locks & fuses

Good morning from……..Amy, again.

For the first time since we started driving, we got to have a lie in. Deanna, Emma and I all read our books – for a whole hour!!! Then we had a delicious cooked meal for breakfast. After a bit of general house work we headed north to a museum at St. Catharines where we found out our brake light & flasher wasn’t working… but more on that later. We watched the short presentation in the museum, about the canal system and how/when It was made and about the locks. Did you know that they first started making the canals in the great lakes area in the early 1800’s? Then we went and watched a real lock do is job.

If you’re wondering what the lock does then let me explain: The lock is two walls in the canal where the water goes up like a stair case with a water tight gate at each end blocking the water at the top, the ship goes into the “box” and the gates would close behind it and the water would rise and would take the boat with it and when the water was as high as the canal was the gate at the front would open allowing the boat to continue its journey down stream or should I say down cannel. That evening we stopped at a van rental place to fill up our propane and while we were there Dad got chatting with the fella about the tail light. There they changed the light bulb – that was after they fiddled with everything trying to find out what was wrong……..

[from Dad… Here’s what happened. The helpful fella and I first checked the fuses – there was no wiring diagram so we pulled them out 1 by 1 to check that all were fine… which they were. So we unscrewed the tail light & changed the bulb which was blown – all good so far. Then went to check all systems and discovered that, mysteriously, we had lost our flashers altogether. Puzzingly, the hazard lights still worked but indicators didn’t even give the green flashing light on the dashboard. Nothing at all! Spent ages that evening trying to sus the problem and in the morning again after more than an hour at the mechanics, we discovered that helpful fella from the night b4 had put a fuse back in the wrong slot – there were heaps spare slots but with no diagram, we had no idea which one was misplaced. You wouldn’t think such a small thing could be such a pain in the bum however you can’t drive far without flashers!]

So back to Amy. They broke our flashers!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Consequently we were unable to keep going and reach our destination for the night. We've had a couple of mishaps but this is the 1st one that actually meant we had 2 stop until it was fixed. Anyway, we parked up at a nearby Walmart where trucks that were coming and going kept us awake half the night. Oh well you can’t win them all - we weren't delayed too long in our trip to the wilderness.

For your interest we have included a glossary of American terms in this edition:

Toilet = potty/bathroom/restroom

Lollies = candy

Indicators = flashers

Hazard lights = 4 way flashers

Motorway = free way
Petrol = gas

LPG = propane

Camper van = motor home

Queue = line

Z = zee

Rubbish = trash

Top up (like a water tank) = top off

Go to the back = go to the rear

Ute = truck

Mum = mom

Coffee plunger = coffee press