Shabbos in Sydney, Nova Scotia, was nice, with perfect weather. I’m so glad to see the beginnings of Autumn.
Today we said goodbye to Cape Breton Island and drove east to refill our water in Amherst, Nova Scotia. Last time we used a water bandit to mate our garden hose to the supply hose at the water station, which worked but we ended up soaking wet since the supply hose put out more water than the garden hose could handle. This time we had the supply hose pour into a garbage can, then used the transfer pump we usually use with our 45 gallon water bag to pump the water from the garbage can into the RV:
Just in time for leaving Nova Scotia (New Scotland), Trish finished her Scottish-craft Rug Hooking pillow project:
We drove about 300 miles today to overnight at the casino in Moncton, New Brunswick, which we last visited a few weeks ago. See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.
Unlike their US counterparts, Canadian Walmarts have WiFi, which is great. At the Walmart, we bought a Chatr SIM card for our unlocked phone. $60 Canadian (about $45 US) buys unlimited in-Canada calling and 2GB of data for a month. Like the last time we visited Canada, I used a free Canadian DID from Les.net and a free PBXes.com account to route inbound and outbound US calls through a Canadian phone number to avoid Chatr’s $0.20 a minute international call fee. As far as Chatr is concerned, it’s a free domestic Canadian call, and I pay fifteen-hundredths of a cent per minute to Les.net for making the Canada to US portion of the call. Not too shabby! See the link above for diagrams and more geek-talk.
We hiked the Caribou Plain trail. The trail leads to a viewpoint overlooking a bog. The bog here is about 12 feet thick, with successive layers of sphagnum moss growing on top of each other, leaving older layers below to accumulate as undecayed peat. At this viewpoint, the peat pile is so thick that the pile slumped as it slid downhill, leaving a water-filled depression called a flark:
The kids dropped sticks and rocks into the flark to test its quicksand-like characteristics. From time to time, moose become mired in the flark and die if not rescued in time:
After finishing the hike, we continued east. We ran into road work, which reminded us of Alaska:
We reached the visitor center for the park:
The kids completed their Parks Canada Xplorers workbooks and received their dog tags:
Leaving the park, we continued east and happened upon this lovely turnoff with access to the bay:
This is the first sandy beach we’ve seen on the Bay of Fundy:
We were chased off the beach by a thunderstorm, so we continued east and north to Moncton, New Brunswick. The plan was to spend Shabbos with the Jewish community here, but the parking didn’t work out so we drove to the other side of town where we will be parked at the Casino New Brunswick.
Good Shabbos from Moncton, New Brunswick! See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.
Shabbos was just a bit on the hot side of comfortable, with highs in the high 80s. We had lunch with Rabbi and Mrs. H and their children, which is always a pleasure!
Today we moved back to my parents’ house from the synagogue. This will use up the last 24 hours of the 72 hours per month we’re allowed to be parked in front of their house, so tomorrow we will have to move on.
Today’s project was to replace the RV range with a residential range. Our current oven is about the size of a microwave oven, and Trish could really use more space for cooking more elaborate Shabbos and holiday meals. Here’s what we started with:
The first step was to remove the range:
Next I removed the cabinetry and countertop around the range, leaving a 34” wide alcove for the new range:
Next I added an outlet for the residential range and modified the propane plumbing to attach to the new range while preserving the quick release propane connector for our catalytic heater:
After replacing the natural gas orifices in the cooktop and making a few other adjustments in the oven, the new range was ready to run on propane instead of natural gas. After attaching the propane line and plugging into the new outlet, the new range is ready to go:
The only down side is that the oven seems to keep the 400-watt electric igniter on whenever the oven is heating (as opposed to turning off once the gas is ignited), so we will have to be careful not to use the oven for several hours when the solar system isn’t charging the battery.
No doubt so our RV manufacturer could save money by using lighter duty suspension components, our RV only has a 45 gallon fresh water tank, which is on the small side for an RV of this size. Most RVs used by fulltimers have at least 100 gallons of fresh water on board. In turns out to not be that big of a deal for us, as we can last about 5 days on 45 gallons of water, and we tend to go out on trips or to do errands frequently enough that we fill up our 45 gallon water bag in the bed of our pickup and bring the water back to the RV. A few times, though, we’ve run out of water and have been forced to make a special trip just to get more water.
Water in the RV is pumped from the fresh water tank into the plumbing to create water pressure at the sink and shower. Cold water is also pumped into the 12 gallon water heater. The pressure on the cold side pushes the heated water out of the water heater into the hot water lines. When there’s no more water in the fresh water tank, hot water no longer gets pushed out of the water heater, so it just sits there.
I realized we could use this 12 gallons of water heater water if we could access it. I removed the anode rod from the tank and added a T fitting which allowed me to screw the anode rod back into the T fitting and install a garden hose attachment on the side:
I then attached the other end of the hose to the fresh water fill attachment on the RV, and set the fill mode to “winterize”, which uses the onboard pump to draw from the fill attachment, not from the fresh water tank. This is normally used to draw anti-freeze into the RV’s plumbing for winter storage, but in this case I’m sucking water out of the water heater and making it available for use! We now have 12 gallons of water we can use in a pinch if we empty our fresh water tank.
For this to work, I have to open the pressure valve at the top of the water heater so that air can enter the tank to replace the water removed. I installed a screen over the valve to prevent bugs from crawling into the water heater through the vent. I also installed a screen between the hose and the RV pump so that any scale or other particles from the water heater aren’t ingested by the pump.
Just for fun, we lived on water heater water for the whole day!
This afternoon, B and I went for a ride “around the block”. Much of the Forest Service road was quite rough, and we passed a dead rattlesnake on the road! At one point, there were cows all over the road, which made B nervous, so I rode ahead and encouraged them to move along.
We had a nice Day 500 Shabbos in Las Vegas! Last night we had a Chanukah party with our parents, which was nice.
Today I tried to salvage the staircase the was damaged in Alaska by cutting off the bottom-most stair. This allowed me to at least get the staircase to unfold, but after 30 minutes of sledgehammer lovin’, I still couldn’t get the staircase back to a shape that would allow me to mount it back on the RV, so I gave up on it.
The RV’s battery charger, which is powered by our generator on those rare occasions when we strike out with solar, is wired with 6 gauge wire, and is about 20 feet from the battery, which I believe adds enough of a voltage drop (1.19 volts according to the math) to dramatically reduce the ability of the charger to actually charge the battery. I moved the battery charger about 2 feet by wire away from the battery, and used much thicker 2 gauge wire. Voltage drop should now be 0.047 volts. The charger is the silver box in the photo:
Tomorrow I’ll break out the A/C plug for the charger so it pops out near the propane quick release for the generator. This will save me from having to run an extension cord from the generator all the way to the chassis A/C input on the rear of the RV, like I’ve been doing so far.
This had been on the todo list for months, so I’m happy to finally get to it.
While I was rewiring the RV, Trish went boot shopping with Grandma DiAnn. Sounds like they had a lot of fun!
Tonight we’re overnighting at Camping World, as we have to do a couple more errands in town tomorrow before we can head out to Jean Lake.
Facebook
Instagram
Email