Alberta road trip, Post 7: Around Red Deer

We spent the next few days relaxing and exploring Red Deer while hoping our car would be returned to us in a condition capable of making it the 1100km home. :)

On Saturday we went to the Red Deer Farmers Market, which totally impressed us since it was about 15 times the size of the one we frequent in Burnaby!



Then Linda gave us a tour that included a drive-by of the elementary school she teaches at - currently undergoing a 6 million dollar renovation - and some other sites of interest around Red Deer.



We also drove out to Sylvan Lake, where we had some delicious icecream from The Big Moo, and marvelled that the entire population of Alberta would attempt to fit along the one lakeshore whenever they have a rare beach-weather summer day...



Back at her house, we looked through Linda's photo albums from her year in Australia, and her book of memories of teaching my class - my Easter poem was on the first page!





That evening we went to a BBQ at the home of Linda's best friend, Wendy, and her family, whom we'd met on Thursday night when we popped in after leaving our car at the mechanic. At the BBQ were: us, Linda, Wendy, her husband Jeff, their younger son Riley (their older son had left on Friday for a tour of Europe with his marching band), Susan (Friday's tour guide and also Wendy's cousin), and Maxine (Susan's sister and the only one we hadn't already met).



At the BBQ we enjoyed a bison burger they made especially because Ben wanted to taste bison (it's just like beef, only drier) as well as lots of other yummies - thanks Wendy et al! Then we had a bit of a concert on the back deck, with Riley and I taking turns to play my guitar. When it started raining, we moved to the downstairs music room where we were able to add a drumkit to the mix. :) Overall, it was a wonderful evening and a highlight of our time in Red Deer. Thankyou to all involved for going to such effort and making us feel so welcome!







On Sunday, we were very fortunate to be able to spend the day at Didsbury convention, 45 minutes away, which we had not known would be on until Megan and Justin told us a few days earlier. Linda very kindly gave us a ride to convention. As well as Megan and Justin, Roscoe and Janessa were there too, so there were a few people we knew! It was a wonderful day.

That evening we caught a ride back to Red Deer with some folks that had been introduced to us for this purpose: Lori and her 16-year-old twins, Reid and Trent. Lori turned out to be the sister of the lady whose home we go to on Wednesday nights. :) Once back in Red Deer, they invited us to their house for a coffee, where we met the older son, Dane, his girlfriend Erica, and some other boys from convention who'd come for a visit. Around 10pm, Lori drove us back to Linda's house, but we ended up having such a great conversation that we sat in the car talking to her until after midnight!! And we have since seen them all again at our own convention here last weekend, where we also met Lori's husband Orlyn and their daughter Lana. What a delightfully random way of making new friends!!

On Monday, Ben ended up helping Linda buy a new computer and all the paraphernalia that goes with it, and while he was setting it up and showing her how it all worked, I made dinner. Our original plan had been to drive back to Salmon Arm on Sunday, stay overnight there, drive home on Monday, and be back at work on Tuesday. But on Monday afternoon we finally got our car back from the mechanic, only to learn that they had (1) not found the problem, and (2) not been able to get the car to act up despite driving it 60kms!!!

So on Tuesday we set off to drive the entire way home. We drove about 5 hours before the car started playing up again. Then, from 11am until nightfall, it was frequent cool-off stops (but do you think we could find any shade?!), many kilometres driven along the road shoulder at low speed, and one scary incident when we stalled in a uphill slow-lane with concrete barriers beside us and a large truck on our tail. Approaching Kamloops around 4:30pm, I phoned a mechanic there and made an appointment for the following morning, resigned to missing another day of work.



However, once we reached Kamloops, the car seemed to be doing a little better, so we decided to charge on homeward. But leaving Kamloops, just as the car was doing its lurching-along-losing-power routine, we saw a Ford dealership. We raced in and asked them whether someone was free to look at our car right then while it was actually playing up. During the day the problem had finally become bad enough to throw some error codes in the car's computer, and the "check engine" light had come on, so we hoped that would help identify the problem.

In 5 minutes, the Ford folks had hooked it up to their computer and were able to tell us that the problem was the fuel pump. We were advised that if we wanted to keep driving that evening, we should keep the fuel tank full and drive when the weather was cooler. This we did, and we made it home by 10pm that night, more than 15 hours after leaving Red Deer. I might add that the wonderful people at Dearborn Ford in Kamloops refused to charge us anything for their diagnosis and advice. That's customer service!!

The next morning, Ben took a half-day off work and traded our car in for a 2002 Nissan Sentra. The dealer can fix the old one for much less than it would have cost us, plus we wanted a car with air con after experiencing a 12-day driving holiday in >30 degree weather (and another summer here still ahead of us)!

...And that was our Alberta road trip. Hope you enjoyed coming along! :D

To view more of our Alberta road trip photos:
Click here to go to the album overview page.
Click here to start the slideshow where this blog post begins (Sat).