Monday August 24th 2020

It’s been an exciting weekend for “The Buchanan’s” we were able to get one of the spots on the caravan to the Mexican Baja with “The Motorhome Experiment” and we are pretty excited.

So let me do a little explaining … about five years ago when we were first exploring the idea of living full time in a RV, we watched many YouTube channels to try to learn from other people’s experiences. Well one of the channels we watched was Paul and Lorena of The Motorhome Experiment, Paul is a Canadian boy from the Dorchester area in Ontario and Lorena is a Mexican girl from Juarez City area in Mexico, and over time we learnt how they were selling their home in Las Vegas and going to try to live full time on the road for one year … hence the experiment part. But this is a very long entwined story of our friendship with these people and will make for an interesting blog all on its own.

But the short version is that they are entering their fourth year on the road and have now sold their business in Las Vegas and are hoping to run caravans to help support their lifestyle. So this will be their maiden adventure with hopes of doing more caravans in the future.

So what have we signed up for? Well a 59 day adventure that will take us through the Mexican Baja, with a variety of experiences from boondocking on beaches, to swimming with whale sharks, we will travel approximately 2200 miles (3500 kilometres) in Mexico, over a two month period, with multiple side excursions that should make it a trip of a lifetime. There will be only 20 RVs in the caravan, so a small group as compared to some operations, so to prepare us for the trip, they will be doing a number of webinars, where they will explain what all we will need to do to prepare ourselves and our coach.

I have been looking forward and hoping for this for some time, and have been trying to prepare by learning Spanish on the app “Duolingo”, and while I’m learning a lot, I have a very long way to go, but a lot of the basics are becoming easier now. And now that we are confirmed I will be working harder at it, because this could become a regular winter destination for us as time goes on.

And yes I remember there is the little issue with the border being closed still because of a pandemic and the Americans inability to control it, but we still believe that the border will open in the next couple of months. Because the stupid part of the closure is that it’s just the land border, we can fly to the States, we just can’t drive there yet. And I know there are a lot of risks going to the States, but we are very careful and in most cases avoid large crowds or groups. And besides I remember someone said it would just go away … or not, but life must go on, maybe different than before but the “new normal” with or without us is going on, and my timer is still ticking so rather than hibernate for a Canadian winter we are still going to keep on living life our way.

Tuesday August 25th 2020

But the reality is that we are not far from the preparation time for the trek to the south. Yah yah we know the Canadian border is still closed to protect us from the ongoing pandemic in the United States. But we do feel that it will likely open in a couple of months, the only reason it is still closed is because the Americans have done such a poor job of controlling the virus, that is just facts, say what you want, poor leadership is what has happened plain and simple.

We have many thing that need to be done on the coach before we head out, trailer hitch repair after a 4 wheeling incident in the desert, draining and cleaning the fuel and tank after our bad fuel incident, removing our old inverter (it’s unhooked, just needs to be removed) and install a new breaker box, chassis lube and an oil change on the big motor, there are a couple of radius rods that need some new bushings, a couple of outdoor recepticals with weather proof covers, and the list goes on.

So where do we start, well the fuel issue is my number one concern right now, I have changed too many fuel filters on the side of an interstate highway. So that is priority one at this point, I have got a fuel pump with a screen and plan to filter all the fuel about sixty US gallons (170 litres) worth, then I will remove the drain plug and flush the tank. Because this is going to take almost every fuel can that I have found, I need to do this pretty quick as that is a lot of fuel to have sitting around. So the plan is to draw all the fuel from the tank with the transfer pump, filtering it as we go, then drain the remainder of the tank, then flush with some of the newly filtered fuel, then replace the tank plug and transfer all the fuel back into the tank. So when all is said and done all the fuel will have been through the screen and filter twice which should reassure no more fuel issues. At least that’s the plan, so Monday I will be busy executing the plan, hopefully with no or very few hick ups.

There was a movie night for the kids last Saturday evening, with a huge white tarp on the work shop wall, allowing for a picture more than 10 feet (3 metres) high and excellent sound to make for a great night. But was very poorly attended for what ever reason, it has been a very difficult year with so many restrictions because of the pandemic, some parents seem to take the new requirements serious, but we have noticed some underage children just turned loose to run amuck, but that’s the normal difference of good or poor parenting skills … just saying.