We made it to Rose Blanche without incident, but we were on
the edge of our seat for the entire 1822 kms.
Back at home, by
the time we got Penny, our little travel trailer loaded, she was without doubt,
over loaded. The gross vehicle weight is listed by the manufacturer as 630 kg,
or 1400 lbs, and the dry weight, as they call it, is 950, so in theory we
should have only packed 450 lbs of stuff.
A week or so before the trip, knowing she would be heavily
loaded, I repacked the wheel bearing with grease, and pumped up the tires
to the recommended 50 psi. On route, when we stopped for a coffee and pee, I
eyed the tires and felt the hubs for overheating.
Another thing that was on our mind during the trip was the
spare tire. It was trapped inside the back of the trailer under all our stuff.
The stuff was packed like a 3-D jigsaw puzzle that would have taken an hour to
unload and repuzzle if we needed the spare. I could just envision all our stuff
strewn in the ditch alongside the road while changing the tire, probably in the
rain.
But, I guess it was our lucky couple of days, we had a
pleasantly uneventful trip, and just burned a little more fuel pulling the
heavy load. Speaking of pulling, at times the Cherokee had to work pretty hard
on some of the long hills in New Brunswick, but did well.
Upon arrival at Katie-Lew, it was spitting rain. But before
long, we had the heat on, water hooked up, the kitchen organized including our
antiquish table in place, some Ikea furniture assembled, and Harry dropped by
to sell us a community fundraising lottery ticket for Thanksgiving Dinner.
When we had completed most of the urgent Katie-Lew projects,
it was time to get out and say hello to a few more people we had met when we
were here in June. In no time, the neighbours had given us fish, moose meat, scallops, fresh baked bread and pastries.
So between the neighbour's generosity and typical
seasonal weather, we felt like we received a wonderful Newfoundland welcome
to our new home, Katie-Lew, the little blue cottage by the sea.