Tech

by

Still Shaking

Miranda will be getting her new brakes tomorrow, the process taking all day, so, being 130km from Vancouver and aware that I have at least one more ‘big’ hill ahead, I’m going to do the drive in the toad to see if I need to hire myself a driver.

I’m just not ready to get back on the proverbial horse. Oh, driving on flat, no problem, but I’m not ready to put myself back in a situation where I could find myself careening down a hill. I’ve received mixed opinions about the route ahead; some say that it’s ‘almost as bad’ as the road behind me while others scoff and say the worst is behind me. I want to hit the road feeling more confident than I feel right now.

I do seem to have lucked out with the mechanic; the estimate is fair and I’m being given a substantial discount on parts. The tire will also be replaced at no charge (a 250$ value on its own).

The brakes would have needed to have been rebuilt completely at some point during my ownership of Miranda, so the cost doesn’t hurt nearly as much as if I’d blown the engine or ripped the air conditioner off the roof ( 😉 to Croft) and I intended to give Miranda new shoes before leaving for Dawson in the spring. I’ve now got two bought. 🙂

I’m still trying to decide how I feel about my decision to take the Sea to Sky highway knowing ahead of time about its legendary grades. I think I was over confident because of the ease at which I crossed the Rockies last fall as well as my experience with some of the grades on the Alaska highway. What I can’t decide on is if the scare of my life was worth the breathtaking scenery and the excitement of taking a new route. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t.

But I will say that if I’d been stranded on that mountain last night in a car, it would have been a completely different experience than being stranded in my own home with access to a proper dinner, hot shower, heat, and my own bed. I was also grateful that the runaway lane had a small spur into which I was able to tuck Miranda (thank goodness for the emergency brake) so that I was not blocking this vital laneway in case someone else experienced a similar emergency.

I also learned just how easy it is to tow Miranda and was surprised by how small the tow truck was. The driver parked the truck at the top of the runaway lane, backed Miranda down the spur behind the truck, hooked her up, and just backed the whole kit and kaboodle up the highway until he was at the right angle to drive down the hill. *boggled*

Interesting fact: roadside assistance was going to send me a tow truck from Whistler, for which I would have been charge a 150$ premium. Calling someone local on my own saved me 30$. Thank goodness I had cell service on that mountain and that my GPS had the phone number of an auto place. They couldn’t help me, but at least the person understood my predicament and was able to give me the number of someone who could help. So many things went right yesterday for all that went wrong.

by

A Change of Pace

Today, I finished the posts in the front and then started some weeding in the RV park. Tomorrow morning and all of Tuesday I will be indoors!!! The owners have a house a few minutes away from Nugget City which they rent out. One of the rooms in that house is awful, with filthy carpeting and poorly patched walls. New tenants are about to move in, so my job is to make that room a bit prettier than it is by patching the walls properly and then painting. Once that’s done, new carpet will be installed.

So, tomorrow morning I will head over there and patch, then I will come back here to finish the staff stairs (forgot to take a picture of those!). Once that’s all done, the patching compound should be dry and I’ll be able to go sand. Tuesday, it’s painting time. I think it will be nice to paint with a pretty green after so many projects involving yellowish or semi-transparent stains, boring white, and the really hideous mushroom coloured stuff that looks surprisingly decent on the staff stairs.

I am irked, however, that this project has come up when the weather is finally clearing! Why couldn’t that room have needed to be painted when it was snowing on Monday?! Ah, timing sure can suck sometimes. 🙂

One thing that will be nice about being indoors is that I can bring my iPod and speaker dock and have music. I don’t like to work with my iPod and headphones because I’m worried I will get paint on it. Using the dock outdoors is not an option seeing as I doubt anyone here will like what I consider to be perfect painting music. So, it will be a real treat to not paint in silence!

Thank goodness I’m so busy because the Itch has come upon me and I can’t wait to get on the road. But I’m making decent money here, so another week or so won’t kill me. 🙂

by

Internet Woes (the story of my RVing life)

I’ll be surprised if I even manage to publish this, but I’ll try. The internet here has gone from bad to worse and I can barely get on. When I do, I get kicked off within seconds. So, expect infrequent updates of this blog until I get back to civilization, unless major positive changes are made, which is doubtful. 🙁

After a year of relying on RV park internet, all I can say is it sucks and I would like to invite everyone who visits to donate a dollar to the ‘Get Rae a tripod satellite system’ fund! 😀

by

Internet Independence

One conclusion I’ve reached in my year on the road is that I need to regain my internet independence.

It is unrealistic to expect RV parks to provide even the minimum amount of internet service someone of my generation needs. I use the internet for everything and I have high bandwidth needs, from posting photos online to watching videos to Skyping.  I have been playing by park rules as much as possible this summer and it’s really starting to cramp my style. There is so much I’d like to post to the blog and the blog is just one small part of my online activities.

I still can’t envision being able to afford a tripod satellite system and air cards, a burgeoning technology in Canada, won’t work where I spend most of my time. Next year in Dawson, I’m going to see about having my own personal DSL account right at my site. In the meantime, I try to surf like it’s 1996 and I’m on minute-by-minute dial up. Nostalgia isn’t much to be cracked up about…

by

The Kindness of Strangers

Well, I’m packed and just about ready to go (not yet hooked up), and waiting for Rack Attack to open at 10. I thought of just heading out and calling them en route, but there’s a courtesy phone here at the park, so it will be a lot easier to make calls.

*sidebar*

I need to fix that melted fresh water intake ASAP seeing as I have no other way of filling my fresh water tank. Oops. Oh, well, that should be a relatively easy evening at Walmart kind of project.

I also need a new sewer hose. Mine decided to spring a leak this morning; thankfully after I finished dumping the black tank and had quite a bit of grey water already going through! It’s just a pinhole, but this still qualifies as an emergency. 🙂

*/sidebar*

My neighbour saw me struggling to get the bike in the trunk, so he helped me with that and then we turned our attention to the kayak. It is now in the rig. The stern is in the cab and the bow is just nosing into the dressing room. It’s going to be so much fun getting it back out. *rolls eyes*

I am going to start off by calling Rack Attack in Vancouver, where I bought my kit on Monday, and ask them to make arrangements for me with their store in Coquitlam. If that works out fine, then the detour won’t be tooooo bad since there is both a Kal Tire (need to have the tire pressure checked) and a Mr. Lube near the Rack Attack store.

Today will be a success if I make it as far as Chilliwack and Hope would be a triumph. What disappoints me is that today is a beautiful day, perfect for hiking, and I had a short hike planned for just after Hope. That’s most likely going to happen tomorrow… when several days of rain are going to start. 🙁

I’m loving the new laptop! It was no hardship to put away the iMac last night, so much so that I forgot to synch my contacts and calendar! Thankfully, I don’t have anything going on in the next few days, so I can do without my calendar for a bit. 🙂