-It'll take just a couple days...
(Translation: Figure at least a week!)
-I'll be done by the weekend.
(Translation: I mean the weekend in 2 weeks)
That's not because is works slowly. Dad just can't do a hasty or temporary job, or cut corners. So he takes his time to fix things right, right away. Add some serious unexpected issues like the rear brake job et a badly cut finger, and the deadline moves further away. But in the end, his constant under-evaluation of the required time is a good thing: some work took so much time, that if he'd known how much time he was going to spend on it, he would have never began it!
However, during the last days of August, I felt Dad was beginning to get tired of working on the Whale day in and day out. He's been working on this thing since May, every day! He must have climbed inside and got out at least 10000 times. Obviously he didn't expect to completely restore the entire vehicle in a few weeks, but he hoped he could at least go on a short vacation and enjoy the motorhome for a few days. But the summer went by, and the list of things to fix kept getting longer. Then Dad cut his finger, so the Whale spent the summer in the driveway.
September was approaching, with the Labor Day weekend. As I explained earlier, during this long weekend is held our yearly family party. The event takes place in Lac St-Jean, about a 3 hours drive north of Quebec City. My parents usually attend the party with their motorhome, and this year was to be the first year with the Travco. So the last days of August turned into a race against the clock, a real marathon to get the Blue Whale ready for its first significant trip.
Along with the rear brake job, there was a thousand things to fix: the horn, the fuel gauge and the LP gas level gauge were not working, there was still another leak at the water tank, the new seats had to be installed, the interior needed a good cleaning, etc. Dad's friend Gerry came to help. While Dad was at the local auto part stores trying to find the last replacement brake line, he had Gerry put on the rear wheels and properly tighten the wheel bearings. I gave Gerry a hand on this, and I will tell you one thing, this guy knows what he's doing. Gerry's a highly competent mechanic, and it shows! Dad was glad of having him. In the meantime, Mom managed to transform the mess inside the vehicle into a clean and inviting motorhome, and prepared and packed everything for the trip. After a week of hard work, everything was finally ready on Friday night.
The Blue Whale left Quebec City the following morning for the Lac St-Jean region. The following pictures where taken at L'Étape, a rest area about an hour north of Quebec City, along the Laurentian Wildlife Reserve road.
A few hours later, the Travco made it to its destination, without any problem. Dad was happy, all he said is he felt the brakes might need some more bleeding as the brake pedal feels somewhat softer than it used to be, and he will probably check the alignment because he felt the steering was not as stable as it should be. That's it, everything went just fine.
Over the following days Dad and Mom took a few days of well-deserved vacations, they drove to the Charlevoix region, and then back to Quebec City the following weekend. They drove about 800km on the most moutaineous roads Quebec has to offer, and everything went perfectly. The big 440 purred like a big kitten and easily pulled the Whale up the long climbs of Charlevoix. Fuel mileage, grossly calculated over a 300km distance, was 7.5 mpg. Dad expected a bit better but it was a montain road and a windy day, wich certainly didn't help. Nevertheless, this was the first serious road test of the Blue Whale, and a test the Whale passed with flying colors.
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