8/28/2018 Home, Jack & the Bean Stock, Readjustment

We have been home for about 18 hours and here are some initial thoughts:

• As we pulled up to the house we noticed some weeds (approximately 14 of them) that are very pretty, about 6’ high, and could be mistaken as ornamental growing in our landscaping.  (A lot of good the $400 in new mulch and Preen did that we put down before leaving.)  At first, we thought one of our mischievous neighbors (you know who you are) was playing a trick on us.  These bean stock type plants have the stock of a sunflower and a root ball the size of a potato.  They remind me of the bean stock in the “Jack & the Bean stock” story.
•   Interesting, we pay a commercial lawn/landscape service to keep the yard looking good while we are gone.  They did call me 3 weeks ago and we agreed to have them trim and clean up my landscaping for $150.  You would think that they would jump at the opportunity to make more income.  Obviously they didn’t expect us to do a surprise early arrival back home.  They will not be hired back.  AND we will do additional surprise visits to check on future lawn/landscape companies. Another unexpected lesson learned.  
• PS.  All the Bean stalks were removed before we went to bed that night.  Now we need to clean up the rest of the landscaping
• Did not sleep.  Neither Sandy or I slept well in our own bed at home.  It’s been 3 months traveling in the COW.  We are not used to street lights.  We are not used to the Air Conditioned taking hours, instead of minutes to cool the bedroom down.
• The bed to bathroom walk in the house is similar to walking from the back of the COW, out the front door, down two campsites, into another trailer, using its bathroom, and back.  As opposed to in the COW, hopping out of bed, 5 steps to the bathroom and back.
• The exercise, etc... of the trip, has contributed to a weight loss of 5Lbs/month  (total of 18 Lbs)and 2 belt buckle notches.
• The house survived.  We were able to turn on the A/C from the road with our wireless App.  Sandy called ahead and had our internet turned on.  I reinstalled the router.  We turned on the water and slowly exercised all of our faucets, showers, & toilets.  By the way, the Saran Wrap on the toilet bowl and tank really does work.  We had less evaporation than normal and most were still close to 100% full.  Also putting cooking oil in the shower trap kept the trap from drying out (as there was not any sewer smell in the house).  We are only putting batteries into some remotes, removing the saran wrap from some toilets, energizing 1 refrigerator, etc... because we expect tobe back on the road within 2 months.
• THANK YOU to the Neighbors that have helped along the journey. 
• To Penny for picking up and forwarding our mail. THANK YOU.  Doing this for us is very helpful and appreciated  
• To Barry, Mark, and Jay for keeping an eye on the house and keeping us informed on what needed to be taken care of.

This will be my last post until we get back on the road.

Although I suspect that Sandy will be posting her wrap-up thoughts sometime in the near future.

PS. Of all the places we traveled in the last 3 months I would recommend:

- Camden, Maine, Romantic setting, sail on a schooner, beautiful setting.  Check out the State Park and the overlooks

- Schoodic Woods Campground (outside of Bar Harbor, Maine).  This is  on my list to go back to and volunteer in the future.  Campground is a gem.  Take your bikes and ride the 12 mile road along the water.  Check out the secret (now open) military base along the coast

- Lake Placid, NY, beautiful setting.  Oozes of the Olympics of past.  Checkout the Olympic ski jump training facilities.  Also romantic location

-  Last, (I would not go back), if you want to explore a European Style city, with great views, food, waterfalls, island, etc..., check out Quebec City, Quebec.  When going to downtown Quebec I highly recommend taking a tour bus, not driving.  Most places offer this service for $18/person.  Driving outside of downtown is do-able, but keep in mind all street signs, exits, signage is in French.

8/12/2018. Good to be back in the USA. How cheap is to cheap. Make sure you read all the way to the bottom :-)

Late this afternoon we arrived back into the United States.  I must say “Thank Goodness”.  Canada is a beautiful place and the people are great, but after 4 days in Quebec with everything French (music, TV, people, street signs etc...), I was more than ready to come back to the English speaking U.S.

