Category: Solar

Day 2775

Some time in limbo…

We are back to our home Province, and we for the first time in many years do not have somewhere to be and something to do, And while that is well and good we both know that we need something to do and we both have things that we want and need to do but we need to get settled to accomplish many of them, so for the next few days we are just literally kicking around the Niagara region bouncing between harvest host spots and parking lots.

And rather than bore you all to death with our day to day dribble, I may only post when something special happens, oh I still have some blogs to catch up on.

Lets just say it is cold as hell this morning the coach is 10ºC (50ºF), i mean it was chilly yesterday and we got no sun so I used my mattress warmer when I went to bed, I’m up too early 5:45 this morning, I slipped on my housecoat and sat down at my laptop. By 6:30 the sun was peaking over the trees, and by 7:30 we were harvesting power and the coach was warming up. I just lite the stove and started the coffee perk and soon Miss Laurie was peeking from the bedroom. Our battery bank hasn’t been fully charged for a week but if we get as much sunshine as they have forecast we will get there today.

Breakfast was fresh perked coffee along with a Danish as we are only moving a few kilometers today. I’m going to get propane for Thunder today, I haven’t filled the tank for more than a year, since I replaced the cooling unit with a 12 volt system the only appliance using propane is the two burner stove. I have been pricing propane across the continent and the price in the States was $3.999, at truck stops that are easy to get to, some places were as low as $3.199, but were difficult to get a 40′ coach into. Our tank is a 100 lb tank which holds 75 liters (20 gallons) and today I had it topped off with 65.4 liters (17.3 gallons) and my cost was $65.00 cdn which calculates to $2.70 US per gallon. While I got propane Miss Laurie found a laundromat to wash clothes, we met up at the Walmart lot in Welland ON.

Lunch was a grilled chicken wrap, with a side of Fritos, the day is still cool 16ºC (61ºF) but it has been bright and we have reached 100% on the battery bank, I have spent the day updating our resumes as Miss Laurie is going to try to find a parttime job this summer, myself I’m not really working hard at working this summer but remain open to any possibilities.

The photo below is of tonight’s sunset over the blue sign store, there has been more traffic here than I would have imagined but I suspect it will drop off shortly. Dinner was hamburgers which is a Friday night tradition, we are going to catch up with our YouTube peeps tonight and will turn in sometime after dark.

Today’s numbers: run time 0:46 hours, travelled 47.3 kilometers (29.4 miles) consumed 15.1 liters (4 gallons) of diesel fuel we averaged 53.1 kmph (33 mph) fuel consumption 32 liters / 100 km (7.3 mpg) cold start warm ups are tough on short distance days. But on the bright side our solar array has harvested 532 amp / hrs of power or almost 6.4 kilowatts of solar power and as I prepare to call it a day our battery bank is @ 91%.

Day 2774

Back in Canada!

11 days from Superior Arizona to Fort Erie Ontario, it has been a trek and I think we kept the drive days short enough that we all survived well. Of course we are not done with our roaming just yet as our park doesn’t open for a week yet but we will kick around the Niagara region for a while, visit some friends and family and mooch dock in a couple of driveways. So todays destination is another Walmart just over the border.

6:20 and I’m waking up to a cold overcast day here in Erie PA, but I’m looking forward to being back in Canada and knowing we are just two hours away is a good feeling. I also know we have one hundred miles of some of the meanest drivers on the road, the folks out west are bad drivers but the literally the east coast driver are vicious. Breakfast this morning was a toasted bacon & tomato sandwich always a good choice even better when the tomatoes are vine ripened, it is a cold morning 48ºF (8.8ºC) and there is rain in the forecast today again. Six count them six day of driving with the wipers on, seriously the April showers are suppose to yield to the May flowers!

On the road before nine o’clock after a little longer warm up, just a few hundred yards back to I-90 and east bound toward New York state and the Peace Bridge crossing back into Ontario and our home country of Canada, and yes it is still cold, the trees are just budding, and still some snowplowing debris in the parking lots but it is still great to be back. But the border, crossing the border at the Peace bridge reminded me of our crossing at the Bluewater bridge back in the spring of 2020. We exited I-90, had no traffic in front of us, a single lane going to Canada, but no traffic either direction, when we got in sight of the Canadian customs there were six lanes open 4 regular 2 Nexus and one car at one lane. I slowed down and entered the Nexus line and from the time we entered the border and customs booth we were 35 seconds and we were rolling again, I watched the dash cam to check the time from our exit off of I-90 till we cleared the toll arm and entered the Queen Elizabeth Way was less than 6 minuets.

And the Walmart is less than 2 kilometers (1.6 miles), we picked a spot in front of the garden center and settled in before noon. We are playing a waiting game, another Walmart tomorrow then a Harvest Host and we will see what next week brings as we determine when we can get into our park. It is 4:30 and I’m typing away we watched a movie and I have the golf on, I hear there is a new pope, but we still don’t have any sunshine, so the solar system is not happy, but nothing a little generator time can’t fix, we are facing east so hopefully it will peak out tomorrow. For dinner tonight we went out for Chinese at Happy Jacks in downtown Fort Erie, we haven’t been for we figured at least eight years and I suspect even longer, and the food was just as good as I remember and we have enough left overs for another meal.

Today’s numbers: run time today 2:03 hours distance travelled 161 kilometers (100 miles) we consumed 48 liters (12.7 gallons) of diesel fuel, we averaged 77 kilometers per hour (48 mph) and our fuel efficiency was 30.15 liters per 100 kilometers (7.8 mpg). Lower average speed today a good quantity of 55 mph speed limit as well as a number of construction zones, plus a longer warm up period because of the cold.

The trek numbers: total distance covered 3487 kilometers (2229 miles) we purchased 1078.99 liters (277.38 gallons) of diesel fuel and a quick calculation has us at 29.27 liters /100 km (8.04 mpg) average fuel efficiency, and while not totally accurate was we were not topped off at the start or finish I was over ¾ on the gauge. The painful number was the cost of fuel $1178.32 Canadian ($853.82 American), at the time of writing this blog I have not received the amount of our last fuel purchase discount but I’m expecting less than $20.00 so it is not going to change the numbers drastically. There will also be some toll charges from Oklahoma, Ohio and New York as well as the Peace bridge