March 6, 2011 by Rae

How Quickly a Month Goes By…

I feel that I’ve only just gotten comfortable here in Blaine when the time has already come to move on! Friends in Eugene, Oregon, have graciously invited me to stay on their RV pad during my time in the area, so there’s no reason to hang out here. I’ll be in Eugene until at least the 18th since I’m having work done on the rig in nearby Springfield on the 17th.

I’ll pull out around 11 on Tuesday and head south slowly. I could get to Eugene in one day, but knowing there is an RV-friendly Walmart mid-way makes me want to stretch out the trip a tad.

I still don’t know what’s happening after. My first instinct is to hoof it back to Canada and get some work for a few months, but doing so in southern BC makes no sense at all; the cost of living would outweigh any income. So, I’ve planned a weather-dependent itinerary through eastern Washington, Idaho, and Montana to take me into Alberta. The lower cost of fuel in the States and in Alberta as well as the lower sales tax at Alberta customs would not make this route much more expensive than a straight shot back to the Fraser Valley from Eugene.

I have absolutely no commitments at this point and have concluded, to my immense surprise, that I’d be okay with not going back to Yukon and Alaska this summer if something else pans out. In short, I’m open to the vagaries of fate and willing to go anywhere they take me. I love my life!

March 6, 2011 by Rae

Adding a 12V outlet

Before I get into this project, I’d like to ask my RVing readers who have not yet bought Andy Baird’s Eureka to please do so now, then come back to this post. From recipes to tips for using a multimetre, this treasure trove of ideas for improving an RV is the best RV upgrade guide I’ve found. It’s written by someone who is a full-timer and an expert in electrical, electronic, and technical matters. I could not have done this project without his guidance. It didn’t go as smoothly as he would have thought, but I learned a lot during the project and I now feel I have the necessary know-how to do some more electrical upgrades to the rig. Thanks, Andy!

So, I added a 12V outlet to the rig. Two, actually. I wanted a couple at the head of the bed for plugging in the electric blanket and my iPod. There’s a 12V outlet in the media cabinet at the foot of the bed, but having to reach eight feet to plug something in is less than practical.

I started to look online for a 12V outlet and realised that most of them came wired to be plugged into an existing socket. So, I emailed Andy to ask if I could just hack off the plug in order to hard wire. Yup. And he helped me pick out a dual-socket model by Magnadyne. It also has two USB ports, but I’ll say right now that I goofed during installation and apparently blew the 12V to 5V converter that powers the USB ports, so they’re dead. Small price for the knowledge I gained!

The high quality unit came with 3M dual lock tape AND screws with brackets as mounting options, plus a set of instructions

front of the unit

back of the unit (the yellow thing is a fuse)

Andy told me that the easiest way to add the outlet would be to tap into existing wire, such as that for a lamp. There just so happened to be one a few feet away from the bed, close enough for me to have plenty of wire to reach it.

light fixture on the ‘lounge’ (passenger) side of the rig)

To access the wiring, Andy, who has a very similar rig, told me to try lifting out the bottom of the cabinet.

step one: remove books

step two: use flat instrument like a chisel to pry up the bottom of the cabinet

This exposed two bundles of wires, one with black and yellow, the other white.

I then snipped the plug from the outlets

and drilled a hole into the side of the cabinet through which I fed the wires.

And this is where everything fell apart and I would, eventually, learn the very valuable lesson of ALWAYS using a multimetre to confirm the polarity of wiring before hooking up anything.

As it turns out, my super high quality rig HAS DUMB WIRING: in the study, white is positive and black is negative. I would learn that in the library, white is negative and black is positive!!!

Andy told me to get the multimetre out, confirm polarity and voltage, and change the fuse in the new outlet. Turns out my multimetre was ‘dead’. So, I went out to get a new battery for it and discovered a sale on multimetres at Walmart. New multimetre with more gizmos and a more intuitive layout: $5.99. Two-pack of 9V batteries for my old multimetre: $6.99. Guess what I picked. And it even matches my decor!

Using the multimetre, I was able to confirm that I needed to reverse the polarity (something that tickles the sci-fi fan in me). I then changed the fuse, rewired the outlet, and tested it out with the electric blanket. The result was a ‘grssssh’ sound (sizzle according to Andy), with a fluctuating voltage from the sockets. I tightened up the connection points with some electrical tape and tested the voltage again: a steady 14.4 volts. No luck with the USB ports, but not a huge disappointment.

the only thing I remember learning about electricity from my parents is to cover the marrettes with electrical tape

works!

A couple of marrettes and some electrical tape later the project was done. Now, I just need to mount the outlets in the loft. I’ll wait till I go to bed tonight to do that so that I can figure out the best position to do so while lying in the position in which I will be plugging things in.

Now that I know to use a multimetre and some of the things I should be looking out for, I look forward to adding an extra outlet in the study so as to be able to plug the electric blanket in there for those chilly movie-watching nights.

Thanks again for your help, Andy!

March 6, 2011 by Rae

Rescue Tape to the… Rescue

The non-repair of the fresh water intake has lasted as long as it could, but it’s no longer satisfactory. While perusing Andy Baird’s Eureka, I discovered a product that could make that non-repair last longer and save me the trouble of running a new line in a very tight space, Rescue Tape, a self-sealing silicone tape. I found a roll at Ace Hardware this afternoon while looking for supplies for another project.

