Our Cross-Canada (Mis)adventures
Jillian’s journey, day one (and a half)
The drive for our first day was the longest of the trip.
My back hurts.
I sang so many songs in the car I started losing my voice.
It was so worth it.
We arrived at Grasslands National Park in Saskatchewan late in the afternoon, with enough time to set up camp and get dinner started.
It was perfect timing, because on our way we passed through isolated showers and we could see storm clouds in the distance getting closer.
The beauty of the prairies is you can see the weather coming from miles away.
Shortly after we finished dinner the thunder started. It was short-lived, but it was a strange prairie storm, complete with hail – in late June.
What was especially cool about the summer showers was the sun stayed out, meaning we got to see a beautiful rainbow once the stormclouds cleared.
I like to think it was Mother Nature’s way of wishing all of us a Happy Pride!
Once the rain stopped we went exploring, taking in the beautiful scenery.
That evening I got to watch the sun set.
We saw a lot of wildlife on our drive and during our first couple days of camping. We saw a lot of hawks hunting across the grasslands, mule deer, and coyotes. I spotted two red fox kits along our route while driving, and my husband spotted a pair of pronghorn!
Things never go as planned
As we’re about 2 1/2 hours away from our next destination, we feel our vehicle start vibrating. I say to my husband, “that feels like a flat tire”. We get out and kick the tires (literally) and none of them seem flat. Weird. We check our bikes, tighten some things, then try again.
We’re driving for a few minutes and vibrating turns to wobbling, so we pull over again. We inspect the tires more closely and my husband discovers a lug nut on one of the tires is actually missing. When I test the others, I can actually unscrew them and remove them with my hand.
I can unscrew my tire’s lug nuts with. my. bare. hands.
That’s not good.
We have to take our bikes of the rack and unpack our entire vehicle to get to our tire iron and tighten the remaining lug nuts. It’s Sunday, we’re in the middle of nowhere, and everything even remotely nearby is closed.
We contact our roadside assistance. Trying to give our location when surrounded by farmland is not easy. I gave the nearest two sounds and how far we were from each, but our only “landmarks” were cows grazing in a field nearby.
After a few frustrating phone calls and a long wait in the hot sun, they send someone out to have a look, and eventually he sends us on our way. The dealership is going to get an earful tomorrow, but for now we continue to our next destination.
Stay tuned.
© Jillian Enright, Neurodiversity MB
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