Alberta

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Frustration

In the last week, I have sent seven replies to truck-for-sale ads, following up with phone messages when I could. No one has responded. Four of those messages were, “I want to buy your truck, get back to me so I can schedule an inspection.” I guess no one really wants to sell. That or people don’t like the idea of the inspection without meeting me first and are too rude to let me know.

I’m leaving for Calgary tomorrow (!) and my confidence is shaky that I will be able to purchase something quickly since sellers can’t be bothered to respond to to queries about their ads.

Returning from Calgary without a truck is not an option, but I have to remain smart in my decision-making process. More than 250,000KM is out. Rust is out. After comparing bed dimensions, flareside is out (painful since there is a gorgeous 2004 flareside with a topper and almost no mileage at a good price on the market). And spending more than $4,000 is definitely not a smart move. Now that I know so much about the Ford Ranger I’m leery about expanding the search radius to its rival, the GMC Sonoma, but I may not have any choice.

If I don’t find any more decent trucks online tomorrow night, Monday is going to have me starting a tour of all the used vehicle dealerships in the Calgary area. I find that painfully inefficient when an online search tells me that what I want is available except that the sellers are impossible to reach.

Moya is out there somewhere, I know, but she sure is being furtive!

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Scary Mail

Jody emailed me tonight to let me know she got some mail for me from “Government of Alberta, Driver Fitness and Monitoring, Edmonton” and that it was probably my stickers for the license plate but did I want her to open up the envelope and check?

I quickly Googled Driver Fitness and Monitoring because it didn’t sound good and the results caused me to reply with, “Yes.”

It took about an hour for her to get back to me while I fretted. Did someone report me for dangerous driving? Was I ticketed for something and never informed? The best case scenario I could envision was that I needed to get my eyes tested since they didn’t do that when I got my license here (wearing glasses or contacts is a condition on my license). I kept telling myself, “Calm down. Whatever it is, you’ll deal with it. No sense working yourself up over nothing.” But you try to get a letter from a place called Driver Fitness and Monitoring without knowing the contents and not fret over it!

Jody’s next email had the subject line “Mail is OK” with a scan of the letter. I just laughed and laughed and laughed because the letter basically said what the lady from Service Alberta told me yesterday.

Here’s the letter:

The highlights:

-Your Accent has been reported unrepairable. It cannot be registered or put on the road. It can only be sold for scrap or dismantled for pairs.

-If you still have your registration and license plate, you can transfer them to a new vehicle.

-If you don’t have the registration and license plate, advise a registry office so that they can be cancelled.

I am once again thankful that Jody reminded me to go grab my license plate off the car. I am certain I would not have thought to do so myself. I am really fond of that license plate because it is just one number off from the motorhome so I only have to remember which is the 6 and which is the 7. It’s like having a matched set, which is what my rig might look like soon if the seller would only get back to me! 🙂

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What Happens If You Total Your Vehicle Registered in Alberta?

My vehicle registrations are due tomorrow. I’ve paid for the motorhome, but wasn’t sure what to do about the car. The Service Alberta website was useless.

So I called and after spending ages on hold, I got a live person. She explained that my insurance company would have informed the Ministry of Transport that the vehicle is off the road, so I don’t have to do anything.

When I go register my truck next week, I can bring the car’s license plate and if it’s deemed to be reusable (I can’t imagine it not being reusable), it will be transferred to the truck. Easy peasy.

Unrelated, after this call, I had to call the lawyer in Saskatchewan who dealt with my property transfer because the cheque I sent for their services hadn’t cleared my account yet. The person who answered confirmed that the cheque was deposited yesterday and that my account is in good standing. I was then thanked profusely for not only paying on time, but making sure my payment was received. Methinks they have to chase their clients!

Okay, I’m ready to turn in my grown up card for today… but I’m waiting for a call from Ohio.

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Surprise: You Can Get Travel Deals in Canada!

Whew. My flight, hotel for three nights, and rental car for two days in Calgary are booked!