In addition there are the little things:

• Walmart charges 5 cents for every plastic bag.  We use these plastic grocery type bags for trash.  Since we are cheap :-), we carried out everything by hand without the plastic bag :-).  We became smarter later in the trip and brought our own bags
• Canada charges 10 cents per plastic bottle.  Therefore if you buy a 24 pack of water, you are charged an extra $2.40 just for the bottles.  For a 1/2 gallon of OJ you are charged an extra 10 cents just for the bottle.  We quickly adopted to refilling water bottles (don’t tell our daughter because they will have a fit) and buying OJ concentrate that we can mix ourselves.  Apparently many of the Canadians do the same thing as there is a much bigger selection of concentrated juices in Canada.  (Actually NY and Michigan I believe do the samething. You get your money back when recycling the bottles, but for travelers moving state to state the campgrounds recycle the bottles and it goes to their bottom line.)

Grocery Stores have limited options.  You cannot find:

-  Ballpark hot dogs

-  Betty Crocker Brownie mix

-  Many other things that we take for granted

-  Limited options of fruits and vegetables

Grocery prices are high and taxed out the wazoo.  Now I know how they pay for their Socialized Medicine

  -  Fruit and Vegetables are very expensive

-  Chocolate Milk $4.50 a 1/2 gallon in Walmart

Fuel:

-  We paid up to $1.40 per Liter.  Our Cow has a 100 gallon tank (which is almost 400 Liters).  I was putting $250 in the Tank each time we stopped and that only gave me a little over 1/2 tank.  On the other- hand Diesel is cheaper than Gasoline in Canada

I am going to get shot for telling this next story, but those of you that know Sandy  will understand this one.  

We need fuel.  We are not going to make it to a Gas Station in the United States.  She wants me to put in just enough so that we glide into the United States on empty.  Therefore we can buy fuel in the U.S. by the Gallon instead of the Liter.  Fuel by the gallon in the U.S. may be $3.60 per gallon.  Fuel by the Liter is roughly $5.60 per gallon in Canada.  

We also had $19.35 of Canadian change plus an additional $54 in Canadian bills.  So-o-o Sandy being Sandy wanted to make sure we left it all at the last fuel stop so we didn’t have to go through the exchange rate hassle and loose a couple of pennies on the exchange rate.  

So-o-o guess who had to go into the Flying J gas station with a huge handful of Canadian change and a couple of bills to put in $250 worth of gas.

“Me, Of course”

In I walk and guess what, they all speak only French.  Here I am using hand language, body language, pointing, and my best English language skills trying to explain why I am trying to use this two tons of  change of $75 to pay for $250 of fuel.  In the end I got it accomplished.  

To all my Accountant friends out there, I am sure you are saying to yourselves. 

 “WHAT!! What is wrong with this strategy!!  

Now keep this in mind, we have now used all of our Canadian Money!!  We have Zilch Canadian dollars and still 150 miles to the border.

You guessed it, we still had one more Canadian Toll Booth to go through and NO Canadian money.  Yes, we had to use US dollars and No, they did not give us the exchange rate.  

Of Course, being the guy I am, I did rub it into my Accountant wife that “IF” I did not have to use all of our Canadian Money we would have had the proper change for the toll booth.  Because of this we lost $1.20 in exchange rate.  That could have bought us 24 plastic bags at Walmart :-)

All I heard was some grumbling from the other seat.  Payback is a B__tch. :-)

 

8/4/2018 Cabot Trail

The Cabot Trail in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia is similar to (in my opinion)a combination of the sites I have seen in Alaska and upper Michigan with the exception that it is along the Gulf of St Lawrence.

Many of the overlooks are breath-taking especially if you go the extra mile and hike to them.  

Early on we decided to hike the Skyline trail along the French Mountain.  The hike leads to Look-offs (must be Nova Scotian for look-outs) overlooking the Gulf of St Lawrence, with the final Look-off viewings the rugged mountain edges along the water.  Also at this final look-off we observed many whales surfacing not to far off of shore.

Unfortunately, you will not be able to see the whales from our pictures as the camera could not capture them.

If you have kept up with our blog, you will possibly remember that Sandy and I (mostly me) have a bad habit of assuming we know what we are doing when it comes to hiking.  

Reference the quick before breakfast hike we took in Schoodic Woods, Maine where we got into more than we expected (didn’t finish until after lunch time).  

Well I guess we didn’t learn the first time.