It’s not pretty, but the leak is gone. Now that I’m going to be living off my fresh water tank more and more, a proper fix was imperative and this was just too easy. Let’s see if this lasts. 🙂

March 5, 2011 by Rae

Riding the Duck and Pike Place Market

The budget’s really tight this month, so I chose this afternoon’s Seattle attraction very carefully. My first instinct was to head to the sci-fi museum, but that wouldn’t have given me any information on Seattle. Instead, I decided to look for a city tour.

Thanks to Trip Advisor, I was able to determine that riding the Duck would be the best way to experience Seattle in a short span of time. It sounded cheesy, but the price of $25 and the reviews convinced me to take a chance on this one and a half hour long amphibious tour.

We started off in downtown Seattle at the Space Needle, now beige, but once painted ‘galaxy red’ (orange!). Our guide pointed out a building that is apparently very famous (judging from the reaction of some people on the bus), but all I caught is that it’s an exterior set for a popular TV show. I’ve included a picture of it; perhaps one of my readers will recognize it and go OOH!

Seattle was the missing piece of the gold rush puzzle for me since it was there that the madness began. I learned that the old city of Seattle burned to the ground and was replaced by fire retardant brick buildings. Moreover, the city was raised about ten feet off of the tide flats, so there is an underground city below what we see today.

We meandered around, with the guide pointing out a few Starbucks and saying “Only four hundred and ___ Starbucks left to see!”, but quitting that before the joke got too old. We also passed Pike Place Market and a few other locations before splashing down into Union Lake… to the tune of the theme for Gilligan’s Island. The whole tour was like that, with a cheesy sound track that was appropriate to the situation (we got ‘On the Road Again’ when we came out of the lake!).

This fresh water lake links Puget Sound to another inland lake. It’s sheltered from the elements thanks to the hills around it, so there are many houseboats and floating homes on the lake. We saw one that was featured in the movie ‘Sleepless in Seattle’, which I have not seen.

our Duck

Space needle and the exterior of the ‘Experience Music Project’ and the sci-fi museum

ladder into the Duck

this building got a lot of oohs; I think it’s featured on a popular TV show

public art–typewriter eraser

Pike Place Market

this caught my eye as a fan of M*A*S*H

entering Union Lake

crossing another Duck

the house with green trim was a set for the movie Sleepless in Seattle

this structure was a gas and coal factory

this is a ‘floating house’ not a ‘house boat’

driving over a drawbridge

a shout-out to a friend from Halifax–you’d love Seattle!

Pike Place Market

I really lucked out with the weather this afternoon; it had rained on and off all through my morning drive, but my afternoon in Seattle alternated between sunny and overcast, and it was warm. I would not want to do the Duck tour on a cold, windy day since the bus is open to the elements. I’d bring a coat even on a warm day for the bit on the lake.

Seattle’s a beautiful city; shame about how much rain it gets! I know I could never live in that climate, but I really got a sense for why people love it so much. It really reminds me of San Francisco, only with a more affordable cost of living. It has that west coast mentality that favours individualism, art, and using the outdoors as a gym.

The tour ended at 3 and I had some time left on the parking metre, so I decided to hoof it to Pike Place Market to get a feel for it. This 103 year old market only houses local producers and artisans. There are exterior stalls as well as a maze of buildings over several levels. It reminded me of Ottawa’s Byward Market on a grander scale.

I’d had a late breakfast and no lunch, so I kept my eye out for a place to grab some grub. I was sort of looking for sushi when I got a whiff of garlic that led me to a place called ‘Falafel King’! The lineup was long and filled with locals, which was a good sign. It was the first time I’ve ordered falafel and wasn’t offered any options, so the contents of my sandwich were a surprise. It turned out to be some of the best falafel balls I’ve ever eaten, with onions, parsley, tahinni, hummus, and cucumbers. This is the first time I’ve had Lebanese or Syrian-style falafel with cucumber and I think I prefer it to the more traditional tomato and turnip! Decently priced at $5, I was thrilled by this unexpected treat.

It was coming on to five when I got back to the car, so with a two hour drive ahead of me and a full day with lots of walking behind me, I decided to head on home to Blaine. I haven’t had my fill of Seattle yet, not by far, but at least now I can say I’ve done more than just pass through it.

March 5, 2011 by Rae

The meaning of FRY

I awoke to sun and the promise of more of the same in Seattle in this afternoon. I know I won’t want to stop in the Seattle area with the rig, so I decided to jump on this opportunity to go see a bit more of this beautiful city!

To get there, I decided to take back roads to explore a bit more of the Washington coast. I set off from home around 8:30, went into Bellingham to run a few errands, and then asked the GPS to take me to Seattle the long way around.

The route took me through downtown Bellingham and down a beautiful stretch of highway that used to be connected to the Pacific Coast Highway that still exists near Los Angeles. We then entered a stretch of farmland and small towns where every other house was a gorgeous Queen Anne Victorian.

Entering Anacortes, there were a lot of signs for ferries, but I ignored them until I got this little niggly feeling. The following conversation with myself ensued:

-You set the GPS to avoid ferries, right?

-Probably. And I checked the route ahead of time.

-Check it again.

-Road, road, road, freeway, arrival. No, that’s FRY. Not freeway. FERRY!

I pulled over and reset the GPS to take me to Seattle by land only! I wasn’t really that far out of my way, thank goodness.

Approaching Everett, the GPS led me onto I-5 for a bit and that’s where I decided to stick to the interstate, not wanting to spend an hour navigating city traffic and also to make sure I knew what lanes to be in with Miranda when I drive through there on Tuesday morning.