Maiden Voyage

 Remember your first date? You probably spent weeks, if not months hoping and praying that you would be successful in acquiring said "date". Planned it out in your mind, researched where to go and what to do, thought about what to wear and even what to talk about. Finally after all the hard work and sweating the details, the time came. The apple of your eye said yes, and now you are faced with the reality of " Holey SH*#! this is REALLY going to happen!" At this point, if you were like me, you realized that you could either have a panic attack, shrivel up into a little sweaty ball of trembling nerves...or puff out your chest, brush off the nay sayers, and say."I got this"....despite the load you just dropped in your drawers.

The day of reckoning, the first date, had come with Fillmore. The moment of truth. For years I had been saying that I would take Fillmore on a road trip to Manitoba to our annual excursion to The Grey Owl golf tournament in Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba.

 There was a dozen or more reasons, or excuses I could dream up as to why it just wasn't ready, but deep in my heart I knew it was now...the time was upon us. So, showing full support my little brother flew in from Winnipeg and on June 8th at 4:30am, we embarked on what I described as either an epic journey or the biggest fail about to happen.
To say I was a bit tense was an understatement,The new and improved Fillmore had been on numerous 1-2 hour trips, even one 4 hour trip only days before this journey, but never on a 14 hour road trip.

But like the sun rising in the east, our hopes seemed to grow by the hour while the trepidation seemed to slowly ebb away.

We were all smiles and chuckled while we were fueled by fresh coffee.....

But for some of us, the drone of the road and the sweet ride of the air seats was too much and sleep overtook our enthusiasm.

Although I was constantly looking at the temp gauge the entire time, we didn't have much of an issue at all. The cooling system did it's job very well. The engine remained within temperature parameters despite the fact that for almost half the trip we were in 30+ degree Celsius temperatures. At one point in Swift Current we pulled over and removed the louvered window vents from the engine room in an effort to help cool the room. Although the engine was running within parameters  the engine room was hot enough to cook a roast. The trip, which in a car usually takes about 12 hours, took Shawn and I about 14.

Just a whole lot of this really....

After a long day and lots of warm weather it was so wonderful to be welcomed with open arms at my in Laws in Deloraine. Cold drinks and a hot supper were waiting, and it tasted like victory!

The next morning Shawn, Ron and I remounted our trusty steed and headed out on the second leg of our maiden voyage....