Had my regular breakfast then worked online using J's Verizon USB stick. J went into WalMart to do some shopping and I continued working. J came back out, then we prepped the RV to move. We left at 11:32.

We went to Safeway in Dawson Creek to get 40l of gas ($1.059/l) to hold us over until Grande Prairie where gas is cheaper. Cleaned the RV windows. We left at 11:52.

We went to Tim Horton's in Dawson Creek for lunch at 11:58. Their parking lot isn't set up for large vehicles, so we would have to unhook the Jeep so we can leave. :( I had the Ham & Swiss Sandwich combo with a sour cream doughnut that looked like a potato doughnut. The doughnut wasn't like a potato doughnut though. :( While J had been looking forward to some soup, which she thoroughly enjoyed on July 20, 2009, she didn't like any of the flavors available, so she got a BLT. We finished eating around 12:30, then went out and unhooked the Jeep. I drove the RV to a parking lot next door and J drove the Jeep over. We hooked up the Jeep to tow, then left at 12:47.

We entered Alberta at 2:20 (1:20 PDT), and there was a gas station just down the road with gas as cheap as in Grande Prairie: $0.959/l. We could have saved a bunch by not getting any gas at all in Dawson Creek and instead getting some here.

We blew a tire at 3:00, about 7 miles (11km) east of Beaverlodge, and it was a real shock! It sounded like an explosion followed by some serious thumping. I pulled over onto the narrow shoulder, and my heart was pounding by the time we stopped — nice adrenaline rush there! I went out to inspect the damage and discovered that the right-rear inboard wheel had blown and we left about half of the tire back down the road. While the tire was still flapping around, it had bent the exhaust pipe, which usually exits to the side of the RV just ahead of the rear wheels, so that it was pointing into the sidewall of the remaining part of the blown tire! I went back inside to call Good Sam Emergency Road Service, while J went to remove our shredded tire piece from the road so noone else would hit it. She had hit a piece of tire like that in the past and it had caused a lot of damage to her car. The friendly and efficient (not a frequent combination!) woman at Good Sam took our information then contacted a local service company to come change the tire. While I waited for her to call me back, I went back outside to further look at the damage because J said there were lots of wood shards back near the tire piece. Sure enough, the flapping tire banged up the inside of the wheel well and I could see broken wood and exposed Styrofoam. :( It also looked like a brake line junction box (?) was knocked off its mount and it was being held on by the solid part of the brake line. :( The woman from Good Sam called us back to let us know that someone would be at the RV sometime within the next 60 to 90 minutes — not too bad. We had been planning to replace all of the RV tires soon after returning to lower-48, so J looked up information about changing the model of tire. I started looking into a place to have the brake line looked at, and when I Googled "rv repair grande prairie," I was given a link to the first entry of this blog where I said there wasn't any place in Grande Prairie to get an RV repaired! :) Of course I kept looking because this time we didn't need a place that could read our computer, just a place to do some mechanical work.

Two really young guys, who looked to be in their late teens, arrived around 4:05 to replace our tire. They weren't happy when I explained that the spare-tire hoist didn't work as designed and that the last mechanic had to use vise-grips to get the hoist to work. Initially, the guys couldn't get the vise-grips to work and they wanted to cut off the spare. I strongly suggested that they could get the hoist to work with vise-grips. They finally got the tire down, and the whole operation was accompanied by quite a few expletives that we could hear through the floor of the RV. J discovered that the Michelin LTX M/S LT225/75 R16, like we currently have on the RV, is the RV-community-recommended tire, and it's also the OEM tire from Ford for the E-450 chassis. So, I switched gears and started to look for a dealer in Grande Prairie that carried that tire. After calling six places, I discovered that Kal Tire was the only place in Grande Prairie that had one in stock. I went back to searching for a place to look at our brakes, and ended up at Kal Tire — cool, we can get everything done at one place. The guys replacing our tire couldn't bend the exhaust pipe by hand, and they didn't have anything to cut it with, so I went out and got a hacksaw from my toolbox. By this time it was raining heavily, and I got soaked. :( The guys were able to cut off the end of the exhaust pipe so that it wouldn't ruin the inboard tire, then they remounted the two tires. I told them that they could leave the tire they had removed on the ground so they wouldn't have to put it back in the spare position because we could carry it to town in the front of the Jeep. One of the guys came inside to do the paperwork, and we discovered that they were with Kal Tire in Grande Prairie. After he left, it occurred to me that the shredded tire still attached to the wheel would make it difficult, and maybe even impossible, to put it on the floor in the front of the Jeep, so I ran outside to see if they could take the wheel and shredded tire back to their shop. I caught them just as they were pulling away at 5:02 — whew! We got underway again at 5:19.

First stop in Grande Prairie was the Liquor Barn at 5:50. I knew from our trip north that they carried Asbach Uralt, and we had been planning to go there even before the exciting events just described. We also picked up a bottle of Amarula for J.

Second stop was Save-On-Foods to do some grocery shopping at 6:03. The real milk and fresh fruit were greatly anticipated.

Next stop was the Visitor Center at 7:11 where we had hoped to use their free WiFi. We couldn't get a good signal, so we used J's Verizon USB stick. I showered while J started dinner.

We had dinner of Kraft Delissio Supreme pizza that was most tasty. We left at 8:30 and went ...

To WalMart where we'd spend the night. I called to see where they'd like us to park, and after the friendly woman said anywhere not near the doors, she said "have a good night" — that was a first! J showered and I edited images for the next blog entry while having some Asbach Uralt. Did some work online.