Month: December 2008

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Propane Provides an Important Lesson

At 4PM today, I ran out of propane. Lesson learned? That an empty tank of propane weighs a lot!!!

Thankfully, there is one propane place in this area that has excellent hours for propane service: the Shell station in Osoyoos. They’re open 6AM to 10:30PM seven days a week during the winter. Of course, the 40 minute round trip wound up being closer to a full hour since I was driving slooooooowly. But what a relief it was to run out at 4PM instead of the middle of the night!

I had no problem getting the tank hooked up this time around. Thankfully!

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Into the Breach

Oh, it’s getting cold out there. It’s also very slippery. There is no way I am going into Penticton to get anything. So, I’ll be making my stand with what I have here.

I went out for about a half hour and tried to shake as much snow off of Miranda as possible. It was hard because a lot of it is crusted ice. My first priority when the thaw comes will be to get rid of all the ice and snow before it melts. If it melts, it will infiltrate and I will have major problems on my hands. I’m keeping particularly close watch on the upstairs bedroom. I wanted to climb up onto the roof, but it was much too slippery to do so.

One conclusion I’ve come to is that I simply cannot skimp on inside heat. Even if I have to go through a container of propane a day, I need to keep her insides warm. I noticed that the rear of her exterior is pretty much snow and ice free except for the bumper, while the front, and least heated, part of her is icy. Coincidence, I think not.

An issue I’m having is that the space heater is skewing the thermostat’s sensors. So, I’ll be moving the space heater forward and bringing the radiant heater aft. I think that this will serve a dual function in that the space heater will help reduce condensation in the cab and upstairs bedroom. I just wish it wasn’t so noisy!

I’m trying to decide if I should blow my water lines or not. Some people say I should out of sheer precaution, others that this is not necessary. I have too much experience with exploding plumbing to make this decision lightly. I’m just wondering if I’m not already too late to do so.

I’m not worried about my personal safety or that of the cats. We’ve ridden out worse weather than this. But the last thing I want is to ruin Miranda or have her experience damages that will ruin me financially.

As the days march by, I regret more and more my decision to remain in Canada this winter. My reasoning was that I would be able to work, but that hasn’t panned out at all. I would have been much better off living frugally in a New Mexico park. A bitter lesson.

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Walking in a Winter Horrorland

This morning, I watched astounded as a mountain (okay, what amounted to about two inches) of snow came down. It was the best kind of day; snowy, but at a perfect temperature for walking. I just got in from a brisk stroll.

But the snow was a non-event compared to news I got this morning from my colleague’s husband: an extremely cold front is moving in, bringing in temperatures that haven’t been seen here in at least a decade. We’re heading into a week-long stretch of weather in the minus teens to minus twenties. That’s the high minus single digits for you Americans.

There is no way I can properly prepare Miranda for that kind of weather, not with the resources available to me nor the resort restrictions on what can be done to the exterior of the rig. I can mostly only pray that the forecasts are extremely pessimistic.

My colleague’s husband suggested I get a rigid PVC pipe in which to run my sewer hose so that it can be propped up at an angle. He even measured how much I would need. The first hardware store didn’t have any pipes left in stock, but the second one did. Slight problem, though. I can fit up to 8′ lengths in the car… but I needed 10′. I wound up sticking the extra length out of the passenger window. According to eye witness testimony, it looked like my car was equipped with a canon!

When I got home, I unloaded the pipe and went in to have lunch. When I came out, my pipe was gone! On a hunch, I went around the rig and there was my pipe, all nicely installed by my colleague’s very nice husband.

I went back in an installed insulation in the cab, which is already making a difference (!). Tomorrow, I need to work on the front door and get a new space heater since the first one I bought conked out on me (over use, perhaps?).

How I plan to ride out this wave of cold weather is to run both electric heaters on max AND have the furnace going. I will leave all cabinet doors and that to the bathroom open to let the warm air circulate.

I’m especially worried about my holding tanks. I’m going to call a few RV places tomorrow and see if they have the special heating pads.

What a mess. I feel like I’m in the movie The Day After Tomorrow!!!

In happier news, one of my best friends never ceases to amuse me. She sent me this:

homesweet

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RV Park Gouging

One of the most unpleasant realities of living in RV parks is the way in which owners gouge clients by creating ‘extras’ that are not built into the flat fee.

The park in Fort Langley that I was looking forward to going to does this. The rates were attractive, but I saw a note that there is a 2$ charge per pet per day. I was going to ignore that since my cats don’t go outside, but then I realised that since they like to sit by a window, management would know I have pets. So, I emailed back to confirm that the pet fee wouldn’t apply to pets that don’t go outside. Nope. They wanted to charge me an extra 20$ per month for them!!!

I replied that this was ridiculous and that I won’t be staying at their campground.

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Frugal Shunpiker Guides

Have you ever heard of ‘shunpiking’? I hadn’t until I read Marianne Edwards three books about frugal boondocking and shunpiking through the southern US, appropriately called RV Travel Guides: The Frugal Shunpikers Guides To America. They will show you how to winter cheaply in the U.S. in your RV.

four-pack

I was very impressed by all four of these books, one each for New Mexico, Arizona,  Texas, and Utah. They detail suggested routes for touring these states, complete with boondocking spots along the way.

Of particular interest to Canadians is that fact that Marianne is a Canadian! I’ve heard great things about how cheap it is to boondock in New Mexico, but her book on the state is the only resource I’ve found that explains in detail how a Canadian can benefit from the New Mexico parks policy.

Complete with a comprehensive table of contents and index, maps, and pictures, these e-books are very professionally designed. My favourite part is the ‘tips’ sidebars.

The books will also appeal to campers (ie. tenters) as Marianne offers plenty of information for them, too.

In addition to boondocking information, she also offers suggestions for what to see and how to get there. In short, all four books about frugal shunpiking through the southern US are comprehensive tomes on how to get to the state and tour the state frugally while making sure that you see what needs to be seen.

Even though Marianne writes from years of experience on the subject, she still doesn’t purport herself to be an expert on the subject, but rather makes it clear that the books are based on her family’s experience. They therefore make good travelogues also, even if they are not written in that style.

As a bonus, if you buy all four books at once you get a fifth bonus book, Basic Boondocking: A Frugal Shunpiker’s Guide!

rv-travel-basic-boondocking

Marianne and her husband travel in a small class B camper van, so different from my spacious class C. I still found a lot of the information to be relevant to me. Ontario boondockers and snowbirds will benefit from reading the section about OHIP coverage. Two pictures in this book will sell you on the concept of boondocking and alone are worth getting this book. One shows the view when boondocking in the southern US, while the other shows the view when staying in a campground.

The holiday season will soon be upon us and I believe that RV Travel Guides: The Frugal Shunpikers Guides To America would make a fantastic gift for the RVer in your life or even the armchair traveler.