Canada

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Little Italy and Jean Talon Market, Montreal

Blog reader and occasional commenter Thierry wanted to meet up with me today to talk about some of the practical aspects of setting out on the road full-time in Canada. As he is based in a part of the city where my mother shops frequently, I asked if she was due for an excursion, hoping to get a ride in so that I could take public transportation out. Yup. So she dropped me off in Little Italy near the restaurant where I was supposed to meet Thierry.

As I had about an hour to kill, I decided to do some shopping. This being Sunday, a lot was closed, but the Italian grocery store Milano on St-Laurent was open so I decided to go pick up some treats. On the way there, I passed Anatol, a spice merchant. Being out of turmeric, I was tempted to go in, but I had a feeling my budget wouldn’t survive this shop. 🙂

Milano’s is a couple of doors down:

This store reminded me of one of my favourite shops in Ottawa’s Byward Market that I used to frequent often. It was full to the brim with wonderful products straight from Italy, as well as offering a full deli, cheese counter, fruit and vegetable section, and some North American groceries. Mindful that I would have to carry everything for hours, I made some careful choices of pesto, biscotti, gnocchi, Jerusalem couscous, and this awesome multi-coloured pasta:

I’ve been wanting to try squid ink pasta for some time, so this seemed like a non-intimidating introduction.

Heading back to the restaurant, I snapped a pic of iconic Montreal architecture:

Montreal is famous for these row houses with the huge exterior staircases in the front. Common lore from the time when the Church ruled Quebec with an iron fist claims that the staircases are outside so that neighbours could keep an eye on who was going into the houses to reduce moral depravity.

The other, more logical, claim has to do with the climate. While it might not make sense to have a big slippery staircase outside a building where it’s winter six months of the year, it does make sense to not waste energy heating an enclosed staircase.

I met Thierry at the appointed hour where I taught him the first lesson of his future life: that you need to be flexible in your plans. As it turns out, the restaurant was closed at lunch time! We walked around a little looking for a non-crowded place and he ended up directing us to the SoupeSoup lunch counter on Casgrain. It’s a tiny place serving up salads, soups, sandwiches, coffees, and desserts. The food was excellent and this was a great place to linger and chat.

After, we crossed the street to finish up the conversation at Jean-Talon Market, a large year-round market offering some of the best products from all over Quebec.

In the summer, there are a lot of exterior vendors, but there is an enclosed year-round space, too.

After Thierry left, I wandered around for a bit and finally splurged on some creamed honey and maple syrup, and ended up paying several dollars less than the sticker price because the vendor was closing up for the season!

There is something wrong with the maple syrup can. Can you guess what it is?

It was starting to spit after this, so I decided it was time to start heading for home. Tomorrow, I will introduce you to Montreal’s métro system!

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The Battery Monitor Works!

I lost 120V power early this morning, so I had a chance to confirm that my 12V system and battery monitor were working properly.

Had I not had the battery monitor, I would have been very confused and frustrated since all my battery readings put me at about 11.5V, or a completely depleted battery! But the battery monitor was a lot smarter, telling me I had about 99% capacity and could keep going for about 29 hours at my current rate of consumption!

As for what was on, two LED lights, two regular bulbs, the fridge (switched to propane), and the water pump. I was drawing about 6AMPs. I decided to confirm that standard RV bulbs are power suckers and switched one off. My power consumption immediately dropped by a full two amps!

This informal little experiment has confirmed that switching to all LED bulbs will pay for itself quickly!

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Not the Wind

I was just drifting off to sleep last night when the weirdest thing happened. Miranda shifted ever so slightly. I really felt it up in the overhang. It didn’t last and I shrugged it off as being a particularly bad gust of wind.

No, as it turns out, I just experienced what a magnitude 4.5 earthquake feels like in an RV. If there hadn’t been reports of the quake all over Facebook, I would have completely forgotten about the weird event last night.  So I wouldn’t call a magnitude 4.5 earthquake particularly memorable!

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Feeling Rather Electrically and Automotively Competent

Today was the first really nice day we’ve had in a while and it was time to tackle two troubleshoots that have been keeping me up at night.

The first was in regards to my battery bank. I thought it was working fine, but I missed one not-so-minor test when I set up everything and I discovered this during a power outage the other day. We lost shore power and I lost all power. Uh, what?! My first thought was that the battery disconnect was still on, but nope. So I went into the compartment, traced the wiring, and, I-can’t-believe-I-did-that, I had missed a wire! And to add insult to injury, I didn’t have enough space left on the fuse bolt for this wire!

I was going to do like a couple of other folks and run a cable from the fuse to a longer conductive bolt, but something told me to consult my mother. She informed me that you can buy bolt extenders, which are essentially long nuts (imagine 10 or so nuts stacked on top of each other as a solid piece). So I made arrangements to borrow my mother’s car to go buy the the right size extender for the fuse bolt.

