Week ending Jul 27, 2017 Coronation

Friday, the weather was cool and too windy to take the inflatable out, so we played WII tennis and golf with Karen and Dominique for a couple of hours before supper. 

Saturday morning, we all packed up and headed to Aniah's Family Restaurant in Stettler for a late morning breakfast.  This is a nice restaurant with good food.  After breakfast we went our separate ways, Karen and Dominique heading to the Lions Campground in Leduc, and we headed to Coronation Dam Campground on the reservoir at the north end of Coronation.

Canada 150 display in Coronation Dam Campground

  We had a long chat with the campground operator.  In the afternoon, we walked into town.  We had noticed that our plug-in connection at the utility had gotten a bit too warm in Alix.  We were able to pick up a replacement 30Amp head at Golby Hardware in case we have a problem with the plug-in.

There are several nice murals in town.   Coronation was created on September 27, 1911 with the sale of 24 blocks of land.  Many buildings were moved six miles from Haneyville as soon as the lots were sold.    It became a town by April 12, 1912.  The town was named for the Coronation of King George V of England.

Sunday morning, we did the walk to town and back before the car race.  We got a picture of a Loggerhead Shrike, which we find is a species in decline (3% per year over many years resulting in  76% overall decline).  

On Monday we did a little trip from Coronation  to Castor,  looked for a couple of museums mentioned on their welcome sign, found a couple of others instead, but being Monday, they were closed.

CP Rail logo and namesake of Castor town

Then we stopped at Huber Dam County Park, northeast of Castor on a wee reservoir, a nice site with good rates for 30Amp service.  We headed north to Alliance, whose campsites are buried on the edge of the rec grounds.  The trees are between the trailers and the satellite, except for one of the four sites which parallels the entrance road.    Then we headed west to Burma County Park on the Battle River north of Coronation.  It is a nice little site, if you like being surrounded by trees but no cell service or satellite access.  The road through the campsites might not have been wide enough for the trailer.

On a short walk along the river to a decommissioned bridge, we saw a large owl (we think) fly down the river below us.

 From there we headed to Brownfield, which just happened to be on the road south to Coronation.  Just a school, a rec center, and a few houses.

Shortly after leaving Brownfield, the windshield wipers quit working.   When we got back to the trailer, John dug out the manual for the truck, and read the manual to find the location of the fuse for the wipers.  The fuse looked good.

On Tuesday, John took the truck into McKenzie Motors to get the wipers fixed.  McKenzie Motors was the one of the first GMC dealers in Alberta.  The garage opened in 1936.  When the owner returned from WW II in 1945, he got the GMC dealership.  His son is now operating the business. Unfortunately, when GMC  restructured in 2009, it dropped many of the smaller dealers, including this one.  They still have a GMC certified mechanic on staff, and operate in conjunction with Hanna Motors.

It turned out that there is something wrong with the fuse box.  The mechanic was able to verify this by replacing the fuse box with another defective one, and the wipers worked.  However, the problem with their fuse box was that the fuel pump didn't work.  They checked on availability of a new fuse box, and found it had to come from Montreal so would take 4 business days to get here.  We decided we will stay in the area until next week when it comes in.  We have to leave the Coronation Dam Campground, as they have people coming in for the site we are in.

On Wednesday, we moved to the Huber Dam County Park.   It about 40 km northwest of Coronation, and 7 km west of Castor.  On the drive out, we checked the wipers and they worked.  When we got to the park, we phoned McKenzie Motors.  They figured that the problem is a loose connection in the fuse box, and it they will probably quit working just as easily.  

The sites in the campground are nice and wide with a multi-row caragana hedge on the west side, and poplars along the north side.  For $20/night, we get 30 amp power.  We set up the chairs and hammock outside and enjoyed the sun for a while.  

On Thursday morning, we walked around the campground, which didn't take long.   Quite a few units left by noon, including one that had come in last evening.   By noon, the temperature was up to 30C.  We are definitely within the area with a heat warning today along the east half of Alberta.

Huber Dam County Park