So I was about to tell you about our little misadventure that almost had us go back home before the adventure really begun...it happened to us on the second week of our trip...
We were actually in the parking lot of the RCMP (That’s kind of the Canadian version on the FBI), in Ottawa, James was giving me my first standard driving lesson and I was not too bad until... the Volks just choked in the middle of the parking lot and didn’t want to start no more...At first we thought I had drown the engine, so we waited for over an hour, to let the sparkplugs dry, then we tried to start the engine again...it was cranking, but not starting...We were wondering if maybe the sparkplugs were just not quite dry yet, so James decided to take them off and dry them himself...Fortunately, James had all the tools he needed for the job since he had packed 2 boxes of tools and spare parts for the Volks on the roof of the van, underneath our canoe (And this would be my tip number one to anyone wanting to do a long road trip like this: bring A LOT of spare parts and tools and learn some mechanic...it could just save your trip more than once!) So James and I got the tools from the boxes underneath the canoe (that was quite a task in itself!) and dried the sparkplugs. We were all ready to try starting the engine again when we realize that our battery was dead...Fortunately, James had thought of everything and he had brought a little booster pack with us, to boost our battery, just in case! We just had to move our luggage around to access the battery (for those who don’t know, the engine in a Westfalia is located in the back of the vehicle and the battery is hiding under the front passenger seat...so you can picture all of our stuff –and we had a lot - piled up right in the middle of the van and Blondie, our dog, sleeping somewhere in the pile) So we were in the middle of moving all our stuff around to get to boost the battery, when, to top it off, an officer from the RCMP arrived beside us with his gun out and started to interrogate us. This was quite a ridiculous scene, I think they thought we were some sort of terrorists that had a plan or something and that we were maybe just about getting ready to attack. Well the officer was really suspicious of us, and at the end he gave us half an hour to move from the parking lot (so nice to have extra pressure when you’re in trouble!). We told him we were just giving it one last try and that if the engine was not starting, we would call the Triple A for a towing. (And this is our tip number 2: become a member of the AAA club - or CAA in Canada- before you leave on a road trip, it is guaranteed to be very useful in time and save you a bunch of money!) So unfortunately, the engine didn’t start that time either, so James called the triple A club for a towing, and the first thing they asked was : “where are you gonna want your vehicle to be towed to?” This was an excellent question since we didn’t really know the city we were in, and the Triple A guy wanted the answer right before sending the towing, so here in Canada we have some stores call “Canadian Tire” where you can buy car parts, tools and other related stuff and they also have a garage on the spot with mechanicians, so James thought this would be the perfect place to go to, that way, he could still try to fix the problem himself the next day, and if it wasn’t working, we could go to the garage of the “Canadian Tire”. So, the towing came, the RCMP’s officers were glad to see us leave and we were towed to the nearest “Canadian Tire” store.
We felt exhausted and stressed out and we were really crossing our fingers that we were gonna be able to figure out and fix what was wrong without having to spend too much money. So we slept in the parking lot of the “Canadian Tire” and James got back to figuring out and fixing the problem the next morning. He did a whole bunch of tests and it seemed like there was no more fire, so James tried replacing the coil with a spare one we had, but that wasn’t it. At that point, we decided to bring the van in the “Canadian Tire” garage. Well, when they saw our 1984 VW van and they saw that there was a 1984 Subaru engine in it, they suddenly got very scared, so scared that the manager of the place told us they didn’t even want to have a look, they were not going to try to fix our mechanical problem because our vehicle seemed too complicated for them! (Wow!) The manager suggested we had the Van towed someplace else...So we called the Triple A club again, but they didn’t want to tow the Van a second time for the same emergency, it was not in their policy...so we had the manager of the “Canadian Tire” talk with the Triple A guy and finally they sent us another towing.
