Days 3 to 6

I would love to be able to write that the rest of our vacation continued without any other problems…as any normal family vacation should. What I mean by normal is an equal balance of adult down time, family activity time, sun burns, bug bites, stomach aches, swimming, biking, canoeing, hiking. Our cottage stay did include all of these things-maybe not too many sun burns, as the sun would actually have to be out for that to happen- but still, a lot of picture perfect fun. However, fate or destiny or some other kind of higher power had other plans in mind as well.

Day 3: Honestly, I can’t even remember if this was a Day 2 or Day 3 event. The day doesn’t really matter because when I look back on the week now, each one kind of blended into the next, presenting its own surprises and challenges.
At some point mid week, the mechanical black cloud returned. Unbelievably, it had nothing to do with the seadoo. After a day of fun on the lake water skiing and tubing, the seadoo had suddenly become a welcome member of our family again. However, there were still two more mechanical machines parked on our steep, gravelly laneway- my Volvo, and my ex-husband’s pick up truck. I wish I could say that the problem had been my car. But, that would make my story much less exciting.
Apparently, a loud grinding sound followed by the clanging of metal on metal is not a sound that you want to hear coming from the back end of a vehicle. Of course, the first impulsive thing to do is to stop, get out of the truck, walk to the approximate location of the sound, and try to find the source. As I bent over looking underneath the pick up, two thoughts ran through my head: 1- Every piece of metal underneath here looks completely unrecognizable to me regardless of whether it belongs or is in the right place, and 2- What exactly did I think I was going to do? Park it, that’s what I did- remembering of course, to put on the emergency brake.
A friend of mine who was cottaging not too far from where we were staying, was kind enough to stop in, crawl underneath the truck, and make a quick diagnosis of the problem. Definitely, the back brakes, and definitely not safe to drive. Following a call to CAA to arrange to have the broken truck with the broken brakes towed to a GM dealer in Parry Sound the following day, I vowed to put it out of my head and enjoy the rest of the evening with my kids.
It was a perfect night to get the barbeque fired up for pork chops and baked potatoes, with my nightly glass of white Pinot Grigio. Hmm, that knob on top of the propane tank was so tight. I checked the arrow on top, and I was turning it in the right direction. My oldest daughter then tried, followed by my son. I ran to get the vice grips (can you believe I actually brought a tool along with me!), but they were too small to grip around the knob. For some reason my son thought that banging on the handle with the vice grips would work, although the thought did cross my mind that this could be a somewhat unsafe thing to do to a propane tank. Alas, nothing worked as I stared at our foil wrapped unbaked potatoes and dripping red, thawed pork chops. Tail between my legs, I walked the steep slope over to my neighbour’s cottage and asked for help as I silenced that voice in my head that kept repeating “helpless female syndrome”. Two of the men were more than happy to assist the helpless mother and her brood of children. To my unspoken delight, neither one of those men could turn that knob either! Just when I thought, “Ha, it’s the tank, not me”, one of the men turned to me and asked “Are you sure it’s not already on? Did you try turning it off at all?” Oh My God! I laughed nervously, praying that this was not the case. He opened the lid, turned on a burner, flicked on the barbeque lighter, and unbelievably we had fire in our burners. “Uh, Thanks”, tail seriously between my legs now.

Day 4- The loading of the pick up seemed a ceremonious event. All four of us stood watching as the CAA truck driver hydraulically lowered and tipped the flat bed of his truck, hooked up the chains to the pick up, and then carefully pulled it back up onto the metal platform, and secured it in place for its ride into the repair shop. With a signature on a paper, I watched yet another strange man drive away with my ex-husband’s truck. It’s amazing how much faith I put in total strangers throughout this whole trip. If anything, the experience has made me much more aware of how decent people can be when they know you are at their mercy for help. Unlike being in a big city, people did seem to care about our daily misfortunes.
By the end of the day, the truck was fixed. Ironically, that emergency brake that I had faithfully made sure was securely pushed on when I was parking on our steep laneway ended up being the cause of the breakdown. Unbeknownst to me, the emergency brake had been disconnected and hadn’t been used for quite some time. According to the mechanic at the dealer, he said that the “shoe” of the emergency brake broke off (maybe because I was pushing it on every single time I parked) and became dislodged in the back brake rotor, hence the loud metal on metal clanging sounds. I now know what a chewed up brake rotor looks like.

Day 5- My oldest daughter was heading home as she had to work the next day. I had my usual sentimental “I wish you could stay” mommy moment as she was packing. She did her usual teenage daughter eye roll, calmly reminding me that she would see me the next night when we got home. Volvo gassed up, Ipod hooked up to the car stereo system, GPS firmly attached to the windshield, extra money from mom (just in case), and she was off. Being in a very poor area for cell phone reception, I didn’t receive her emergency call or text messages until her dramatic drive home had already come to a peaceful end. Being a teenager in today’s world of reliable technology, the use of actual road signs was quite foreign to her. She dutifully followed the directions of the GPS which took her directly down Highway 400, onto the 407, followed by the 401- at the beginning of rush hour traffic!
Transcript of her text messages “Am I supposed to see signs for TO?”
“This is really NOT FUN”
By the time I received these messages, she was safely on two lane Highway 8 coming into Stratford. A tearful phone call to her dad as six lanes suddenly expanded into ten with exits to anywhere in Toronto that you wanted to go, resulted in him guiding her by phone until she felt safe enough to continue on her own.
There are so many “I feel like a bad mother” moments in that experience that I have decided to let it be a lesson for future planning, and not let it become a recurring nightmare in mind of the many “what ifs” that could have happened.

Day 6- Of course, the owners of the resort now knew me on a first name basis because of the many strangers that continually came to the resort office throughout our week looking for the occupants of Cottage 4 who had called needing some kind of assistance or another.
When I walked into the office to give them the key to the cottage, immediately the first words were “Joanne, is everything ok?”

And, I could honestly answer her that it was. I know that the memories and lessons of this vacation, ranging from the highs of the fun to the lows of the breakdowns, will be laughed about, teased about, and cherished for many years.