car driver), but she was not allowed to speed or break any traffic laws. The other driver was only allowed to change lanes if he had to. The result: the driver who could change lanes as often as she liked expressed extreme anxiety over trying to get to her destination while the driver who was to maintain his lane as much as possible said at one point, “we’re going a lot faster than I thought we would.” The changing-lane driver did beat the other driver to the destination – by about 5 minutes. Personally, my health is not worth 5 minutes. I’ve decided not to freak out so much while I’m driving.
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