Notes from the camper, Part 2

A bottle of designer ginger ale escaped from the refrigerator on a terrible, bumpy road. The twist off cap twisted off. In a normal place, the ginger ale-soaked carpet in the bottom of the camper would be pulled out and washed immediately. In a place that gets four meters (that is: 4 meters = 157.5 inches = 13 feet) of rain a year, this is a futile pursuit. Nothing dries. Ever.

Several days later: new place. Hosed down, washed off, scrubbed carpet hanging to dry. But,wait! There’s more. It’s raining.

And raining. And raining…

Carpet is overrated. Maybe I’ll go carpet-free until winter sets in.

Crossing Borders

The web site said the border crossing closed at 1900hr. I turned onto Montana highway 24 out of Glasgow at 1701. A hundred meters later there was a sign: Opheim border crossing 9 am – 6 pm, 59 miles. 59 miles, 59 minutes. The speed limit: 70. I can do that.

At 5:57 I passed a sign that said, “Leaving Montana.” In the last daylight a woman in a border patrol uniform (in the failing light I couldn’t see if it was Canadian or US border patrol) waved me through as she stood holding one end of the gate she was about to swing closed and lock for the night. I pulled through to Canadian custom’s Stop/Arrêt sign. I shut off the engine, 5:58. I waited.

A few minutes later a man waved me forward. I pulled up, putting down my window simultaneously. “There’s no way we’re going to process a camper tonight,” I heard another customs agent say from the side of the road.

Standard border crossing questions: where do you live? Where are you going? What do you have with you other than clothing and personal belongings? Where are you going to stay? When was the last time you entered Canada? What do you do? Do you have any weapons?

Why are you crossing at this point? I’ve never crossed here before, I tell him. A look of consternation, perhaps, crossed his face. And then again, “when was the last time you entered Canada?” It was my turn to look perplexed. I answered again and he said, “Oh, right. I asked that already.”

“Yes,” I said. “Is this a trick question?” Another perplexed look.

They took my passport and the license plate number and went away. He came back two, three times to read the license plate. My speeding ticket rap sheet has neither preceded nor followed me.

“Do you know what time the border closes?”

I tell him the web site said 1900hr but the sign in Glasgow said 6 pm. I thought I had plenty of time. The gates close 10 minutes before 7 he informs me.

Saskatchewan, as it turns out, is in the Central Time Zone and does not change its clocks with daylight savings time. I did not expect to drive north into the Central Time Zone. We discuss Manitoba and Alberta time zones and the dilemma of me coming through the gate so late when, apparently, the American side locks the gate.

If they scan my passport and find red flags, they have me on the wrong side of their border with no way to get me out of the country. Then they have to call the American side to unlock the gate and take me away. I point to the camper and say, “Or, I could just plug in right here and you can deal with me in the morning when you get back.” Another look.

They let me through. The catnip stash left unfound, unquestioned.

 

 

 

Blown fuses, tripped circuits, and crossed wires; otherwise titled: What have I done?

For many years I have had uncanny luck with vehicles. Through benign neglect things that seem to be not quite right have healed themselves and I continue on my way mostly unimpeded by unfortunate incidents of the vehicular kind. I usually get around to fixing things at some point but I drag my feet and put it off until it seems sure to be catastrophic if I don’t. So it was when I approached the camper with the same semi-nonchalance.

Campers and trailers are notorious for wiring and electrical problems. And here I am facing my own special version. It seemed intermittent and I expected it would heal itself the way so many other things have done over the years, but, alas, no. GFI outlets tripped, battery fuses blew, and more than a few sparks and puffs of black smoke flew. Yes, these things concern me somewhere in the rational part of mind (which lurks way in the back at times) but with a little wiggling of wires and some swearing (my specialty when it comes to fixing things) it worked each time.

And then it didn’t.

A few phone calls, some rewiring (who makes the white wire positive?!), more swearing, a new GFI outlet, a junction box in the deepest bowels of the camper torn apart to no avail, and nothing. Still no obvious answer to why the plug was throwing circuits left and right.

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The junction box, behind the drain, under the drawer, above the heater.

While I had cooking gear strewn all over the camper, my arms (which some may remember are freakishly long) wound into the camper cabinet, around the sink drain, over the heater, and through the drawer to reassemble the perfectly good junction box, I struggled to screw the outlet back into its protective box. Sitting on the floor between the reluctant cat, the snowshoes, and a crate of food I thought, “What have I done?!”

The good news is since I can’t plug in anywhere the chance of an electrical fire due to bad wiring is nil. The bad news is that I plan to drive across Canada without the certainty of auxiliary battery power sufficient to keep the heater fan going long enough to keep me toasty on cold winter nights.

I am now chasing an elusive connection across the continent. I will stop in the next major destination to see if they can help me work it out. And if there is no answer there, I will continue along my way to the next stop with the hope of finding someone who can fix this problem.

One of the last times I drove across Canada in the winter (as I seem to do) I was in my old Tercel. I left New Hampshire with auntie and uncle giving me a push out the driveway – literally, as we pushed the car and pop-started it. For this reason alone, I may never own an automatic. After a stop in Vermont where my sister fed me delicious homemade chiles relleños on a snowy, deep-winter night, she also helped me push the car to pop it into life the next morning.

Gas stations, the border crossing, more gas stations, I pop started the car each time. Almost 500 miles later, I stopped in Petawawa, Ontario, to visit a friend and do a little snowshoeing in Algonquin Provincial Park. The morning I planned to leave, I found my car frozen to the ground in the hotel parking lot, a night of freezing rain locking me in. I asked a trucker to help me rock it, break the tires free, and give me a push so I could pop it.

For those that don’t know, most of Ontario is flat. Hills are few and far between. My luck held; the hotel was at the top of the only hill in town. We broke the car free, pushed it to rolling, and down the hill I went. But this time the attempt failed and soon, I was at the bottom of the only hill in town and the car was not running.

I asked a couple of snowmobilers in the hotel parking lot for help; one happened to be a mechanic. He told me the distributer cap was cracked and showed me how to remove and replace it. I went back to the hotel, borrowed a phone book (remember those?), and the phone (pre-cell phone ubiquity), and called half a dozen auto parts stores in town. Finally one shop had the part and would deliver it. For free. To my car.

While I waited, at least a dozen people stopped to ask if I needed help. It seemed almost unreasonable to have so many people inquiring after my wellbeing on the side of the road. The part arrived, I installed it and still the car would not start. Another person stopped; after hearing my story of rolling, popping, installing, but not starting he thought I had flooded it and told me a trick to reset the starter. The car fired up. Just like that.

During another phone call to the camper manufacturer I’m told that it’s normal for the plug to spark when plugging in. Oh, and it will trip a GFCI outlet every time. Now my task is to find only non-GFCI outlets that are not connected to any other GFCI outlets on the same circuit. Three days, three strikeouts.

Somehow, I know that whatever the electrical issue is, it will be resolved. Maybe I’ll wait until I get to Canada and maybe some nice RV electrical specialist will randomly find me swearing at the camper… or maybe my path will miraculously be lined with only non-GFCI outlets. After all, distributor caps are delivered roadside in some places.

The Road not Taken Enough