Having acquired the RV new and having had a considerable
amount of customizing to do, including mounting a folded-up boat to the large
slide-out, adapting the interior for a second bedroom, etc., we didn’t get to
doing a trial run before taking off. After all, why would one have to, with a brand
new rig and a stack of manuals about 4 inches high?
That much paper work?
Well, part of the amazement with the RV comes from the energy systems on
board. All things electric can operate
on 110 Volt AC. Some can function on 12 V DC, provided by a deep cycle battery
(or batteries) that are charged from the truck's alternator, when traveling and
from a converter from 110 V, when available. Some can function on propane gas
or on either propane or 110 V. The
latter (refrigerator/freezer, hot water heater and heating furnace)
automatically switch from one to the other according to availability, giving
priority to a 110 V supply. Part of
Willem’s planning included acquiring a 3.3 KW petroleum power generator to cope
with circumstances when a 110 V hookup would not be available. It would at
least facilitate using some kitchen appliances and perhaps the air conditioner
or heating furnace, albeit not necessarily concomitantly. Also on board is an
HD TV, requiring 110 V. The HiFi is quite contented with 12 V. Obviously, with
so much technology on hand, a 4-inch stack of manuals seems understandable.
As for water, we have a fresh water holding tank, a grey
water tank (for shower and basin outflow), two black water tanks for toilet
waste and a galley tank for kitchen water outflow. When a fresh water hookup is provided at a
camp site, the tank is supposed to be bypassed and when full hookups are
provided, all waste water is dumped on
site, whereas when not, dumping is at a dumping station upon leaving the park,
or even before, if necessary. But the latter would require hauling the trailer
to the dumping station and back to the camp site.
Our first stop at the beautiful Four Mile Creek State Park
on Lake Ontario in New York required filling the fresh water tank upon entering
and having a 110 V hookup but no sewer hookup at the camp site. Everything seemed to be working fine and we
had hot water, a working refrigerator and all the electricity we could
use. The next morning we had our
personal Wi-Fi hotspot, courtesy of AT&T, providing internet connectivity
and it all looked real good. But later in the day it occurred strange to hear
the gas burner associated with the water heater firing, while we did have 110 V.
We reached for the stack of manuals but found we had no User Manual; only the
Installation Manual! Well, the heater
seemed firmly installed but we couldn’t figure out how to get it to switch to
electric operation. The next morning a
friendly passer by stirred up a conversation and proved to be a veteran RV’er
from Hamilton, Ontario. He took one look at our heater problem, told Fickie to
reach inside and pulled a pin of sorts and not to return it at all. We thus
activated the electric function, after which it automatically switched to gas
when later on we wouldn’t have 110 V. Problem solved!
By then we also thought the TV channel selections were
rather scant. Although only UHF/VHF per antenna, it seemed that the straight
line across Lake Ontario to Toronto should perhaps do what transmitters from
Buffalo, New York could not. Again our friendly Canadian neighbor took a look
and rendered more channels functioning.
No instruction manual for the TV either; only a nice installation
booklet. Also, we’ve lost our Wi-Fi on the third day, not to recover it again
and became completely dependent on hot spots along the route, after crossing
into Canada. This was rather cumbersome and greatly reduced progress on getting
the blog ready to launch, in addition to hampering communication in general.
The municipal campground of Toronto is located in a
beautiful park just off a major highway to downtown. There we had water and
electric hookups, but found no water reaching the faucets! We couldn’t figure
out what the problem was (sans user manual) and neither could yet another friendly RV’er with much
experience at the game. So, we had to haul water in and bought a 30 gallon garbage
can to do so a couple of times, in stead of hauling the trailer to a water supply source. Meanwhile, the microwave oven retired as well,
and the backup which we brought along from home with the intention of seeing if
we could use it instead, on account of it being a microwave/convection oven
combination, came in real handy. It proved not so easy to install permanently, together
with providing the required much increased ventilation, but fortunately the
manufacturer of the RV microwave directed us to a service facility way across
the city, where Susan and Willem took it by fighting through the Toronto
traffic. Someone mentioned before that it rivals Los Angeles traffic, which
boded nothing good for what is to come by May/June next year! Two days later the microwave was ready to be
picked up, long before we felt ready to negotiate the traffic again!
With the water hookup problem not solved, we headed to our
next camp site at Kill Bear Provincial Park on Georgian Bay. This is a very
beautiful campground, albeit with no hookups. By the second day we noticed a glitch with the
propane supply. This was overcome by changing the setting of the valve, which
is supposed to automatically facilitate a switch-over from an empty cylinder to
a second full cylinder. The incorrect valve
setting was a mistake on Willem’s part and it seemed we still had plenty propane and were back on track, until
the next morning when the refrigerator was dead, as was the battery, which was
the sole source of electricity to the RV. We hooked up the generator, had 110 V
and were hopefully also charging the battery. However, this provoked the scorn
of our new neighbor, a French Canadian, who took great exception to the noise.
Willem’s arguments that not only was our generator running well below the noise
limit of national parks, and that we were also within the time constraints
stated for generator use, could not pacify the fellow. Later on Willem stirred
up a conversation again; the guy took a look at what we were trying to
remedy and had Willem go over to see his electric system designed for extended
periods of time for this kind of camping. It turned out that the fancy automatic energy
system on RV’s have the refrigerator first look for 110 V; failing to find it,
it looks for propane but needs 12 Volts to ignite the burner. And with the
propane glitch, it ultimately went to DC to keep going and thus ran down the
battery. We had no idea that the automatic system was not limited to 110 V and
propane only, but would exhaust everything it could get to in an attempt to
render the refrigerator functioning. No manual to educate us either! The French
guy proved to be a very knowledgeable electrician from Montreal, who drew us a
wiring diagram and gave us a shopping list for what we should get for him to
install a backup system for us. Fickie recalled Proverbs 15:1, which appeared somewhat
applicable! Our situation wasn’t good at
all and with days to go at this site, Fickie and Willem were running all over Parry Sound and various marinas in the area
the Sunday morning to find the stuff on our shopping list. That evening the
French fellow had us up and running and he was the better off with a bottle of
French wine, which Willem per chance had on board!
The next day Fickie and Stella took off on an extended hike,
while Willem decided to remove a panel that would presumably expose a valve that
should be thrown to rectify the unsolved water hookup problem. Again, with only an installation manual and no
user manual, it was largely a matter of hoping for something trivial to leap at
one. No valve was observed, though, but Willem remembered having seen a spare water
filter in a drawer and perhaps replacing the installed filter might be
beneficial. However, it turned out that no filter had been installed before and
the one in our hands is what should actually be in the filter holder! We installed it and reassembled the thing, panel
and all. It would have to wait for a campground with a water hookup to see what
difference it made.
That came at Sturgeon Falls, where we had a spectacular site
right at the beach on the Nipissing Lake front. This was a full hookup site and
lo and behold, when we opened a faucet, water was flowing profusely! Although an
explanation still escapes us, we accepted the outcome of our efforts gladly.
In the campground at Ottawa we finally terminated the
residency of a mouse in the cargo hold of the trailer. This passenger’s nest
was discovered in Kill Bear but it took 3 different kinds of mouse trap to
ultimately succeed! Having had cats for many years, this kind of problem hardly
confronted us in decades.
With all known problems solved after almost a month on the
road, we finally could kick our heels up with a new perspective on what lies
ahead! Wi-Fi on the road remains a problem in Canada but we will make
do with the odd campground which provides such for the remaining time in this
interesting part of the world, as we venture further into French territory.
