Watson Lake

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Flight From Nugget City

Leaving Nugget City as suddenly as I did ahead of the major dip in weather was a wise decision brought on by the not-so-wise decision I made last fall to stay at the RV park in Oliver. Whadya know, the gal can learn from her mistakes.

The owners were very understanding of my decision and paid me promptly. By the time my water hose was thawed and I’d taken on water and dumped my tanks it was close to 2PM. It was a beautiful, clear day; perfect driving conditions.

I decided to head south via route 37, the Stewart-Cassiar Highway. I’d heard mixed reviews about this road, with some people saying that it is a muddy, rutty mess while others claimed that it had much improved over the years. What finally made me decide to take it is that the Alaska Highway would have taken me more east than south and over high mountain passes while the Cassiar was almost a straight shot south, bettering my chances of finding improved weather conditions after only a few hours of driving:

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I hadn’t driven more than 5KM when I crossed over into British Columbia for the final time this year. As I stood there, between the signs on each side of the highway welcoming travelers to BC and the Yukon, I faced my adopted territory and thought of McArthur, vowing that I would return. 😀

The first section of the Cassiar was very scary. It was narrow, slippery, and steeply uphill. One particularly nasty incline made me consider turning back, but I’d done enough research to know that the worst was behind me. After, there were a lot of hairpin turns, but it was smooth going. The landscape was a kaleidoscope of emerald pine and amber poplar, snowy peaks and rocky hills. I could not stop gasping at the sheer humbling beauty of it all.

All the literature about the Cassiar and many signs along it state that it is unlawful to overnight anywhere but in established campgrounds. The only reason for this that I could find is that there is a concern about bears. I’m told that ‘everyone’ ignores the rules and boondocks on the Cassiar, but I decided to at least try to be legal. It was easy the first night since the Milepost mentioned a Lions Club campground with unserviced RV spots just south of Dease Lake on the Tanzilla River, roughly 200km from Nugget City.  It sounded idyllic and the 10$ per site was a price I felt comfortable paying to avoid having the RCMP possibly ticket me.

The campground was indeed very beautiful, with sites tucked in between trees along a roaring river, but to call the sites RV spots was really stretching it. I would say that Miranda at 31′ was the absolute biggest RV I’d recommend trying to squeeze in there, and I only found one site wide enough for her. Moreover, the back-in only sites aren’t even remotely level.

I unhooked and then tried to manoeuvre Miranda into spot number four. Even though the site was super wide, I could not get her into it because of trees on the opposite side of the laneway. I noticed a clearing ahead and decide to turn around and approach the site from the other direction. This worked like a charm and Miranda slid in fairly easily.

This is where I came up with an idea that is really going to help me with my backing up. I’m going to get some bright flagging tape to tie around items I want to avoid. I notice that when I’m backing up I have a hard time identifying in a mirror the objects I’m trying to avoid, and my relation to them, especially if the objects are trees and there are a lot of them.

Once Miranda was tucked away, I tried to get her level, but failed since her muddy tires kept sliding off the the levelers when I tried to put her on more than two. The fridge was level enough, so I didn’t push it. I was only there for a night after all.

I spent a quiet evening reading a fantastic book I picked up at the Dawson dump called Parrot Pie for Breakfast. It is an anthology of first hand accounts of pioneer life written by women from the early 1600’s to the mid-1900’s in places all over the British Empire, from Burma to Sierra Leone, Canada to Australia. This book occupied several evenings after my departure from Nugget City.

I made chicken, potatoes, and veggies for dinner and used a new toy I picked up during my last shopping trip at the Dawson thrift store, a vegetable steamer. It’s one of those things I couldn’t justify spending 10$ on but thought would come in handy if I ever found one cheap. I used it to cook frozen veggies and it was the ideal method, rendering them nice and crisp.

Miranda history was made that night. I checked her useless sensors just for fun and for the first time, the grey and black tanks read empty!

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This could be a pic for one of those cheesy Go RVing ads :)

This could be a pic for one of those cheesy Go RVing ads 🙂

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Miranda and Pommette tucked into site number 4 at the Tanzilla River Lions Club campground

Miranda and Pommette tucked into site number 4 at the Tanzilla River Lions Club campground

the Tanzilla River on a snowy (but not cold!) morning

the Tanzilla River on a snowy (but not cold!) morning

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trying to show just how not level Miranda was that night

trying to show just how not level Miranda was that night

the Tanzilla Lions Club campground

the Tanzilla Lions Club campground

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Boondocking Success

I probably won’t be able to give a write up of my trip from Nugget City to Campbell River, complete with pictures, until I arrive, so in the meantime, I’ll just share my experiences with the house batteries this time around.

I noticed last spring that my house batteries were not charging while driving. I started by blaming the installation of the new truck battery, which proved to be correct as there was no voltage on the cable from the truck solenoid to the house batteries.

There were no loose wires around the truck battery, so I examined the connections from the solenoid to the battery and found them loose. I cleaned the terminals, applied conductive gel, and tightened the connections. After that, there was proper voltage going from the truck to the house batteries. But that only solved part of the problem as I found that the charging was not satisfactory, especially after long days of driving.

My next suspect was the refrigerator. I guessed that by putting it on ‘auto’ it was switching to battery power rather than LP and that I was draining the battery as I drove.

