Day 7 - Canadian Maritimes - Sainte Sophie and Tire Trouble on Cargo Trailer

We are now one week into our Canadian adventure to the Maritime Provinces. It sure has been fun and we are excited to get further ahead to the East and see the ocean! 

The terrain was very agricultural, and we drove through a lot of pretty countryside. Neat little farm houses and small farms. No mega farms. 

It's funny, but to us this could look like any road in Wisconsin. We kind of laugh about that. But it's good to see how things are the same just as much as how things are different. That's part of expanding our horizons when we travel.

We looked for ways to skirt around the top of Ottawa city so we didn't have to go through the middle of town. We jig-jogged on little roads until we found our way around. If we can avoid the three big cities of Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec, then we will consider ourselves lucky. Our GPS programs always want to take us through the middle of the big cities.

The least big city driving we do, the better. We would rather look at things like this then at billboards and tail lights of other vehicles in front of us.

We made our way to a small community called Sainte Sophie. They offer a cute little city park right in the middle of their downtown. There is a dump station, free potable water, nice bathrooms with heated hot water! It's a pretty little city park with benches and tables and a pergola and pretty street lights and beautiful flower plantings. They offer seven large RV pull through sights that are wide enough that you can extend your slides if you need to. We were the only ones there.

It was starting to rain so things were a little cloudy. So these pictures are kind of dark.

I cooked up a delicious pan of chicken alfredo, using up the rest of the grilled chicken Steve made that we had in our freezer. It was kind of damp and cool, so it was good to have something warm and home-cooked. Comfort food.

After dinner, Steve was doing our normal "walk around" checking the motor home and checking the cargo trailer. He suddenly noticed something very unusual with one of the cargo trailer tires! 

(They were just fine when we left home, but they are the original tires from when we bought the trailer 3 years ago) 

I'm trying to get out and walk short distances on my sore knee, using straight legs and putting some weight on it. I was just getting back from hobbling around with Nicholas, and Steve had the jack out and was already removing the tire off the cargo trailer.

In no time at all, he had the bad tire off and he had mounted our spare. We had picked up a new spare when we bought the trailer 3 years ago. So we knew that was in good shape.

I am so thankful that Steve has the tools and the ability to change a tire quickly in a parking lot. We do have roadside assistance on our insurance, but that would be a lot of hassle and rigmarole trying to get somebody to come and take care of this for us.

Yep, after closer examination it appears that a belt broke loose within the tire and made it oval shaped. It was wearing severely on some portions of the tread, and really could not be trusted even one more mile. I am so glad that he noticed this condition.

The tire is from 2019, so that's making it 7 years old. It should be replaced anyhow. So it's a good time to do it, and replace the other one as well. It's always best to do them in pairs.

I checked online and the nearest Canadian Tire was about 15 miles away. They actually had 20 of the tires in stock of the exact size of what we needed. So we knew that first thing in the morning, that is where we would be going...

The price of the tires at Canadian Tire, after the exchange rate, will actually be cheaper than if we had bought the ones we were originally looking at in Wisconsin before we left.

Just one more little bump in the road. But easily handled.


156 mi travel today 

927 miles traveled so far