The Grey Owl

This was the year of change, and change is good. Day two of our epic road trip found us heading north from Deloraine Manitoba to Wasagaming Manitoba in Riding mountain national park. A 211 km trip...normally in a car will be a 2 hour trip.  Ours took us about 3.5 hours. all we had planned was a quick stop in Brandon to pick up much needed and important supplies(groceries) but as we have found out on this trip you cannot go anywhere quick in Fillmore. Allow me to explain, although he is powerful enough to rumble down the highway at higher speeds....you pay for it in fuel, so I opt for the slow and go method. The second big reason for the slow progress is curiosity. This thing pulls out all the people with cameras, questions and stories. This morning we had just nicely left Deloraine (shout out to Tammy O who we saw on the road!!) as we headed north at Boissevain when a truck pulled up beside us and emphatically motioned for us to pull over. Thinking that something was wrong, I did just that, but when the driver of the truck hopped out it became obvious that he just wanted to ask questions and see "what the hell this was". After a short talk, and side excursion to his machine shop so he could show the other guys, we were back on track. Late.....but moving once again.

This year my buddy Harold came to the lake to round out our foursome, another change and a good one. Those of you who follow the blog have seen Harold grace these pages before. He and I grew up together and it's hard to believe that we met close to 40 years ago. Although we don't see each other often, when we do it's like we are still neighbors at the cabin. His being there was a change, change is good.

This was a golf weekend, and yes there was plenty of golf, but the pictures from the course are sparse. This is the best picture and whether this is Harold's best side or not is still up for debate.

For years, 15 for Shawn and I, 16 for Ron. We've been coming to the lake and the 'services' in the rooms has been, from the technology standpoint, primitive. Old tube TV's and rabbit ears are still employed. For years we've been romanticizing about bringing a home satellite, this year we did. Fillmore is equipped with a portable satellite dish and of course a LED TV. So we were able to watch NHL playoffs, NBA playoffs. Another change, maybe not a necessity, but change is good.

Shawn rounded out his first year of working as an architect. A successful year, where he's actually making a wage, but the reality is he needs to be productive even when he's on "holidays".Setting up a temp office at the lake is a change, but change is good.

Down time has always been a challenge for me. I have a hard time sitting still and doing nothing. We usually golf once a day, which takes a fair chunk of your day, but when you are not at home to be busied by the other chores of the house, the down time can seem long. This year with Fillmore there....there was plenty to do. I'm not sure the guys were planning on spending all the down time puttering on the bus, but I was grateful for the help. Re sealing windows was the biggest job of the weekend. I started the process..

And then the efficiency experts got in there, next thing you know I was pulling windows and they were re sealing them faster than I could get them back in!

The road block became the window seal. I didn't have enough, and I knew it. Greggs back ordered the seal I needed but I brought what I could. Once the windows were 'done'. The crew was still hungry for more. I put Harold on trying to fix/replace the fuel sender. Valiant effort but in the end we still have reliability issues.

Ron got the dirty job, time to grease up the chassis....any nipple got his attention.....sorry Ron I couldn't help myself....

 

Now that we had bodies under Fillmore, and in Fillmore, I climbed on top of Fillmore and started to work on the roof vents. As I suspected, the vent was replaced after paint but they took a HUGE shortcut on the sealing process.

All they had to seal the unit to the body was a strip of open cell foam. Open cell foam....like a sponge....So off it came, butyl tape and white seam sealer to seal rivet holes and just all around good measure.

After all was said and done, we donned our brightest and most visually obnoxious golf attire and sealed the weekend up with a dinner at the annual "Howl"

Sunday evening found me driving west again, a beautiful night as I drove off into the sunset.

2791kms, 513.8 Liters Diesel later and I was home sweet home. I know there are some guys out there that claim their Flxy gets 8MPG, a number that I am quite skeptical about. Fillmore averaged a efficiency of 18L/100Kms which for my American friends is 15MPG. Frankly I thought that was quite good all things considered. Most of all I was home with little drama (I do have a slight electrical issue yet to be resolved), no break downs and good times. This was an epic first journey, not the feared biggest fail.