Early to bed, early to rise, something, something, something, something.

Bed by 11:00, up by 3:30. Then 5:30, 5:45. 6:00, 6:30, 6:48 and finally 7:15.

Another restless night. The good news is by getting up early, we were in the truck and pulling out by 10:00. A new record for us! (That’s a.m. folks – I know, I’m in shock too.)

We stopped for gas, milk and water before we hit the highway. The good news is that the GPS, which is usually very accurate says we’ll be there by 4:00. What could go wrong?

It takes us 20 minutes to gas up and get out. The GPS has to take us through town to get to the trans-Canada highway.  The problem is, this town is on top of mount Everest. You can’t believe the hills we need to go up to get to the highway. I was seriously nervous that we weren’t going to make it up one of them.

We get out of town and everything is going smooth. We stop for gas at an Irving, and it turns out they are out of super. So with a whole $0.19 in my tank we pull back out. There is a potato chip factory next door to the Irving, so we decide to stop and check it out. We had lunch in the trailer first, then head inside. After finding out that they charge for their tour, and how disappointed we were with the tour at Cape Cod chips, we decide to skip the tour and just buy some chips. The GPS now says 6:15 with all the stops we`ve made. Time flies when you’re sitting in a truck waiting to get to the campground.

We get back on the highway and make our way to the next gas station in Woodstock. Shortly after pulling back onto the highway, we hear this noise. I think it might be a flat, so I pull over. Guylaine looked in the mirror, and told me to look. There was a cloud of smoke.

Blow out. I pull off the highway as I can. Thank God it`s the tire on Guylaine`s side and not the tire on my side. There is no room to get too far off the road and the traffic is going so fast that the trailer is rocking. I lowered the spare and grabbed the jack from the Caddy. Sure enough, the tire wrench from the Caddy doesn`t fit the lug nuts on the trailer. Just as I was about to call CAA, two guys pull over in a pickup pulling a boat to give me a hand. The guys, in their 50`s, had been out fishing and decided to see if I needed a hand. After looking for a bit, I found the socket that came with the trailer. Luckily, I had my toolbox with a socket driver in it. The guys jacked the trailer while I put the stabilizers down for support. In no time flat (no pun intended), the tire was changed. I put all the tools away as well as all the cargo we had to take out to get to them, and we were on our way. On the bright side, I really am getting the full RV experience by learning how to do all this $h*t my first few times out, and I’m starting to get good at it.

The GPS now said 7:30. Maybe an early start isn`t all it`s cracked up to be.

I had the GPS set to take us the fastest route. Unfortunately, the fastest route is not always the best; especially if you`re pulling a trailer. We went down this road and I couldn’t get the truck over 60kms. The road was narrow, bumpy, winding and hilly. Not a fun drive. I would have prefered to taken longer and gone through Saint John.

Anyways, we come over one of these nasty hills, and it’s dark. I mean, we went from 26 and sunny to 19 and dark clouds in less then a minute. And the clouds were right overhead. It felt like you could touch them. Guylaine asked if it was always like that here and if this is what we should expect.

Then I see a sign that the camp site is only 8kms away. But how can that be? It’s only 6:30, and the GPS says we’ll be at the campsite at 7:34. Ohhhhhhhhhhhh. I get it. The Maritimers are so far ahead of us, that the day starts and ends here an hour earlier. 1000+ kms, and 1 timezone over, and we are at the campsite.

We get to our site and just to fit in with the rest of our day, we get the last site left – lucky number 13. Oh well. It’s a pull through site so once again I get to avoid the backing up dance. We set up fairly quickly, but it’s clear from the way the kids are running around that 2 days in the car may have been a bit too much. They’ve all lost their minds.

The kids decide they want bacon and eggs for supper. No problem. We have plenty of bacon already cooked in the freezer, and eggs and toast are a snap to make outside with the toaster Chris gave us and the butane grill Juice gave us. Except….there’s no power to the outside plug? That’s strange. I go inside and check the fuse box. No problem there. All the fuses are fine. It’s hot, so we decide to fire up the AC. No AC. No fan. Nada. Squat. Guylaine looks at me and says, “I can’t stay here if there’s no AC. And she’s right. It’s freezing outside (I almost got hypothermia cooking eggs), but it’s hot and wet inside the trailer. I get the manual to check where the reset for the GFC plug is, when all of a sudden it hits me. I unhooked and leveled the trailer, I put the stabilizers down, I ran the water and sewer lines, got the hot water tank lit (first try, don’t know WTF happened last night), unpacked the Caddy, got all the stuff I needed for supper, got a ceasar with a beer chasher – I did absolutely everything…….except I didn’t plug in the power. Smooth. Plugged into the post – problem solved. We finished supper and the kids played a quick game of Skip-Bo while Guylaine cleaned up. Everyone was tired, so we went to bed early. Well, we would have gone to bed early if it wasn’t for losing that damn hour.