I assumed (expected) this would be a simple hike so when we jumped out of the car I be-booped to the trailhead in tennis shoes, shorts, and no backpack.  At the trail-head, Sandy informed me that it was a 2 hour hike.  OH, back to the car, grabbed the backpack, water, food, sunscreen, hat, and bug spray.  Off we went, but before we started down the trail, I did take a snapshot with my phone of the trail-map.  I knew that at the “Y” in the trail we were suppose to go right as Sandy told me (which she was told by the visitor center).  So since I was in the lead, I turned right at the “Y”.  About an hour into the hike we ran across another couple coming from the other direction on the trail, and I asked how much longer to the lookoff.  The gentleman explained that it was another 2 KM.  I thanked him and continued to walk when it sunk in “another 2 KM.  Hmmm??  I pulled out my phone, blew up the picture of the map, and realized we should have taken a left at the ‘“Y”.  To late to turn-around.  In the end we walked the 9.2 KM (5.7 miles) instead of  the 2 hour hike we expected.

Maybe, just maybe, the next time (3rd time) will be a charm and we will have our act together. We will actually do the hike that we (I) expected.  

In the meantime I am going to pack twice the amount of food and water in my backpack just in case :-)

Pictures attached:

   

8/3/2018 Another lesson learned

We pulled out of Halifax at 1:00 PM after working with the local Cummins shop to replace the Cummins Onan Energy Command EC30 processor.  We drove 1 hour North to a campground that looked good from the outside and was rated well in the Allstays Campground App.

Lesson 1:  When the site is made up of some gravel, but mostly dirt BEWARE.  Especially if the site is not level.  I could not get the COW to level.  First the Automatic levelers refused to operate.  Then, when I put the leveling jacks in manual mode and lowered the jacks they just sunk into the dirt without lifting the coach.

So, I pulled up the jacks and put  12”X 12” x 2” boards down under the jacks (that I had made previously at home just for this type of situation) the coach lifted the rear wheels off the ground which is a No-No because the parking brake is on the rear wheels.  The coach could roll.  Finally, since we were only staying at this campground one night, we decided to leave the coach unlevel and only extend one out of the three slides.

Lesson 2:  When the Power protector I bought refused to provide power to the coach, there is a big problem.  I had bought a Power protector unit that checks incoming service wiring, low voltage, high voltage, phasing, and a bunch of other things.  If things are not correct it will not allow power to the coach.  Well, once I applied a load to the Power supplied by the campground, Line 1 dropped to 105 volt, and Line 2 dropped to 106 volt.  I in turned asked that both the Campground owner and Maintenance person meet me at my camp site.  Initially they thought they were going to blow smoke up my skirt (I mean trousers),  until I convinced them that not only did I know more about electricity than they did, I also carry the equipment with me to prove it.  They backed down quickly, admitted they knew they had a problem, and refunded me some of my money for the night.  I disconnected my power cable from the campground and intermittently ran my Generator through the night.  

Poor power to a coach can wipe-out your appliances and electronics.  This can be an expensive mistake.

The Power protector I bought cost $300 but has already saved me twice from miswired (believe it or not at the Cummins dealer) and low voltage at this campground

Lesson 3:  Since we were just staying overnight I decided not to disconnect the TOAD (Chevy Equinox).  Well the mistake I made was not putting it in PARK and turning off the ignition key.  The ignition key must be in the accessory position while towing because the TOAD draws power from the battery for the Electric Steering to work properly while being towed.  I have installed a trickle charger under the hood that is powered from the coach while traveling so the battery does not loose charge.  Well when I shutdown the coach and did not turn off the TOAD ignition key, it completely discharged the TOAD battery.  Luckily I had made friends with the guy in the next campsite who had jumper cables and a big Dodge truck.  He was able to help jump start the TOAD so I could charge the battery with the alternator.  

Lesson learned.  Turn off the ignition key while staying overnight and not disconnecting the TOAD.  Also, I will be picking up my jumper cables on the next trip home.

8/5/2018. Update. After troubleshooting the trickle charger this morning I discovered that I blew the 20 Amp fuse when I tried to use it to jump start the Equinox.  On the next stop at home I will be adding spare fuses to my tool box.