British Columbia

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Appearance at 2011 Early Bird RV Show in Abbotsford

And now for the big reveal of my OTHER secret project, one that has been in the works since early last summer.

I have been invited to talk about full-time RV life in Canada at the 2011 Early Bird RV Show at Tradex in Abbotsford, BC.

The show will be on from Thursday the 3rd to Sunday the 6th inclusively. I will be speaking twice a day over the four days.

I attended the Early Bird RV Show in 2009 and can attest that it is a fun place to spend a weekend. There are tons of RVs to see, new products to try out, and loads of interesting seminars. The show is a non-profit organization, so all proceeds are donated to charity. Come check it out if you’re in the neighbourhood.

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An Inconvenient Closure

The RV park was closed for three or four days over Christmas, and the same over New Years. I believe they will be reopening tomorrow. This second closure has coincided with a cold snap. My thirty pounder ran out the night before last and I had to keep the rig at 10 from about ten last night to keep from running out completely with the on board. I am irked that it is empty. I had to schlep into town and pay an extra seven dollars for a fill of the small tank.

This cold snap is dragging on longer than promised, no surprise there. It’s a huge pain because I don’t have any water. I opened up the door to the fresh water compartment and put the heater in the entrance well for several hours, but that didn’t do anything.

Thankfully, the projects I’m working on are keeping me busy, but I sure would love a sunny day above zero.

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Solving the Mysteries of the Universe

We’re in day two a cold spell and I woke up yesterday to no water.  It made no sense to me, my fresh water tank compartment is ducted:

I’ve also been keeping the furnace on so that the rig doesn’t go below 15.

Silly me forgot to take into account the location of the thermostat. Even when it is 20 in here, it’s still below freezing in the fresh water compartment!

What’s the point of having a ducted compartment that you can’t keep warm unless you keep the inside of the rig at boiling temperatures?!

I am considering several things. The first is to cover as much of the floor in that compartment as possible with insulation. The second is to insulate it from outside with spray foam. The third is to replace the door into the compartment with something much more insultated. The fourth is to improve the insulation around the front door. The last is to run a cord with a low wattage light bulb into that compartment when we’re going to get these kinds of cold.

Incidentally, this is my third winter with this rig and only the first where I even noticed that the fresh water compartment is ducted! This confirms the manufacturer’s claim that rig was built to be usable to nighttime temps of minus ten. Now that I realise that I probably won’t have to do drastic measures to keep water circulating in cold weather, I’m really tempted to consider getting holding tank heaters. Not that I intend in spending another winter in Canada, yaddi yadda, you can all laugh next winter, etc. 🙂

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Loft Update

I’m still waiting on Eternabond to arrive before I can finish the loft. There is still definitely water infiltrating along the seam. 🙁 I think it’s a combination of having a tiny ripple in the tape and not pressing down hard enough on it. I’ll know better when I get the next batch!

We’ve just entered a cold stretch that promises to last about a week, so even if the tape appears in the next few days, I won’t be able to apply it. So, I’ve decided to not even think about the loft right now. Instead, I’m focusing on some projects with the hope that by the time the projects are ready to announce, I’ll have good enough weather to get the loft put together and peace of mind to spend two solid weeks on renos.

In other news, I just had to take a picture of the view this morning since the sky is a really strange colour!

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Feline Intelligence

I wish I’d been able to capture on video what just happened because no one is going to believe me.

For some time now, I’ve occasionally caught the tap in the dressing room leaking. One morning, I was woken up by the water pump jack-hammering away telling me that a tank that had been half-full the night before was now suspiciously empty (actually only a third full). I thought it was time to change the washer or even replace the whole faucet.

This leaking has occasionally coincided with my catching Neelix in the sink with his mouth open to catch the drips of water that is colder and fresher than what’s in his bowl.

After this began to happen more and more often, I put two and two together. The tap isn’t faulty. Neelix is nudging it open. Remember that it’s a single, lift-up faucet:

Tonight, I noticed him jump onto the vanity and decided to watch. Sure enough, he nudged the the tap open with his little noggin’ and then sat there drinking his fill!

So, replacing the faucet in the dressing room to a cat-proof model needs to be added to my to-do list. *sighs*