There are no deals on flights in Canada. I went to all the deals sites and they came up with the same prices as Westjet and Air Canada. I don’t know why I even bother; I go through this exercise every time I look for flights and end up booking directly with the airline. It’s going to cost me $450 to fly to Calgary on Sunday. Had I been willing to wait till Tuesday, I would have saved $100, but lost two full week days.

Next, I had to find a hotel. I went to my favourite hotel booking site, priceline.com. Since I like to live on the wild side, I put in a bid for a one-star hotel at $40 a night near the airport. Priceline told me to increase my bid to $57, which I did, and I got a room worth $90 a night for $57. Now, the reviews for it are concerning, but it was the same thing when I went to Savannah. There, I got $35 a night room in a $150 a night area (off season travel rocks) with a bus stop right in front that took me to the historic part of town in 10 minutes for $1. The reviews for that hotel were worse than the ones for the Calgary hotel and I ended up in a nice, newly renovated, second floor room at the back of the motel. So I’m remaining optimistic. I like that I will arrive in Calgary at about 7:30PM and that a free shuttle will take me to my hotel within minutes. I’ll reveal the hotel when I get there and am ready to review it.

Finally, I needed a car. If The Plan goes off without a hitch (can you hear me laughing?), I will only need the car Monday and Tuesday. Going straight to a couple of car rental agency sites, I got prices of $120 at the airport location and $90 for in town locations, so $60 or $45 a day. I went on a couple of deals sites and finally scored on orbitz.com with a rate of $25 a day! I’ve never been with this company, so I look forward to reviewing it. I don’t know if they would pick me up at the hotel the way that Enterprise does. If not, I checked the Calgary transit site and learned that I can get to the car rental place in about a half hour on the bus with one transfer. This was  very acceptable so I booked the car.

Of course, if I have to extend my stay, I will most likely not get these same rates for subsequent nights and days. But since none of these deals are refundable, I decided to be conservative in how many nights and days I booked.

I also sent out a couple of feelers on some trucks tonight, but I don’t know if they will amount to anything. I’ll need to get on the phone at some point. There is one truck that is calling my name, but I am shying away from it because it is a 1993 with more than 300,000KM, a bit scary for a daily driver. But for the right price, it could be a serious contender.

Another candidate doesn’t have a topper, but otherwise fits all the criteria. It’s a 1994, which is also a little older than I’d like, but it only has about 150,000KM. It’s being sold by a dealership that wants $4,000 for it. Ha ha ha ha ha. That truck is worth $2,500 max. I still scheduled a test drive on Monday since I found a matching (in terms of size, not colour) canopy for it so if it works out and I can get a decent price for it, it’d be a good contender. I like the idea of buying from a dealership since I’d be able to get a warranty and might be able to skip the super thorough inspection. I don’t have a problem with salesman pressure when I go into dealerships since I walk in knowing that I want and what it’s worth, so I’m not easily swayed.

You know you’re getting old when you see an ad for a nice-looking 1989 truck and you think, “It’s not that old, I remember 1989” and then you do the math and realise that 1989 was 23 years ago!

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New Toad Insurance Matters

I just spoke with my insurance broker in Lethbridge about the new vehicle I want to buy to get a heads up about how complicated it will be to get insurance on it.

As it turns out, my existing policy is still valid and there will simply be a substitution of vehicle. I was told to not expect any significant difference in the cost of the insurance since that policy holds a liability portion for the motorhome. So so much for thinking that I could eliminate a $90 a month payment. But he said it’ll be super quick and easy next week. I just need to get the vehicle VIN and a few other details and that’s that. I will then continue under the same policy number with the same expiry date.

I’m glad that I also had the foresight to ask if I can use my policy for a rental car when I am in Calgary to save the $25 or so daily for coverage. Yes.

Now, I just need to cross my fingers that The Truck will be available for sale Monday. The pickings are a lot slimmer now that I’ve eliminated the 3L engine and am excluding trucks that don’t already have a topper. I don’t want to have to look for one on top of looking for a truck, but if it comes to that, I will. I would just prefer to hit the road with the topper on so that I can sleep in the truck on the way back.