The BIG day is here!

Wednesday, June 13, 2018

Little Towhee has been every bit as excited as I have been.  She has been perched in her basket on the dash of the truck for WEEKS waiting for me to say the word that we were heading north to Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada, to pick up our new travel trailer.

Finally the day arrived and off we went!

On our way out of town, we picked up a friend of mine who would ride along for the trip to help me keep track of some of the previously arranged details, and attend the Orientation with me and so help me remember a whole bunch of new details, and just generally help keep me on track, making sure each of my shoes were on the proper feet (left and right) and that my clothes were on right side out, etc.  I was pretty excited.  🙂

The four hour drive up to Chilliwack was beautiful.  The photo above is a portion of the I-5 freeway north of Burlington and south of Bellingham.  I’ve heard some people call this stretch of freeway “boring” because there is “nothing to look at”.  I think it’s amazingly rich and luscious and wonderful to look at.

Unlike our other trips through the Sumas border crossing, this time we had a bit of a wait in line to get into Canada.  It had been taking us 4 or 5 minutes at most.  Today, it took 35 minutes because there were long lines of cars and trucks and motorhomes and trailers.  The lines moved along relatively swiftly … there simply were lots of vehicles.

But soon enough it was our turn and we had no problems getting into Canada.  We then headed east on the Trans-Canada Highway (#1) to Chilliwack and stayed overnight at the Hampton Inn there.  We were up bright and early the next morning and arrived at Escape Trailer Industries a few minutes before my scheduled 8a.m. Orientation.

They had me pull my Big White Truck around the side of one of the buildings and back the truck up to MY NEW TRAILER!!!  This was my first real live view of my new trailer.  She was gorgeous!

She’s absolutely perfect!

While waiting for the Orientation to begin, I poked my camera in through an open doorway into the next room and found a 19-footer on a hoist (photo below).  Every space was clean and tidy, well lighted, with all the equipment in excellent condition.

In short order, back in the “new build” bay where my new trailer was, Verena came into the bay, corralled the new owners, and introduced herself.  There was one other new trailer there in addition to mine, so the new owners of that trailer were attending the Orientation too.  Verena took all four of us to another room that had a mock-up of the interior of a generic ETI trailer with kitchen, air conditioning, propane heater, frig, solar, EMS, batteries, and other systems and devices all on one wall of this room.

Verena walked us through each system, answered our questions, and gave us time to absorb the information and take a few detail photos of things that would have been difficult to access in our own trailers.  Verena was exceptionally knowledgable!  I’m a retired truck mechanic, but I learned a number of things.

The couple who were buying the other new trailer were experienced RV owners so they picked up the new info quickly, although they too had questions.  Verena was an excellent teacher and had a readily receptive audience of very good students.  🙂

Just an interesting side note is that those owners of the other new trailer were from Pennsylvania and had driven across the USA and Canada to pick up their new trailer at Chilliwack.  They were then going to camp their way back to Pennsylvania.  The friend of mine who was with me on this trip was originally from Pennsylvania, and from the same area in Pennsylvania!  So those folks and my friend had quite a nice chat.

When the Orientation in the mock-up room was over, we returned to the “new build” bay where ETI employee Trevor walked the owners of that other trailer through an Orientation on their trailer including the specifics of the options they had ordered.  Verena walked me through an Orientation on my trailer with its installed options.

Everyone at ETI was exceptionally cordial (the Orientation was actually a lot of fun) and yet also professional, efficient, and thoroughly knowledgable and conversant regarding everything about these trailers.

I took the two photos below from the top of a stairwell in that bay so I could see the location of items on the roof of my trailer.

A few years ago, it was reported by some ETI trailer owners that the solar panels were installed with stick-em-goop only and no screws or rivets.  There were reports of solar panels coming loose and flying off the roof while ETI trailers were being towed down the highway.  The photo above attests to the fact that my solar panel was attached with metal screws or rivets AND stick-em-pucky.

When the full Orientation was over and all the details had been tidied up and finalized, I pulled my truck back around to the front of the ETI buildings and waited for ETI employee Randy to show up in the front parking lot with my trailer in tow behind his Canadian licensed truck.  He would tow my trailer south across the border from Canada into the USA.  We would meet him just a few blocks south of the border in Sumas, WA … and then the trailer would be mine!!  And THAT story will be in my next post. 🙂  Don’t go far, next post will be coming soon.

Here’s the decal, proudly displayed on the back of my trailer and of every trailer built by ETI in British Columbia, Canada.