Francis' Birthday and Last Minute Preps

Francis is turning 30 on July 1st and we celebrated his birthday at Lac des Plages with his family before leaving. We brought Lucy along of course. It was a weekend of firsts.

First time we drove over an hour in Lucy: Overall things went really well. There's some hills on the way to the cottage so we managed to push her a bit to see how she'd handle the Alberta/BC roads. She did well but the windshield wiper went kaput in the last 5 minute of our trip so we had to pull in with a wanky wiper. Minor detail.

First time we packed her up real good: I'm still a bit paranoid about the packing. We didn't take much with us on the weekend and she was pretty much full. We'll have to be smart in our packing for the trip. First time we slept in the pull out bed: I slept like a baby. The pop top was up and we had nice cool air coming in all night. Mom let us borrow her sleeping bags and they did the trick. We still haven't put the snaps on the curtains for the front windshield so we just used a spare blanket to cover up the front for the sun and privacy.

Other "adventures": We had battery problems on the way back. We were on the ferry and couldn't start Lucy. It was a little panicky because, well, because we were on a ferry and we were the first vehicle in front center. The ferry guys managed to push us off and the secondary deep cycle battery eventually got enough juice to start us up again. When we got home we discovered the generator wasn't working as it should and it wouldn't charge our primary battery. The boys changed the brushes and it did the trick. In the next few days we'll be scrambling to get everything done. Mechanically, we have to do an oil change and tune-up and packing wise there's still lots to do. Our next post will probably be from the road. Thanks to everyone for their wishes.