Month: September 2010

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Anatidae and Serpentes

My first day in Osoyoos was a good one. The weather was HOT! I can’t believe that just a few days ago I was scrambling to find cold weather gear!

One of my contracts picked up speed this week, so I was able to put in a full day of work (if only it would keep up steady like this for the next four months!). Having the attention span of a gnat, I like to break my work day into roughly one hour chunks, then take a break away from the computer. I work a much longer day that way, but I find I am more productive.

For one of the breaks I took today, I headed to the beach, just a couple of minutes from my spot. There are a bunch of ducks who like to lie around on the sand and I had fun watching them for a spell.

Okanagan Lake

Okanagan Lake

Mallards chilling out

beautiful mallards

Mallard making sure his boy parts are still there?

For my lunch break, I decided to walk into town to see if there was anything practical within reasonable walking distance (nope). I made sure to capture this sign placed just before the entrance to the RV park:

 snakes crossing sign

Longtime readers will not be surprised that my reaction to this sign was Ooh! rather than Ew!

I have to say that this geographic area astounds me. There is no doubt I am in a desert, and many people practice xeriscaping, but there is still this lush abundance that fits in with what I think the Mediterranean coast would look like. On my walk, I saw cacti in one garden and grapes in the next!

lush desert

Sometime in the middle of all this, I met some more blog readers (thank you for stopping in!) and soon as I hit publish, I’m off to the pool. This Okanagan stay is off to a good start and I hope it stays that way!

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Fear and Loathing in the Okanagan

It wasn’t until I passed Oliver town limits this morning that I realised just how much I loathe that town and had no desire to come back to this part of Canada.

I know that ‘loathe’ is a loaded and serious word, but I do not use it lightly. Other than the friendships I made, nothing good came out of that place and I am a worse person for having been there. Since then, I have found myself to be wary of people in a way that is completely unjustifiable. I have been treated so well by so many since I hit the road, but the experience in Oliver poisoned my mind. I can barely recognize who I was while I was there and I know I am not the same person who pulled into that town just a little over two years ago.

In some respects, the changes are good. I’m more self-assertive and take much better care of myself, but in others the changes are devastating. I’m so wary of people’s intentions now and so much less willing to work hard and pitch in without a clear job definition and remuneration agreement.

It’s been two years and I’m still ‘not over it.’ Perhaps this winter in Osoyoos will help me pass through whatever mental obstacles I need to pass through. This RV park will probably be a refuge: it is beautiful and a good distance from the southern part of Osoyoos so I do not feel like I am even remotely in familiar surroundings. I don’t want to say too much lest I spoil surprises for Donna, so I’ll share pictures when she gets here. 🙂

The game plan now is to take the weekend off, tidy up the rig, and then start looking for income on Monday. I have a head start on that this time around in that I know that going to the wineries and handing out resumes on foot is a waste of time. Instead, I’ll head straight for the employment office and see what’s available. I’d really rather find contracts than a job so that I can have better control over my time this fall, especially since I’m flying to Montreal for a week on November 4th and I also have a lot of stuff to put together for that thing that’s coming up that I still can’t talk about.

I’m hopeful that coming back here was not a terrible mistake and will instead help me to close one of the darker chapters of my life. Knowing that I will literally be surrounded by friends soon enough makes all the difference.

That, and a pool. 😀

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No Resolution

Miranda started up fine and performed normally and optimally to the repair shop, Elite Auto Service. They spent about a half hour scanning the rig to see what trouble codes came up:

P0118: ECT circuit high input
P0743: TCC system electrical fault
P1290: cylinder head temp sensor low input

They said that there was one part, the name of which escapes me, which might need to be replaced, but the rig performed normally for them and they felt there was no sense throwing parts at a problem they couldn’t see. I was advised to go for a long drive, see if the problem recurred, and, if so, under what circumstances. They did not clear the check engine light, but gave me the list of codes so that the next time someone looks at Miranda they won’t have to start from scratch.

I left feeling a bit bummed that there’s still quite likely a problem, but very pleased with the service. I was there a half hour and was not charged!

Since I was feeling uncertain about the rig and had also just found out I could have my spot in Osoyoos for $15 a night plus tax (Full hookups! Pool!) I decided to just head for Miranda’s fall mooring.

I drove the 150km or so to Osoyoos and had one stall when I had to come to a pretty sudden stop at the bottom of a hill in Summerland when a light went straight to green from red. But Miranda started back up normally. The drive was otherwise 100% normal. I’ve spent enough time in this thing to recognize an odd sound or behaviour and there was nothing.

So, ironically enough, mechanical troubles saved me money on this trip. Well, so long as they don’t end up being ‘something’ after all. 🙂

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Urban Dry Camping Has Its Pluses

My computer battery ran out of juice mid-afternoon. I was going to recharge it with the house battery since it’s sunny out and the solar panel compensates for the computer’s draw. Then, I realised that there’s a Starbucks across the parking lot. I bought a Venti-sized drink to give myself as much legitimate time as possible at the café and stayed forty-five minutes, long enough to buy me 3.5 hours of computer time. I pulled this same trick earlier this summer when I was camping in Whitehorse and needed a place to plug in my camera.

I didn’t even use their wi-fi; my aircard is just so speedy down here. I need to start watching my bandwidth usage now that I can stream video and download at warp speed!

(I do have to say that surrounded by netbooks and 13″ laptops, I came to realise just how big a 17″ model is!)

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Location, Location, Location

Wanting to have as little manoeuvring to do as possible tomorrow morning, I Googled directions to the repair place so I could go check it out and figure out ahead of time the best place to unhook the car.

The address of the repair place, Elite Auto, is 2655 Enterprise. I stepped out of the rig, looked at the nearest street sign, did a double take, and then looked at the address of the nearest building. 2958 Enterprise. I’m literally two blocks away and one street light away! Enterprise seems to be a busy road and rather narrow, so I’m glad I scoped out the place since I now know I’ll need to use the entrance to the business next to the repair place so as to best position myself to unhook the car. So long as there aren’t any cars around me tomorrow, getting out of Walmart should be easy.

One odd thing that came out of yesterday is that it was my second best gas mileage day to date (with the best being on the drive between Brandon and Regina; ie. flat prairie with the wind at my back where I hit 12MPG). I did nearly 750 kilometres on the tank yesterday and I’m still not in the red, but the gas gauge is right next to it. That tells me I have about 40 litres of fuel in the tank, putting my MPG at a 11, which I think is probably amazing for a huge vehicle towing through mountains.

I don’t want to go into the repair shop being so low on fuel, but neither do I want to go fuel up; the fewer times I need to stop, the better. So, I bought a 20L jerry can and will fill up Miranda manually. One can should bring her up to about a quarter full (60L on board total, out of a total 200L), which is a respectable amount, and more than enough to get me to Osoyoos. I haven’t decided yet where my 20L tank is going to live. I have a 5L one mounted to the motorhome ladder, but the 20L tank isn’t going to fit. I think it’ll end up in the kayak!

Today, I’m just chilling out a home and getting some work done. I got quite a bit of interior damage yesterday from all the bumps and sudden stalls, so I need to prioritize what I should work on first. For example, the retaining rods in my bookcase ripped right out, so they need to be glued back into place and putty applied to the tears to make them less apparent. I also lost my shower door; the top pin jumped out of the hole and then the door bounced off the bottom pin! The door has quite a dent near the top, but otherwise seems okay, and I need to find a way to secure that top pin! Besides that, I had a lot of things fall out of cabinets and make messes, so I need to clean up. Thankfully, there doesn’t seem to be anything major I need to deal with.