Oliver

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Mail Improvements

Until I got here, all the parks I’d stayed at preferred that mail not be sent directly to them (courrier deliveries okay, though). So, I’ve been having my mail sent general delivery. This worked out fine until I got to Oliver. The post office there was really bad. Canada Post’s services are notoriously poor, but these guys were the champions of bad service. They misplaced some of my mail, didn’t lift a finger to find it even though I was able to prove that the mail go to their office, and tried to blame me for the error when the package was finally located. I wound up having my mail forwarded directly to the resort by UPS at 30$ a pop!

At Pacific Border, mail can simply be sent to your attention. There are bins at the front desk where mail is sorted alphabetically and guests can go through the appropriate bin to find mail they’re waiting for. Sure, it’s not the most secure method, but, really, how secure is your mail when it’s sitting in a box on your porch anyway?

I continue to be pleased with the service I’m getting from the clerk at the UPS store in Gatineau where I rented a box. Several weeks ago, I emailed him to ask if some mail I was expecting had arrived and if so to please send me all my mail to Oliver, otherwise I would try again in a week. He replied that the letter hadn’t arrived. Two days later, he sent me another email telling me that he’d spotted my letter and my mail was on its way. This is a busy store so talk about service!

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Water Quality (Or Lack Thereof)

Blech!

One thing I really miss about Oliver was how good the tap water was there! I use a Brita pitcher to filter my drinking water. My first day here, I filled up my pitcher and took a gulp of the water, then promptly spit it out, discovering that I was long overdue to change the filter! The water here is highly chlorinated and has an off-taste reminiscent of old socks (a flavour attribute I only appreciate in my cheese, thank you kindly).  I made the mistake this morning of making my coffee with water from the tap rather than the pitcher and I got a lovely caffeinated cup of chlorinated old sock sludge. Yum!

The filter is not able to full rid the water of its nasty flavour properties, so I’m going to have to get water in jugs for drinking and beverage making purposes. *sighs*

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I Love This Life!!!

Greetings from the Fraser Valley!

Majel (the GPS) told me that a 9AM departure would get me here at 2. I laughed and figured 6 if I was lucky. Fate took that difference and split it; I arrived at 4.

I was up around 8 this morning since I didn’t have that much left to do and I didn’t want to wake up everyone since what I did have left to do was noisy. The RV battery wasn’t charged enough to crank the engine, so I had to take the trickle charger out, but it got the battery going in the time it took me to bring my trash to the dumpster. Hooking up the toad was surprisingly easy. I mean, really, really easy! Everything I’d worried about didn’t happen, so I had an uneventful ride out… once a helpful neighbour managed to pry my levelers off the very frozen pavement. 🙂

Google maps has a wonderful feature that lets you see topography. Using that, I was able to figure out that from Oliver almost all the way to Hope would be uphill into increasingly poor weather, but that the rest would be downhill into rain. Sure enough, that’s what happened. Part of the drive to Hope was of the white-knuckled, hands clenched around the steering wheel, variety, but only because  a lack of guard rails next to sheer cliffs made staying on the road the foremost thought on my mind. As I’d expected, the roads were fairly devoid of other drivers, which reduced the stress considerably.

I had thought to stop in Hope for a leg stretch before continuing on the final third of the journey, but finding spots to stop wasn’t easy and I wound up getting all the way to Chilliwack before I could stop and rest for a half hour!

No sooner had I entered Surrey than I had my closest call ever with Miranda. There was a semi driver ahead of me whom I think was either half asleep or inebriated. He kept on switching lanes with very little notice. I tried to stay as far behind him as I could, but he still managed to cut me off. Thankfully, Miranda’s brakes are really, really, really good and while I laid down a patch of rubber, I didn’t hit him. The only thing that budged in the coach was my spice rack, which spilled most of my cumin down the sink. 🙁 I try to find the humour in such situations. 🙂

The park is literally on the border with the US and had I followed the GPS directions, I would have found myself in line for customs! Thankfully, I noticed little signs indicating the detour to the park and followed them to avoid the long lineup that preceded my turnoff point just before the ‘all vehicles beyond this point must report to US customs’ sign.

