Travels With Miranda

Well, the one night at the Chasm wasn’t enough to catch up on so many weeks of poor sleep! I fell into bed at 9 last night and woke up at 8!!!

Checkout at McLeese Resort was a civilized noon, so I took my time. I dumped the tanks, topped up the fresh water, and actually spent a couple of hours reading before rolling out. With the way I felt yesterday afternoon, I had envisioned myself tearing out of there at first light, but it was almost 11 before I left.

This was one of those non-memorable days. I just drove about 150km with only three stops.

The first one was at the Walmart in Quesnel (Kweh-nell). This was my first time seeing a big box store since Chilliwack and it was like an oasis in the desert! I felt like a pioneer reaching an outpost with a fully stocked general store! I bought a new sewer hose and then moved two blocks down to a Canadian Tire, another welcome sight!, to get some clamps to effect the fresh water intake repair.

Getting out of Quesnel was very difficult as highway 97 was closed for some reason. I used a combination of Majel and following the crowds to get around the block.

Here is the view parked at the top of the big hill as you exit Quesnel:

view in Quesnel

Part of the route went over a narrow bridge where I scrapped one of Miranda’s side mirrors (it now has a nice yellow mark on it). If the adage of bad things happening in threes is true, I should be good until I get to the Yukon!

There is a string of RV parks on the south side of Prince George and I decided to try each one until I found internet compatible with my Mac. The first one worked out fine! I’m at the Bee Lazy RV Park (BEE because they do apiculture here). I had thought to stay a few days in the vicinity of Prince George, but this is one of the cheapest parks and it’s not cheap! Plus, you have to pay for internet! That said, the connection is so good (I can’t remember the last time I surfed so effortlessly) that I feel it’s worth it. I was just going to sail past Prince George and find lodging on the other side of town, but am glad I stopped before. A checking of my email revealed a tantalizing offer that could keep me here for a bit.  I will say no more on the subject at this time.

One of the reasons I was eager to stop this afternoon was that I could feel a storm rolling in. I had just enough time to get settled in here when the sky opened up. This was the sky just after arrival:

storm rolling in

Well, I’m packed and just about ready to go (not yet hooked up), and waiting for Rack Attack to open at 10. I thought of just heading out and calling them en route, but there’s a courtesy phone here at the park, so it will be a lot easier to make calls.

*sidebar*

I need to fix that melted fresh water intake ASAP seeing as I have no other way of filling my fresh water tank. Oops. Oh, well, that should be a relatively easy evening at Walmart kind of project.

I also need a new sewer hose. Mine decided to spring a leak this morning; thankfully after I finished dumping the black tank and had quite a bit of grey water already going through! It’s just a pinhole, but this still qualifies as an emergency.

*/sidebar*

My neighbour saw me struggling to get the bike in the trunk, so he helped me with that and then we turned our attention to the kayak. It is now in the rig. The stern is in the cab and the bow is just nosing into the dressing room. It’s going to be so much fun getting it back out. *rolls eyes*

I am going to start off by calling Rack Attack in Vancouver, where I bought my kit on Monday, and ask them to make arrangements for me with their store in Coquitlam. If that works out fine, then the detour won’t be tooooo bad since there is both a Kal Tire (need to have the tire pressure checked) and a Mr. Lube near the Rack Attack store.

Today will be a success if I make it as far as Chilliwack and Hope would be a triumph. What disappoints me is that today is a beautiful day, perfect for hiking, and I had a short hike planned for just after Hope. That’s most likely going to happen tomorrow… when several days of rain are going to start.

I’m loving the new laptop! It was no hardship to put away the iMac last night, so much so that I forgot to synch my contacts and calendar! Thankfully, I don’t have anything going on in the next few days, so I can do without my calendar for a bit.

My neighbours left yesterday, so Tuesday night they came by to offer me a few things they didn’t want to bring with them. Some of the things, like a nice wooden patio, were very tempting, but I said no. I had no room for them and didn’t want to be stuck trying to dispose of them myself at the end of this month. They wound up leaving me something they didn’t offer–the fresh water hose extension!!! I know this wasn’t forgetfulness on their part because I got home yesterday to find my hose sort of curled up under Miranda’s back end, as an obvious demonstration of their intent.

The generosity of RVers never ceases to astound me.

Over the course of the past six months, I’ve found that there isn’t really a standard for how hookups are located in an RV park beyond them being on the driver’s side of the RV. The best hookups I encountered were at the park in Oliver where I worked. There, it was exactly ten feet from my tank outlet to their intake, meaning that my sewer hose was stretched out completely and at a slight slope, making for easy dumping. The water intake and electrical plug (as well as phone and cable jacks) were in a pedestal next to the sewer outlet and just a couple of feet from the rig, meaning that I was able to cut my water hose down to six feet, necessitating less heat tape.

Here, the hookups are not working for me!

Water and electricity is provided at a pedestal at the back of the site. My 30A cord is almost stretched to the limit and my 25′ water hose was stretched so taut someone took it upon themselves to provide me with an extension! Yes! I came home one night to find that my hose was hooked into an additional 10′ length! I actually kind of resented that because the 25′ length had enough give that it did not risk pulling away from the tap and spewing water everywhere and it did not rest on the ground. Since I’ve had the extension, the hose has frozen a few times in temperatures where it didn’t freeze when it was hanging in the air. But if it makes the ‘extender’ feel better about some ill-perceived threat, well… *shrugs*

But the real issue here is the sewer placement. This isn’t a universal problem here; some of my neighbours are hooked up perfectly. But the way Miranda needed to be tucked into this site meant that her tank outlet and the sewer  intake are practically right on top of each other, meaning that my hose is way too long. Once a week, I have to go and shake it a bit to drain the grey water out (lesson learned when my shower flooded!) and let me say that draining the black tank is difficult. Thankfully, proper tank maintenance means that I won’t have any long term repercussions, but each time I go to drain and have to flush the tank with several buckets of water I kick myself for not buying a new hose and cutting down the old one!

So, hookups that work for me need to have the electrical plug and water tap near the electrical cord compartment and water intake so that I don’t have to worry about tripping over my cord and hose, but the sewer needs to be about ten feet from the tank outlet. Seems like someone is slowly figuring out how to spot a good site from a bad!

I can’t say the same for the water pump, but there is most definitely nothing wrong with my shower. Yay!

It was back in Oliver that I noticed that water pressure in the shower had become horrible, but I chalked it up to frozen plumbing. It took a long time to test the shower again since I’ve been showering at the pool house since I got here. The one occasion I had to take a shower at home, I noticed that the pressure was horrible and my heart sank. It wasn’t that cold here…. I made a mental note to test the shower after a string of warm days. That test occurred yesterday and I had full, normal pressure. Last night, we had a cold snap, enough to freeze my water intake hose for the first time in weeks. I just filled up the Wonder Wash to do a small load and, imagine that, no water pressure to the shower. I’m not sure exactly where the freeze is occurring, but I won’t worry about it since it hasn’t been freezing completely.

If only the problem with my water pump could be resolved so easily. *sighs*