Gitsegukla, BC to Smithers, BC
It was about 5am when we heard the first stirrings of the house (it was full of 11 people after all) but we tried to stay in bed and sleep just a little while longer. We probably made it until about 7am until we got out of bed and found Vince’s whole crew up and about in the living room and kitchen. Cartoons on, trains out, eggs and bacon cooking in the kitchen; it was a lively full house in action.
(If you’re just joining us, make sure to check out the other days of our adventures from the archives here!)
We got some coffee and anxiously awaited the call from the tow company so that we could meet them at the bus. Vince so kindly offered to drive us back to the bus to meet the tow, and then all the way to Smithers an hour and a half away, since there wasn’t going to be enough room in the trucks for us to ride along. Around 10:30am while Nico was finally breaking out a tune on Vince’s many drums, we loaded back into Vince’s pickup truck back to Montañín.
Vince gave us a little tour of the reservation in the daylight, showing us the school with its totems and driving past the sad site of the fire from last night, where the house had been completely burned down to it’s frame.
Montañín was just as we left her, safe and sound on the side of the highway, cones keeping the descending traffic at bay. Pronto Towing showed up with two huge trucks – a wrecker and a flatbed. They assessed the situation, then carefully and cautiously put chains on the bus to slowly start lifting it up onto the bed of the truck. It took a good half hour to get it up without bottoming out the back end and flattening the exhaust pipe, but with some creative handiwork and blocks, they were able to load it on safely. It was tall and heavy, but they made it work! We watched from the bottom of the ditch next to the highway with the boys.
Vince led the trucks for a bit until he had to stop for gas, and then he drove us the rest of the way to Smithers, to the mechanic that was waiting for us. Nico and Enzo played with trucks and drums and things they found in the back seat while Vince told us more stories, and eventually we pulled onto the gravel driveway of the home mechanic where the tow truck was already lowering the bus in front of the garage.
We were so grateful for our roadside assistance that paid for the trucks to take us all the way to this mechanic. Such an important service for travelers when things go awry on the road! Also so grateful for Vince, our native grandfather fairy from the sky that came to our aid in a time of need, without expecting anything in return. Before he left us to head back home, he gave the boys a little drum that he had made himself, so that they would always remember him and the story of his people. What a magical gift!
Now at the mechanic, there was nothing left to do except fix this damn wheel. Our new helper, John, was a very interesting character. He was very particular about where the kids could go, which is understandable since a mechanic’s garage isn’t the safest place for kids, but he wouldn’t even let them near the chicken coop to watch the chickens. The boys aren’t used to such restrictions and it was a tough job trying to keep them where they were allowed to roam.
John took off the wheels and assessed the damage. His immediate impression of the wheel was that the rims needed to be replaced ASAP. When the nuts started loosening up ever so slightly from the bumpy roads and the natural consequence of carrying so much weight, it gave way to some slight movement of the bolts, which in turn started wearing down the holes in the rims, causing them to become oblong instead of perfectly round, which then made even more movement possible, effectively turning the rim into a knife that then sheered the bolts right off. This being the FOURTH person to look at these wheels to try to diagnose the issue, he is the first one to mention the rims, which makes much more sense to me than just saying the bus is carrying too much weight and they broke off. My understanding (in hindsight), is that if we had been religiously retightening the lugs every time we stopped (which we had no idea that was something we should have been doing) we probably wouldn’t have had any issues with the wheels at all, which would have saved us MANY a headache and dollar. Lessons learned.
While John ran into town to acquire the new bolts and lugs for the wheel, the boys found his trampoline (why didn’t he tell us about this before??). Finally something kid appropriate to do here! Nico flipped while Enzo flopped and we were able to kill a good hour with some shenanigans.
Upon his return, John proceeded to trim the new studs (bolts) so that he could fit them back into the bearings without removing everything (like we had to do in Homer), making them just barely long enough to fit the lugs (which are apparently stronger/better lugs than they used on the other side), but just short enough to make us nervous about driving it around. The bolts don’t seem like something that should be shortened…but we’re not the experts here so what do we know?
It was about 3:30 when he stopped for the day, showing us he had only put on 6 bolts – 5 new ones and 1 of the old ones that was still on when we lost the others, that was apparently still good. He was then going to continue calling around to try to find out if anyone near here had rims we could use to replace these. Since this rim revelation, we were now worried about driving the bus much farther without replacing them.
Before we could leave his shop for the day however, we had to pay him for his work today. I did not have any Canadian cash so he drove me into town to get some from the ATM. While we drove, he proceeded to tell me about the terrible homeless crisis and encampment in this town, caused by a woman mayor who is “no offense to women” “not fit to run a town due to being too weak and feeble to make decisions.” Yikes. I kept my mouth shut, but inside I was screaming.
At the bank, I couldn’t get my debit card to work, even after talking to the teller and calling the customer service number, so I gave up and went back to the car, where John told me that it was fine, we could use his Square app. (Again, why didn’t he just tell me that in the first place?? He doesn’t want the government tracking him so he preferred cash apparently.) He found the plugin and I had to help him reset the app on his phone, but we were eventually able to figure it out and get him his money.
We would be back again tomorrow since the other 3 new bolts we needed were not going to be here until morning, and he was going to try to find us some replacement rims, but we should be fine driving somewhere in the city for the night as is.
We cautiously drove into town, back to the little dirt bike trails we passed on our way in. It just so happened that it was near the town softball fields with a big parking lot. The boys cruised the trails for a while with a few other kids, and eventually the parking lot started filling up with people as they came for their various community softball games. So we decided to pack up and head out to the grocery store to pick up a few essentials and cook dinner.
We parked next to a school playground so the boys could play while we cooked and eventually made our way back to the parking lot after the softball games ended so that we could sleep in peace. We’re not sure what tomorrow will bring with the wheels, but we’re hoping for the best so that we can get back on the road.
Until then,
Peace and nature ✌️🌿
Kelly
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