Dear Sabbatical: Entry 3
Dear Sabbatical,
After visiting Destruction Bay yesterday, things have appeared to have gone down hill. The little hideaway campsite I found yesterday was great and all, but some dumbass didn’t take it as a bad sign that the lake was still covered in ice. It got down below freezing during the overnight. I’m not sure how low, but at 6am when it had started to warm up since the sun was out, it was at 31 degrees. I got up at 3am to pee and instantly began shivering when I climbed out of the sleeping bag. That was a great start to my morning. I pulled an extra hoodie from the Mango and darted back into the sleeping bag. After that point, it wasn’t so bad. I made sure to stay wrapped up tight in the covers, though.
The cold morning reminded me that my camper does have a heater, so a smart person would have probably tested that out on a night like that. Honestly, though, it had only been down in the 45’s the previous couple of nights and that wasn’t so bad. But last night was bad.
Ok, so that problem is solved by both USING the supplied heater and heading south toward Vancouver. Or somewhere else in British Columbia near the coast. As long as it’s over 45 then I seem to be alright. What else has gone wrong today? Well, I realize I hate this camper. Maybe I’m just overly picky, or maybe I just got a bad one, but shit has been going wrong from the start. Day 2 into the journey and the key snaps off in the side door lock while trying to open the door. Being the nifty guy that I am, I was able to pull the broken piece out of the key way and, of course, had the second key on hand. But now I have a lock that has shown to bust keys and ONLY ONE KEY LEFT. Turns out, that day was a holiday in Canada so all the locksmiths who could cut me a spare were closed. After carefully testing out the door, I realized it’s a design flaw in the way the latch and handle line up. If you lift the door while operating the lock, then it works better. Because that’s what you want in a $24,000 camper, the need to lift doors so you don’t snap keys.
Whatever, a little aftermarket engineering and persuasion and I’m able to fix it well enough. What else is wrong with this thing? Realizing that the NASA engineers who designed this thing might not know the most about RV engineering, I began noticing that there are several design flaws in the storage mechanisms. I thought I was just being picky with where I wanted my gear to go, but there’s a fundamental flaw in the trailer design if you use all the available storage. It’s tail heavy, meaning it will cause your vehicle to be unbalanced and not roadworthy. Thankfully, I’m smart and packed around this limitation. Other people won’t notice and bad things are going to happen.
That’s all that could be wrong, right? Well, after driving down the highway for several hours, I stopped somewhere and just happened to glance at the back end. Apparently the highway wind is enough to loosen the support jack so it was hanging halfway down to the pavement. If I’d not noticed that before hitting a campsite, it would absolutely have snapped off. I tightened it back up nice and snug and it seems to have fixed it for now.
Alright, another disaster averted, what’s next? That’s three, so there can’t possibly be more. Oh no, you’d be wrong. Remember how the highway wind loosened the stabilizer jack? Well, guess what else it loosened today. The release valve on the water storage tank. Yep, all 12 gallons of water lost to the highway. I was leaving a rest stop when I noticed a puddle under the trailer. Down in the dirt to confirm that I’m now out of water. Great.
Speaking of water, I forgot to talk about this one because it pissed me off so much. The other day when I was sitting at a little beach-side hideaway, I decided to test out the shower since my hair was getting pretty gnarly. I was secluded enough that I didn’t bother with the tent. After setting up the plumbing stuff, I flipped on the water pump and test the sink. Water comes out, that’s a good sign. I turn off the water pump to figure out where my shampoo and towel are. Finally ready, I go to turn the pump back on. Before I do, I notice that there is water all over the floor inside the camper. Ok, shower on hold. Now I’ve torn apart the entire front cabinet (because of course I brought tools), and discover one of the water hoses that connects to the heater is leaking. 10 minutes of fussing with that (and then 15 minutes of water cleanup) it looks like I have everything fixed. I’m guessing that road vibrations shook it loose, but I don’t know. I didn’t fire it up before I left home, so I can’t even be sure it was working then.
Regardless, that’s three major things wrong and a few other annoying things not quite right. I’m 6 days into a 30 day trip, so we’ll see how much else I have to fix before I’m back home.
Can I just go home now?