Mossleigh, AB

Wednesday - This morning, I needed a few things from the grocery store that I probably should have picked up in Cranbrook, BC, as there was both a Safeway and a Walmart in that town. I drove 20 minutes south to the small town of Vulcan (as in Star Trek). It was a decent small-town market, much larger than a Dollar General. We are meeting up with friends this afternoon, and I am making some potato salad for the potluck.

Thursday - A couple of minor repair projects completed today. I moved the door latch up around ⅛” (with a file!), which allowed the latch to catch without needing to slam the door. We’ll see how long this fix lasts. The windshield cover had a cut in the middle. I remembered that I had some clear Gorilla tape in a storage bin. Hopefully this fix lasts for a while. 

I also dug out all six of the DeWalt batteries and charged them. The inflator gets used frequently to air up the tires when the temperature goes from hot to cool, which has happened often on this trip.

Friday - It looks like the Winlink Wednesday email worked as I showed up on the participant map at around the correct location. 

It is relatively cool for this time of year. I wasn’t sure how much wind we would have, so I didn’t initially set up the clam shelter. But it needed to dry out, so I set it up. It’s a good thing that I set it up, as the floor was also damp. It's a nice place to do the testing from as long as it isn't too hot. At 2:15, it's 74°F, which is borderline too warm.

There is a music festival scheduled to start this evening and run all day tomorrow. I hope it isn't too loud, but it does mean that the RV park may fill up.

Cranbrook, BC

Monday - We crossed the border into Canada today. It was a longer wait than “usual” but we were only asked a couple of questions. The road had a lot of twists and turns and tomorrow we cross the Canadian Rockies. Our destination is Aspen Crossing RV Park east of Calgary, AB. 

We are at a small RV park in Cranbrook and had dinner at an Indian restaurant near the park. It was pretty tasty food and a nice change. 

Coeur d’Alene

Sunday - Today was a travel day with some uncertainty due to fires in Oregon and Washington. We saw smoke but no flames. We went through Spokane around 12:30 and it wasn’t too crowded. Maybe because it is Sunday. 

We are at the fairgrounds RV park which has full hookups. When I fill the fresh water tank, I’ll measure it to see how much we used. The RV gauge panel says 1/3 fresh and a full black tank (it said only 1/3 yesterday). The grey tank sensors stopped working last Summer. 

The breaker for the 30amp outlet blew yesterday evening when I turned the converter back on. The converter charges the original AGM coach battery. It is powered through the inverter so it gets power through shore power, generator, or the lithium batteries. Anyway, I turned down the max shore power from 30amps to 25amps and reset the breaker. It tripped again. I turned it down to 22amps and it tripped. A bad breaker. Probably from being repeatedly overloaded. I then plugged the RV into the 50amp outlet using an adapter. No problem even after turning the max shore power back to 30amps.

Tomorrow, we have a modest travel day into southern British Columbia. 

Rufus Landing

Saturday - Today is a windy day and there are a lot of people here taking advantage of it. 

When we arrived here, there were maybe ten RVs here with no one really around us. Not the case now. It is pretty entertaining watching all the activity on the river. 

The gusts are supposedly over 40mph. There are a wide variety of floating toys out here from kayaks to these wind powered boards with underwater foils. All are very fast.

The batteries were at 65% this morning and I really don’t want to run the generator with all the people around. I turned off most thing except for the 12V chest fridge/freezer to recharge the batteries. 

By evening, we were at 89%. Enough to get through the night. A couple of videos showing some of the river activities. The last is a launch and landing.