It is our Pleasure to Introduce Casper and Clark

19 degrees celsius and overcast.

Greetings and salutations from Kelowna, British Columbia on day 4 of Keoma and Bill’s year long odyssey with our very good friends, Casper and Clark.

When partaking in a year long adventure, it is very important to travel in the company of very good friends so let us introduce you to two of the most integral and critical friends that we will have contact with on our Journey.

First of all, Casper, who is our trusty white Toyota Tundra. She was purchased in late 2017 with the intention that she would be crossing the continent with us and would also be responsible for hauling those items that have been deemed essential to our comfort and which will keep us in the lifestyle to which we are becoming accustomed. As you can see from the photo, she has had a canopy added complete with roof racks so that our Delta 16 and Seaward 18 could come along for the ride. Given the process that it takes to load and unload them, there is a decent chance that coming along for the ride may be the extent of their experience.

Casper’s (and Bill’s) first experience towing anything happened 3 sleeps ago when we finished up the final loading of the camper and truck with everything but the kitchen sink (wrong – there are 3 kitchen sinks), checked in with our RV dealer to make sure that we had hitched everything appropriately, almost forgot to do a signal light check and then departed Calgary at about 3:00 in the afternoon. As you can see from the photo, we are traveling very light so we had absolutely zero concerns about Casper hauling her load through the Rocky Mountains via the Kicking Horse and Rogers Pass. That was sarcasm. We worried and fretted and Bill became intimately familiar with the Tow/Haul component  as well as the trailer brake, but Casper and Bill were  absolute champs. They had us safely to our first stop of the trip by about 8:00 in the evening. Keoma was moral support. Or dead weight. The jury is still out.

Evening one was spent at lovely Canyon Hot Springs which had just opened the afternoon of the day that we arrived.  In fact, the facility was so newly opened for the season that the owners had to come down to the area that we were in and unlock the bathrooms. We literally had the entire campground to ourselves so there was nobody there to witness us driving around twice to line ourselves up correctly in our pull through site. We did discover that the kayaks on the top add an element of extra required caution around trees and power lines. Tricky little devils.

And now, allow us to introduce our second very good and very integral friend – Clark (“that thar’s an RV”). Clark joined our family in November of 2017 and like Casper, the “adoption” was with the intention of making a trans North American tour . Clark is a thirty three foot Shadow Cruiser 279DBS by Cruiser RV. Bill has been spending months customizing, optimizing, building, sawing and reading and watching blogs and vlogs to learn about how to keep the electrical system from overloading and the water tanks from becoming full of silt. Keoma was able to join in and help in the last couple of weeks and loaded her up with food, blankets, clothing, and of course, color coordinated throw pillows and duvet cover. Due to the very late departure of winter this year, one of the critical elements that we were unable to partake in was getting her out and de-winterized. Thus, for a few days we knew that we would be traveling with a bit of a glorified tent on wheels but with a comfortable bed and an operational furnace.

Clark’s outdoor kitchen (kitchen sink one) provided the cook space for the first meal of the journey, and J Lohr provided the refreshments. Back to the campground being freshly opened for the season, the power was not yet turned on but the batteries provided more than enough light for the fifteen minutes that we were able to stay awake after we finally ate our camping pasta.

The following morning the showers in our area were not yet operational so we walked up the hill back to the office to have our showers at…wait for it…the hot springs pool which we had all to ourselves. It was glorious. The sun was shining, the sky was a beautiful blue and the only other person around was the nice fellow re-building the fence. Best. Hour. Ever.

After a soak and a scrub, we checked the hitch, the sway bars, the equalizer, the emergency quick release and the signal lights and hit the Trans Canada once again for our three hour drive to Kelowna. As we rounded a corner about fifteen minutes after our departure Bill caught a flutter of movement in the side mirror out of the corner of his eye. After a concentrated look, a series of bad words erupted from him and he advised Keoma that the single window that is a pop out window (emergency exit) rather than a slide was flapping madly in the wind and was skirting perilously close to oncoming traffic on the curves. Oh dear. What was interesting about the timing of such a happening was that it occurred at the only section of the Trans Canada that did not have a rest area for westbound traffic for miles and miles and this is also the only section of the Trans Canada that does not have a large shoulder. These two circumstances presented an interesting conundrum to which the solution appeared to be find a passing lane, pull off almost into the ditch and hope for the best. So we did. Bill pulled over at a passing lane and there was not a soul behind us. Keoma hopped out, unlocked Clark, fosbury flopped onto the floor of the unit, leaped upon the bed to grab the window handle to retract it back inside, only to discover that it too was smashing lovingly into the side of the RV. At this time, there appeared an entire city’s worth of traffic in the westbound lanes whizzing past Clark and Casper and they were close enough that with each pass, the whole unit rocked three feet to the left and recoiled back to the right. Keoma leaped back out of the unit and tore open the truck door to inform Bill that the window handle was dangling in traffic. Bill took his life into his own hands and jumped out into traffic as Keoma ran back to the RV. Another fosbury flop, another leap onto the bed and then….whizz…whizzz…roooaaarrr…whizzz… as vehicle after vehicle rocked the unit from side to side. A small break in traffic finally happened and Bill sprinted back to the window, shoved the handle back inside, Keoma grabbed it with both hands, secured it and they both ran for their lives back to the truck where we both remarked on the miracle of life and that we still had ours. That handle now has a hair elastic wrapped securely around it and the latch. So and so handle….

Happily after that, the rest of the trip to Kelowna was uneventful, but with the bonus of ice cream at the D Dutchmen Dairy.  I recommend the sour cherry. Oh happy day.

We pulled into our full hook up site to enjoy some cheese and crackers after which Keoma immediately started cleaning and reorganizing and Bill got down to the business of dewinterizing the unit. All went well until…dun dun dunnnn…a leak was spotted. The results of said leak will be discussed in a future blog as we want to keep things upbeat and happy here today.

Taking a break from the shenanigans surrounding the leak fix, on Bill’s suggestion we spontaneously hopped in the truck and drove an hour and twenty minutes through the pouring rain to our favourite winery bistro at Hillside Winery for lunch. We ate enough to be uncomfortable for about 6 hours and walked it off with stops at Home Depot and Save on Foods on the way home for breakfast and leak fix necessities.

This post will wrap up by us ending the suspense and letting you all know that the leak has been fixed, and the water is running through Clark’s taps to it’s fullest potential. Again, the details will be in a later post once the annoyance has subsided to a level of “haha, remember that time…”

All in all, it has been a wonderful and successful first couple of days on the road. We have already met wonderful people and are eager for the coming days and weeks. We will keep you updated about our adventures and death defying window fixing feats.

Thanks for your time today!

K and B