The extender screws onto the existing bolt and then you screw a new, longer, bolt into the extender. I got a bolt with a head, so I inserted the new bolt into the lugs for all my positive wires, screwed the extender into the fuse, and then screwed the new bolt into the extender. Mission accomplished!

I wish I had a picture of the set up, but they came out blurry. This should be better than nothing:

The second problem was in regards to my truck, as hinted to by the fact that I had to borrow my mother’s car. Coming home from Saint-Bruno the other day, my truck started to make an odd noise in the engine compartment. When I got in, nothing was smoking, but the compartment felt hotter than it should. I conceded that there was something really wrong with my truck and decided to stop driving it until I can take it in to a mechanic.

A lot of my troubleshooting happens during lucid dreams and I woke up this morning with a DOH. The last time I had trouble with the truck, she was fine after adding oil. I checked the oil level this afternoon and, sure enough, it was super low.  Carquest Auto Parts is right across the street from the home store, so I went there after and picked up oil as well as a headlight lamp for the driver’s side of the truck as those things really do go out in pairs!

The manual for my Ford Ranger says it needs 5W30 oil, so I thought I’d be in and out, but there was a dizzying amount of 5W30s available! I decided to ask for help and the nice older gentleman at the cash told me I was holding the correct oil, but that their ‘house brand’ was cheaper by a couple of bucks. Whenever someone tries to sell me something cheaper than what I’ve picked, I’m led to believe that the salesperson is looking out for my best interests. Don’t burst my bubble! 😀 I also remembered to pick up a funnel!

I came home, did the electrical modification, then got the hood of the truck open. I started by replacing the lamp and it was more difficult than doing the passenger side as there were a few things in the way, but I got it done. Then, I added oil, a little at a time, until there was enough. While I was elbow-deep in the engine compartment with my hands filthy, I caught the eye of a little old lady walking her dog and she grinned at me. I guess she doesn’t see that many gals (much less ones in skirts) working on their trucks!

The engine started a little roughly, but that’s not worrisome as the truck has been sitting and, as per Ken, is coming on due for a tune up. I let her run for a bit, then took her around the block. No odd noises!!! I still need to get that tune up done and have the front bearings looked at, but it looks like disaster was averted.

I know I probably sound like an idiot because checking oil levels is so basic, but I’ve never, in my 10 years of vehicle ownership, of which eight were with brand new cars, had to worry about such things. Now, I know, and I’ll add it to my routine. Moya and I are still just starting to get to know each other and once we get the kinks worked out, everything will be just fine. I love driving my truck! 🙂

What’s next after doing a little electricity and automotive work? I’m thinking of cooking myself a nice dinner. Guys, I’m a catch and I’m available! 😀

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A New Window and More Shelves

Have I got an RV tip for y’all today! If you need to replace any of the trim on your rig, say a window frame, and the only ones you can find are the same colour as your rig, not your trim, wait!

My mother helped me install the new exterior window frame on the house door this week and it looks okay, but not great:

We used tons of putty to hold it and keep it sealed (more than the instructions called for) so pulling off the frame to replace it later is out of the question. I will learn to live with it. 🙂

As for shelving, my system in the study’s overhead cabinets wasn’t working. The back wall of the cabinets is slanted, with the top being narrower than the bottom, so I would frequently park somewhere, open a cabinet, and boxes would fly out after having shifted in transit.

I went into the house this morning to ask my mother if she would by chance have any suitable shelving material. Yes, and she was willing to cut it right then, but after that I was on my own as we hadn’t planned to do any work in the rig this weekend (not that there’s any real work to be done, woohoo!). That was fine by me as putting shelves in these cabinets doesn’t provide enough room for two.

A few hours and grazed knuckles later, I was able to move all the bins to the driver’s side cabinets and the odd-sized stuff to the rear cabinet.

I’m nowhere near 100% done with this project as I still need to sort out and containerize some things, so that’s why I’m not showing the rear cabinet now. 🙂 My favourite part of this is that I have some long, slim odd-shaped containers that fill in the rear of the top part of the new shelving behind the clear containers. So I feel like I actually gained some space.

Since I had tools out and there was enough shelving material, I decided to add a shelf in the pantry:

This one made the biggest impact! Those four baskets used to fill up two cabinets and now they slide easily into just one!

Now, I have a bonus RV tip for maximizing space in your RV freezer (even if yours is as decadently large as mine): remove the packaging on whatever you store in there. But do be prepared for people who see your trash to be puzzled.

I was invited over for lunch today and I said that I had no idea what I would have eaten otherwise. I was told, “Pizza. I can’t believe how much pizza you eat!” I burst out laughing. I buy a few frozen pizzas at a time when they are $4.99 or less and remove the boxes for storage. With the thin crust pizzas, I can fit almost five in the space it would take for just one box! I just went grocery shopping this week AND I ordered pizza the night before I did the groceries, so I can imagine what the recycling must have looked like! I explained that of all the boxes in the recycling, I had only thus far consumed half of the take out pizza and all the rest was still in the freezer!