When I left Nugget City, I purposely left the fridge on ‘auto’ and when I arrived at my spot for the night, my voltage read 12.3. I had left with a fully charged battery and driven almost three hundred kilometres. This did not seem right. I switched the fridge to LP. The battery voltage dipped to about 12.0 overnight as I left the inverter on to recharge the laptop.

The next day, I stopped after about one hundred kilometres of driving and my battery was at 12.6, fully charged! This confirmed to me that my charging problem was resolved. When I parked for the night at the turnout, I still had a fully charged battery. However, I had no sooner turned on the furnace than my battery was at a 50% discharge evidenced by an 11.1V reading!!! I turned off the furnace and the battery reading increased to a more reasonable 11.5 to 11.6 range, more than enough for a comfortable night.

I had recently checked the distilled water levels for the batteries and found them to be satisfactory, but decided that maybe they did need a bit of topping up. They each took on a little water, not enough to make a difference I thought, but I was in for a surprise.

I parked in Prince George with the battery at 12.6V. I ran the furnace all night while recharging the laptop and the battery levels dipped down to the 11.6 to 11.8V range and stayed there steadily.

From Prince George, I returned to the Chasm. My voltage was at 12.6V upon parking and 12.1V upon going to bed after running the furnace and charging my laptop. I left the furnace on all night and awoke to a voltage of 11.8. During the day, the only direct use I made of my batteries was to charge my laptop and the voltage hovered in the 11.6 to 11.8V range. It was a nice sunny day and without doing any math, so take this with a grain of salt, I suspect that I was getting enough juice out of the 15W solar panel to compensate for the laptop charge.

I stayed a second day at the Chasm just for a rest and my battery remained at the 11.6 to 11.8V reading right straight up to my departure (so, two nights of running the furnace). I drove only about a hundred kilometres, including careening down a mountain, before my stop for the night where my battery was at 11.5. It was at 11.3 when the tow truck came this morning.

It seems that my batteries rapidly discharge into the 11V readings, but then stay there steadily. I was glad to be hooked to power tonight, but would have had enough juice for running the furnace.

The generator will be useful to help me boondock in one place for several nights, but I now know that I can boondock from place to place with a small of driving in between each and still be perfectly comfortable. This knowledge is very comforting. I’m starting to feel like a seasoned RVer. 🙂

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Weather-Made Decisions

Last night it was so cold I should have turned on the furnace and I woke up to a frozen water hose. Tonight, the temps are dipping to minus eight and the high tomorrow will be zero. I am therefore leaving and hope to be on the road by two (it’s 12:30 now), just need to get the darn hose thawed and the tanks dumped. I’m pretty excited as I’m about to enter new territory. I should be back online when I hit Prince George.

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Life Without Sewer

I’ve entered my third week of life without sewer and I’ve decided that it sucks. 🙂 My black tank can last for over two weeks, but if I take even a short shower each night, I can’t go longer than a week with the grey. I took advantage of the dump station when I moved up to the restaurant, so my black tank is still fine, but the grey is full again. *sighs* Here is how I’m dealing with the situation:

  • Using Less Water: I only shower twice a week, Navy-style, and bathe in the sink the rest of the time
  • Using the Black Tank’s Extra Capacity: I do the dishes in a large mixing bowl and throw that water into the black tanks. Same thing when I bathe in the sink.
  • Using a Bucket to Dump: Since my sensors are useless, I only know that the grey tank is full when it backs up into my shower. When that happens, I dump a couple buckets worth of water and haul them out to the dump station. This gives me just enough space in the tank to last a couple more days.
  • Not Getting Too Comfortable: I leave the rig in a semi-packed state so that it only takes fifteen minutes or so to pack, unhook, and go dump when the black tank is full.

My grey tank contains nothing that is environmentally damaging, just some biodegradable detergents. I’m sure that it’s more damaging to the environment to fire up the ol’ engine and drive the klick round trip from my site to the dump station. But the fines for dumping on the ground are scary and there is also the threat of jail time, so I choose to remain law abiding even if the law does not make sense in my situation.

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Rain and Sleet, Oh My!

This morning was the first time that the sound of rain was music to my ears upon awakening at Nugget City!

I was at the house by nine and spent about an hour and a half doing the plaster work. I returned to Nugget City after to get some cleaning products so I could wash down the walls before painting. Once that was done, there was nothing to do but wait for the plaster to dry so I could sand it, so I headed home for a leisurely hour-long lunch.

Since I’d cranked up the heat in the room, the plaster was dry enough for a second coat when I returned. I sanded a bit and applied the second coat. That done, I painted the two walls that hadn’t needed any plastering. What a difference a fresh coat of paint makes! The colour is a bit of an apple green and very lovely, if a tad retro, against the orange curtains. I think it looks great!

Tomorrow, I will go sand the plaster on the two other walls, wipe them down, and finish painting the room. I have at least enough green to do one coat, but I hope to squeeze a second coat out of that gallon. I’m also going to bring some glossy white to do the trim and a few touch ups in the bathroom. Time is of the essence, so the owner decided to have me paint right away instead of priming first, especially since this paint job is just a stop gap measure until the room is properly renovated.

Painting with that lovely green shade is making me eager to apply a brush to Miranda’s walls. Soon, soon… 🙂