This time though, we didn’t take any chances, and we had the van towed to the nearest Subaru dealer. The scene there was surreal, as soon as James lifted-up the engine cover, ALL the mechanicians of the shop gathered around the Van to checked it out, it was like they were admiring an artistic masterpiece! They were all amazed to see a Subaru engine fitted in a VW westfalia! So our Victor Bluesummer (that’s the name of our van) really got the royal treatment there! There was 10 mechanics gathered around the engine trying to figure out how to fix it, it was almost comical, James and I really felt like laughing, it was quite a contrast from our previous experience where no mechanics wanted to even just look at it! So they gave us their best mechanic to figure out what the trouble was...After some testing, the mechanic announced to us that our distributor was dead. We were not too surprised, James was already suspecting that this was the problem (And a distributor was about the only part we didn’t have in spare...) “There’s a bad and a good news” the friendly mechanic told us, “ The bad news is that a new distributor costs 560$, and that if we order one now, we will only have it on Monday (we were Thursday), but the good news is that I have an old Subaru distributor, same year as this one, in a box somewhere in my attic and it might still work...I’ll try to find it tonight and we’ll see tomorrow if it is still functioning.” Well, I don’t have to tell you that we immediately putted all of our hopes in that old distributor sitting somewhere in that guy’s attic, because we simply couldn’t afford buying a new one (560$ just for the part, if you add up the time of the mechanic at a dealer’s garage (about 85$/hour) you end up with a bill near to a thousand dollars and this was a VERY BIG fraction of our starting money for that trip).
So we did a
little prayer that night, after the dealer’s staff actually pushed back
Bluesummer (our van) outside, in the dealer’s yard, for us to spend the night
in the middle of all those new Subaru cars! That’s actually one of the most
unusual place we’ve slept at, I don’t know anyone beside us that actually
camped in the yard of an automobile dealer, it did felt funny when they locked
the gate behind them and left us there for the night...but those people were
very nice, they even made sure to park us close to an electrical outlet so that
we could have electricity!
We were up early the next morning. At 8am they pushed back our Bluesummer in the garage and they showed us the way to their little waiting room where we had to wait with our dog. We almost felt like we were in a hospital waiting for the result of an operation. After 1hour and a half, we had checked all the magazines that were there...time was passing so slowly...Finally, after 3 long hours of patience, a big “roar...roar...” came to our ears! There was no doubt, this was our “Victor the Victorious Bluesummer”! A BIG smile appeared on James and I, even Blondie seemed like she was smiling! The mechanician appeared in the doorway: “it’s working” he said with satisfaction, then he continued: “ I’ve put my old distributor in, it’s still good, but no one knows for how long...but I think you should be OK to get back to Montreal!” (Since the Triple A club is suppose to only help you to get back home, and not further away from home, we had told them that we were on our way back to Montreal...) So after paying for our garage bill and after thanking greatly our mechanic saviour, we sat in our van facing a dilemma: Could we take the risk of hitting the road west with that old distributor that might be good for a couple hundred miles or should we just return to Montreal?
We deeply
thought for a couple of minutes and the answer was obvious: “the trip MUST go
on!” With a smile on his face, James looked at me and said: “Girl, we didn’t
get this close to realizing this dream trip to just turn back around now, no
way! We may have just started the trip, we‘ve only been on the road for 2
weeks, but I’ve spent 2 years preparing that VW and finally I have it all ready
to travel all across America, and girl, this is just what we’ll do with it: Travel all across America! We’re not
turning back now! Oh no! The trip must go on!” And that was true, that trip was
a dream for us, we both had worked hard to make it happen, especially James who
really made it possible by dedicating every single day for 2 years, with
constant work on that Mr.Victor the Victorious Bluesummer, our VW...Sometimes
life gives you a last challenge, just to see if you really want something...Well,
we really wanted that trip! And so, we rolled over 200 000 miles with that
same old Subaru distributor! Thank you life!
So we were very, VERY thankful that this particular mechanic guy was on our path, because without him and his old distributor sitting in a box in his attic, that he generously gave to us, our trip would had been over before it even had really begun! So Thank you Thank you Thank you!To be continued...
I'll leave you with a little song I found on Youtube, the Canadian Tire song !
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