We had moved to Calgary in ’99 for a career opportunity, and three years later when that was fulfilled we really needed to get back home. Calgary was definitely not home. So this time with a ’53 Ford 3 ton cabover named Homer, a ’93 Jeep Cherokee named Jippu, a factory trailer with 3 motorcycles, and a new bull terrier named Tigger, we did come home. To Whitehorse
We spent the better part of a week loading and re-loading Homer. Lugging everything we owned out onto the lawn, trying to get it all to fit in his fourteen foot grain box. Then putting it all back in the house. Reloading until I finally had to admit that my wife was right. There was no way it was all going to fit. So we pared it down and took two pallets to Byers Transport and tried again.
We still had to send a dozen boxes to Whitehorse by bus! Aww man!
To make it all weather tight we glued up a framework of ABS pipe and lashed a tarp to it. By the way, CRA will not allow the cost of weather protection for your stuff as “moving expenses”.
By comparison, Jippu was easy. The Vincent, the Suzuki and the Serow on the trailer, the canoe on the roof rack; food, clothes and doggy in the back and we were done.
The trip was mostly just very slow. I don’t remember having Homer weighed, but we were right down on the overload springs. One hundred horsepower, a five speed overdrive (seldom achieved) transmission, and a 16,000 pound gross vehicle weight guaranteed a maximum speed of 50 miles an hour. And believe me, the mileage was and is no screamin’ hell.
Gassing up again for the umpteenth time, this time in Hythe Alberta, we were at the pump when a guy pulled in behind us and informed us: “You know you’ve got a flat on your left inside dual, eh?”
Damn. I had the tools all right: 20 ton jack, ¾” drive socket set, snipe, and two spares. I just really wasn’t looking forward to changing it. I could’ve spent a sleepless night thinking about it and the next day rassling with it.
But the kid on the pump says: “Hey we can fix that.”
Turns out it was also a tire shop.
“Are you sure?” says I. “Its a widowmaker.”
“That’s OK. My dad wants me to learn how to fix ’em.”
If speed and economy were not Homer’s forte. Grunt was. We once weighed in at 21,000 pounds on the scale at the Whitehorse dump with a load of sod for the compost pile. We used him to haul loads of manure, firewood, gravel for the driveway…and of course the two pallets awaiting us at Byers’.
A vintage three ton pickup with a dump body is a thing of beauty.
We first called him Homer because we’d had thoughts of making a motor home out of him. But then, full frontal, he started to look more and more like Homer Simpson. Finally, rather than us taking him home, we realized that he was taking us home.
At Teslin we agreed that we’d push through even though it was dark. We just really needed to get home.
We had a little wake-up on the hill at the Marsh Lake bridge. The dreaded red and blue flashing lights on the hill by the Marsh Lake bridge. WHAT?! I was down to second gear! Just letting me know he’s going by I guess.
My friend Earle had opened the place up for us, so we just parked, and grabbed the fartsacks and the air mattresses looking forward to a really good sleep at home.
Well guess what. Tigger and his puppy teeth had discovered one of the air mattresses. Guess who’s.
Be it ever so flat, hard and devoid of furniture, there’s no place like home!
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