Little Adventures With Dolly 2025
| 2025-03-17: Hunt for New Jumbo | ||
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| We have had many wonderful adventures in Jumbo, but now we want to go farther
and longer. We haven't ventured far from Edmonton in Jumbo because she's
getting old and less roadworthy, she only has lap belts (and I'm a stickler
for a good shoulder harness), and she doesn't have a toilet.
This year we looked into getting shoulder harnesses for Jumbo, and that was not an option, so we decided that we would replace Jumbo with something that would allow us to take longer trips. We would both love to go out to Vancouver Island, and also to Newfoundland. So, we started looking around for something new last year. We thought about maybe getting a motorhome, but we both really like being able to keep the van in our condo parking lot, so we decided, very quickly, on a camperized van. What we really want is Jumbo, but with a few upgrades. In early March I found a camper van in Lethbridge that looks really great. It's similar to Jumbo, but 17 years younger, and has a toilet and shoulder harnesses. It doesn't have the slidey door on the side, but it does have doors on the side that we can open and look out like we like to do. We didn't want to drive all the way to Lethbridge, and stay overnight, just to look at one van, though, so I found some other vans along the way that we could look at as well. I sketched out an itinerary, made some arrangements, and booked us a hotel in Lethbridge. We had two vans to see in Calgary, so we had lunch with Kim, and then had a look at the two vans: 1. A 2015 Dodge Promaster 2. A 2022 Ford Transit We then carried on to Lethbridge where we saw a 2002 Dodge at an RV dealer, and then, at last, we met up with the woman selling the 1996 Dodge camper van. We took the van for a drive, and she drove very nice. I am in love.
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| 2025-03-18: Stop in Red Deer / Sylvan | ||
| 2025-04-02: Enroute to Dolly | ||
| 2025-04-03: Picking Up Dolly | ||
| We were definitely interested in Dolly after the first time we saw her.
Incidentally, her original name was actually Ace Vantura, but I digress. We
made a deal with the seller, Sahlysse, to get the van inspected. She would
take it in for the inspection, and we would pay for it. The only important
thing that came out of the inspection was that the van needed new tires, so
Sahlysse paid for the new tires, and we bought a van!
Traveling home from Lethbridge, we had Nemo and our new-to-us van. I drove Nemo, and I followed Brent (in the van) down the highway. Jumbo's "cap" was sort of flush with the line of the van body, but the new van's cap bulges out quite a bit. I hadn't really noticed that before, but I really noticed it following the van down the highway. I thought, wow, the van looks really top- heavy. We should name her Dolly! (nod to the wonderful Ms. Parton). It took a while for the name to stick. We considered other options. Brent always says that driving one of these vans down the highway is like driving a sheet of plywood down the highway, so he suggested calling her "Windsor" (for Windsor Plywood). "Windsor" became her last name, and because it sounds royal, we tacked a "Lady" on the front of the name, so the van's name is "Lady Dolly Windsor".
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| 2025-05-13: First Trip - Lions Campground in Red Deer | ||
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| 2025-05-14: Lions Day 2 | ||
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| 2025-05-15: Lions Day 3 | ||
| 2025-06-01: Second Trip - Lions Campground in Red Deer | ||
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| 2025-06-02: Lions Day 2 | ||
| 2025-06-03: Lions Day 3 | ||
| 2025-06-04: Lions Day 4 | ||
| 2025-06-13: Third Trip - Lions Campground in Red Deer | ||
| 2025-06-14: Lions Day 2 | ||
| 2025-06-15: Lions Day 3 | ||
| 2025-06-16: Lions Day 4 | ||
| 2025-07-07: Jarvis Bay (Sylvan Lake) | ||
We decided to tack on a visit to Natasha in Sylvan Lake onto this trip to Red
Deer and booked in to Jarvis Bay. Alas, Natasha ended up picking up a shift at
work and didn't make it, but the Jarvis Bay campground was very nice and more
affordable than the Lions.
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| 2025-07-22: Jarvis Bay (Sylvan Lake) | ||
| It drizzled on and off for a few hours when we first got to the campsite, but it
cleared up well before Natasha and Kurt arrived. We had a really great visit.
We've met Natasha (my second cousin) a number of times, but this was the first
time we'd been able to spend some time with Kurt. We enjoyed ourselves very
much and hope for more in the future. The original dash organizer (i.e., console) was woefully inadequate for holding beverages securely. We looked into a variety of options. We wanted to keep the floor in between the chairs clear, so we bought this unit and Brent affixed it to the original console. It looks awkward and unstable sitting there, but it actually works really good. One of the things I didn't like about Jumbo for long trips was that she didn't have a toilet. That's fine when you're always going to be in a campground (and it's not a pandemic), but if you're going to do a long road trip, you might not always find a campground for every single night. So, one of our criteria when we were looking for Dolly was that the van have a toilet. We haven't actually used the toilet yet, because we've always been at a campground, but Dolly's blackwater tank filled up just from greywater (washing dishes, etc). So, before we left Jarvis Bay, Dolly took a dump. This was a first for us, although I hope it wasn't a first for Dolly. Girl is almost 30 years old so I hope she hasn't been holding it all this time!
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| 2025-07-25: Bellis | ||
| We decided to take Dolly out to Bellis, one of our favorite places to camp.
It's only about a 90-minute drive from our place, first-come/first-served but
almost never full, and just completely lovely. We really like Site #1 as it's
HUGE, wooded, and only has neighboring sites across the road. There were a
few other campers there this weekend, but we couldn't really see any of them
from where we were, so we didn't even bother putting the curtains up this
time.
After we set up camp, we took a walk around the campground, had a look at the lake, and relaxed.
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| 2025-07-26: Bellis | ||
| The weather is great, there's minimal smoke in the air, and we felt kind of
ambitious and eager to see the town of Bellis again, so we walked into town
today. It's about a 9km round trip, but easy walking on the quiet road. We
were very sad to see the antique stores were both closed down and the town
seems
to be fading.
There were some folks camped across the road and down a ways. They left this morning, and they left a HUGE pile of wood behind, so Brent took the opportunity to load up! We had bought a pathetically small bundle of wood at Smoky Lake for almost $16 on our way out, so a big pile of free wood kind of makes up for it.
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| 2025-08-01: Fork Lake - Tannis and Steve | ||
Today we drove up to Fork Lake to Tannis and Steve's property for the first time
in a couple of years. We couldn't go last year because I was sick all summer
from the chemotherapy. The furthest we ventured from home was camping a couple
of times at Wabamun (a 45-minute drive). We got really lucky this time - it
looks like we're going to have great weather and minimal smoke. Yay!
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| 2025-08-02: Fork Lake - Tannis and Steve | ||
We visited from dawn 'til dusk today, which, in Alberta at this time of year is
a REALLY long time. It was awesome. We started with a big bacon and egg feast,
and then Tannis and Steve took us out on their boat. The three of them floated
in the water, while I floated in the boat. I'm not a big water enthusiast, and
there was a bit of a risk of itchy rashes from the water slime so I noped out of
that. Later in the day, Cathy and Adrian joined us for some visiting. A really
great day.
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| 2025-08-03: Fork Lake - Tannis and Steve | ||
I hate long weekend crowds and chaos, so instead of staying up at Fork Lake
until Monday, we beat the traffic by heading home on Sunday. They were calling
for storms starting in the afternoon, so we left after a good long morning
visit, and had a leisurely drive home. We stopped in Andrew to have a look at
the world's largest mallard, and in Mundare to have a look at the world's
largest sausage. We got home after the rain started, but overall it wasn't bad.
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