So our original plan was to buy a truck camper (Bigfoot) and then go driving off to the Yukon for August and part of September.
In the winter nephew Tim announces he is getting married in the mountains at David Thompson Campground on the August long weekend. Oh! And uncle Rick will you be the MC? Then Jon and Meg say, Hey if we are going all the way to western Alberta, let’s make a holiday out of it and go to the west coast! Hey Mom and Dad do you want to travel with us?
Well we haven’t been to the coast in years and who wouldn’t want to hangout with grandkids while they have their first west coast adventure. Oh and Tim and Renaye offered to let us use their 36’ sailboat!
So our tour plans have changed and this is the story of our west coast 50th Anniversary tour!
So we found a good Bigfoot camper last fall and took it on several overnight test drives.
As we began to prepare in July we realized that we were having a hard time moving from the 5th wheel Oakland and down sizing to an 11.5’ truck camper. So hey let’s do what we have seen others do and add a small cargo trailer to put all our stuff in. Now it just so happened that brother Garry has a nice little 5x8 cargo trailer we could borrow. So last week we headed out to Lake Audy with the rig to see how it all worked.
Some background on the 1994 Bigfoot 11.5. It is one of the largest campers made and is just under the max capacity of our 2000 Dodge Ram 2500 5.9 diesel. The camper overhangs the back bumper by 30”. So to use the receiver hitch you need to put a hitch extension on which in this case put the cargo trailer uncomfortably close to the camper. It also was a multiplier on the the tongue weight of the trailer. We were seriously down on our overloads!
When we arrived at Lake Audy Amy and I looked at each other and arrived at the same conclusion, this was not going to work travelling long distances. We are taking the Oakland!
So the prep focus and my snag list changed to running down the long list of little things that needed to be done on our 1996 Oakland 26’ 5th wheel while also completing the list for the truck. We have worked until 10pm most nights this past week since we were also helping Jon and Meg bring their “new to them” StarCraft popup tent trailer up to speed for a road trip.
We didn’t push ourselves on packing and repair/upgrading, we just ran down the list. We had a notional target of August 1st for departure. But we told ourselves we would leave when we have finished packing.
Well we finished today at 3:00 pm and rolled out of the yard at 3:30!
We went to Onanole to drop off some of Jon and Megs stuff then headed west on #45 highway. We stopped at Russel MB for an early supper at our favourite burger spot in Russel, Connie’s.
As we headed west the thunder heads began to build. We just dodged one passing Theodore SK while it was just starting to build. When we got west of it, it had really grown in size!
Our decision was to put on as many kms. as we felt comfortable driving. So we pulled into Foam Lake SK at 8:45 and found a spot open in their small municipal campground. We are plugged in and enjoying a cool prairie breeze after a hot day.
Tomorrow the plan is for a leisurely start and let Jon and Meg catch up to us on our way to Edmonton.
