Damages happen - deal with them

From Red Bay, Labrador:

So far we were lucky on our trip. No light pols caped, no accidents with wild life or other users of the road. The first thing that we had to deal with, was a broken seam on our back bumper. 

We had added our two bicycles on an additional bike rack on the back bumper. During the drive over the past few weeks on sometimes a little rougher roads, the swinging and the weight of these two bikes may have put extra pressure onto the bumper and now - in Baie-Comeau - we dedected a welding seam that comes apart. OK - let's deal with it and find a welder to have it fixed. This is easier said then done since we are in a French speaking community and with different laws then in Ontario. First, here a welding shop is to be found under "soudeur" and there are not to many around.

We finally found one, that took care of our problem about 20 minutes after we had pulled in. The seam got re-welded, the bumper reinforced with extra steal plates, the bike rack taken apart and welded back together so that it is holding up and at the end we added two straps to the whole rack.
Glad we did this before hitting Hwy 389. This road was over 1,100 km of dirt and gravel and due to recent rain fall and construction not in it best shape. Driving some times comfortly with 80 km/h we had extended part where we were almost crawling along trying to avoid pot holes etc.
After the 1,100 km we found ourselves in Happy Valley-Goose Bay to find out that the next almost 600 km are again gravel and dirt road. Sure, we got our share of road dust but also some damages on our home on wheels. Not talking about the gravel chipping away on the metal bars under the rig, but part of our bed came loose, on light fixture fell down etc.

We also got a nail into the tire of our 5th wheel one evening while parking on a public place and had to get a tire fixing set from the nearest "here you find everything" store. We couldn't find the tire iron on the rig and will have to call the dealer to see, where it could/should be or if it was missing from the beginning. Now we had the set - but since neither one of us had ever plugged a tire, we ended up asking a local lad to show us how it is done. His work seems to be holding up and we drove with the fixed tire since then.

Latest issue is now the automatic leveling system the seem to be out of balance - but we will find out, if it is just today or if we have to report this to the dealer too.
Hope that these are the only hits that we had taken on this - our roughest drive so far. Sure happy to be back on paved road again :-)