Back in Shaunavon
We arrived in Shaunavon around 5:30pm this afternoon, three days behind schedule. We were supposed to leave on the 1st, but were delayed two days waiting for a delivery. Due to that delay, we were also delayed in picking up the travel-trailer that we had purchased the previous weekend. The idea being that the travel-trailer could carry a lot of bulky, but lightweight cargo, and would have other uses once we had finished moving. Having blown our original departure date, I wanted to travel on the Sunday, given that Monday is a holiday in Alberta and Saskatchewan, and I really didn't want to be on the road on the last day of a long weekend. As it was, it was getting past 3pm on Sunday and we still hadn't finished loading everything. We were being very cautious and actually weighing everything so that we didn't overload the trailer, and so that we had it balanced correctly. This extra precaution slowed us down a lot. We decided that rather than leaving on Sunday, which would mean arriving late at night and likely in a foul mood, we'd leave on Monday, thus allowing ourselves a good night's sleep and time to make the trip in a relaxed manner. I'm glad that we did, and since we were able to leave early (about 10am) we managed to avoid most of the holiday traffic.
Once we arrived at the farm, I was able to back the trailer into the driveway without too much difficulty. I'm getting better at backing up a trailer, but this is a 26' (actually a little over 27') trailer, and even with Trixstir's help, it took a bit of backing up and moving forward a few times before getting it nestled in properly. I'm also pleased to say that the truck ran perfectly all the way on the trip. It seems to me that the diesel engine wants to WORK, and it's just not happy starting and stopping, and idling for long periods. We had some deep concerns as the truck HAD stalled several times bringing the trailer home from the auction lot. However, during the course of picking it up, there had been a lot of the stopping and starting and idling that seems to cause the problem.
One thing that I noticed about that... After the final bout of stalling, I set the transmission into a lower gear, and kept the engine at higher RPMs (about 2500) for a couple of kilometers. The engine THREATENED to stall a few times, suddenly dropping to about 1000 RPM, then it would suddenly power up again, and go properly. It did this about three times, and then it stopped doing it. That's also when I finally heard the whine of the turbo-charger, and I'm wondering if perhaps the turbo had been stuck earlier, and the pressure of running at higher RPMs finally dislodged it and got it working again? In any case, the truck has been working perfectly ever since, and here's hoping it continues to do so!
We unloaded Trixstir's car, and enough of the trailer so that we could sleep in it. We were not in a huge hurry, and we wound up doing a few other things as well, including dropping in at the home of my friend who had been letting us stay with him in town. Now that we had the trailer, we didn't need to use his suite anymore. The timing worked out well, as he had some guests arriving sometime this week who would be needing it. The only thing we're really missing is Internet access (I'm entering this in Notepad, to be uploaded later.) It was just after 9pm when we tried to find an open restaurant, and thankfully the King's Hotel tavern was still open. The service was slow, the music on the jukebox was vulgar (bordering on obscene) and too loud, but the food was hot and very good.
It's been a long day, but overall a good day. Tomorrow we'll go into town and try to take care of some of the assorted paperwork we need to deal with, and get started on more cleaning and preparations for painting and new flooring in the house.