Settling in was a non-event although the handyman insisted on guiding me in. I appreciated his help, of course, but told him that I have a hard time translating flailing arms with what direction to turn the steering wheel. Backing up is one of those things I can do only if I don’t think about it. So, getting in wasn’t as smooth as it sometimes is, but it wasn’t embarrassing. I just hooked up the propane and electricity since my water hose is now just 10′ long and I need a much longer one to get to their tap. This is something I’d expected, so it’s not a big deal. I have plenty of water in the holding tank and the temps being above freezing, the pump is working just fine!

The cats were great on this trip, Neelix staying close by me, Tabitha sticking to her favourite spot on the bed.

Foremost on my mind right now are dinner and a loooong swim. Pool’s open till 10!

The last three months feel far behind me already.

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Working On Problems

The closer I got to tomorrow morning, the sicker I felt. I just didn’t feel like I could consider myself to be leaving safely if none of my systems were working. I also realised that if I couldn’t get the hose off the Extend-a-Stay I wouldn’t be able to use my onboard tank either AND I’d have no heat tonight! It’s only going down to minus three, but my electric space heater is on the fritz and I don’t feel comfortable leaving it on all night. So, I really couldn’t just sleep on my problems.

Emboldened by the fact that late this afternoon my pump started to pump water (air in the line, methinks) and, several hours later, I can say that it’s working normally, I decided that I just had to tackle the propane. I know from my experience with plumbing that the way to fix a leak is often to loosen a connection, not to tighten it. I decided that I had to risk damaging the Extend-a-Stay and just put some elbow grease into the problem.

Elbow grease worked wonders and I got the hose off. The E-a-S has a little brass screw cover to plug the hole where the hose connects, so I tried to screw it in but found the hole to be too big for it. I couldn’t fathom how my elbow grease could have made that much damage, so I looked at the hose more closely. I discovered that the hose screws into a protrusion that screws into the Extend-a-Stay. That’s what I’d been trying to loosen rather than the hose itself. DOH! Well, I got that back onto the Extend-a-Stay nice and tightly and screwed the cover back in. Everything looks good, but, of course, I’ll need to watch for leaks when I run propane from the on board tank.

Then, I screwed the hose back on and opened the propane a tad. I immediately heard the telling hissing sound of a leak. In this case, I thought that tightening could be the answer… and it was.

Both my hose and Extend-a-Stay seem to be none the worse for wear, I have no leaks, and, best of all, I HAVE HEAT TONIGHT. 😀

I feel so much better than I did a few hours ago and really ready to go!

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And the Problems Multiply…

I don’t know which of these is worse:

1) I can’t remove the auxiliary propane tank’s hose from the Extend-a-Stay. The joint is stiff and I can’t remember if it’s a right or left turning joint, so I’m worried about damaging the very pricey E-A-S by forcing the connection in the wrong direction with a wrench… since just jiggling the connector broke something and the hose is now leaking. I really hope it’s the 30$ hose that’s damaged and not the 100$ E-A-S. So, no propane until I get the rig tank filled. At least, it’s mild during the day, but I suspect the next couple of nights are going to be chilly;

2) My water pump turns on but does not pump water. I’m really hoping that this is a case of something being frozen;

3) I’m not having any luck starting the generator.

Since I’ve unhooked the city water and I can’t use my water pump, I don’t need to worry about my grey tank filling up, so I’m going to stow away the sewer hose now that the sun has been on it for a while. There is no convenient place for me to store the 10′ rigid PVC pipe I purchased, so I think I’m going to have to stow it inside! When spring comes, I’ll bungee it to the roof or the ladder.

I’ll be putting away my desktop computer shortly and when that’s done, departure will be official.

Today turned out to be a gorgeous day and I think I’m going to regret not leaving. Then again, it was the first day that I could really unhook my water and sewer connections and do other work outside. Because the weather forecast is changing almost hourly, I’ve decided to leave tomorrow and just pull over at some point if things get ugly. That said, if I have no water, no propane, and no electricity boondocking sure ain’t going to be much fun. 🙂