Watercolour Landscapes of the Yukon
The old adage is somewhat true. Let’s be honest. Most people don’t swoon over the view of a new grey water tank. But, control yourself because here it is:
Now to me, it’s a thing of beauty and missing only a few coupler bolts to lengthen the rods that hold it in place. I’ll pick them up tomorrow and I can drive the camper again any time after the 15 minutes or so it will take to permanently install it…
Needless to say, we’ve had a minor setback in the camping department. Mother Nature seems to have dealt us a wee blow and there are still a few repairs that need finishing on the camper.
In case you don’t know what Mother Nature did to us, here’s what it looked like at 1 o’clock this morning:
Considering that it snowed longer and harder up the highway at Kusawa Lake, I’ve lost my interest in going out for the long weekend. Hopefully, next week will be a bit better. The good news is that it’s melting already…
I have a number of things I really would like to get around to doing. The camper repairs need finishing, the boat needs seasonal setup, the mosquito vac needs fixing and so on.
I also have the last showing of the play tonight, but plenty of time to get to most of these things. However, I seem to have no ambition today whatsoever. I’ve run through my lines twice. All seems well, so I probably could go out and work.
After a little thinking, I’ve decided I’m going to take things easy and enjoy today. After all, it’s the last day of a run and I think I’m due for a little laziness.
Maybe, if I call it efficiency, since it looks exactly the same as laziness, it will sound a bit better…
The work on the camper progresses. Yes, I said “progresses.”
I took the tank to see if it could be repaired. I didn’t get the answer I was hoping for. Yes, it could be repaired but it would cost about $250 and with the amount of material fatigue, there was no guarantee that leaks wouldn’t start just by putting it in my truck and driving it home. I can take a hint occasionally and did manage to get the word, “condemned” out of that. So, I took the tank home and measured it and went off to one of the sheet metal fabricators in town with a drawing.
The estimate was a bit more than I was hoping for. However, there really wasn’t any choice. Newer tanks don’t have a drain in the center. Rather, they drain from one side or the other. The only choice is to get a new tank built and metal is the best choice. Therefore, I said to build it and bit the bullet. However, when I went to pick it up, the guy said that it wouldn’t cost as much as the quote and there was a $125 difference between the quoted price and the actual cost of the tank.
I picked up the fittings I need and now just need to do a bit of measuring and cutting the holes for the intake and vent pipes. These get a rubber grommet-style connector that the ABS pipes fit into. However, I get to agonize over cutting the holes since they have to be in the exact spots and you only get one chance to do it right. How does the saying go? “Measure nine times, cut once?”
I need to put in one more water line piece as well. It was getting late when I was working on these so I quit when I had the last one left. Oh, well. This is a good project for the morning before I start working on finishing the tank. Then, I have a little repair job to do on my mosquito vac.
Ahhh, it must be spring. I have more jobs to do than you can do in a spring and summer…
Well, the use of the proper tool wasn’t much help. The fitting on the back of the water heater is simply in there too tight to remove with a basin wrench. That left plan B, removing the hot water heater.
A friend mentioned the other day that it would be a better way to do it, even though it would take over an hour to get the heater out. I sucked up my courage and started the awful chore of pulling out the water heater. In total, it took almost 10 minutes to do.
I’ll admit, it’s now a little ugly looking with a huge hole in the side of the camper. However, this just gives me an excuse to clean out this area before the water heater goes back in. And, with an 18″ pipe wrench, you’d be amazed at how quickly the fitting came off the back. Of course, you can convince a lot of things into compliance with an 18″ pipe wrench, can’t you?
So, I’ll let the area dry out a bit tonight and pick up a new fitting tomorrow morning, and run in the new water line. I’m going to run in a city water connection, a lacking amenity, at the same time. With a little luck, I’ll have the water supply sorted out tomorrow afternoon. Then, all I need is the grey water tank repaired and we’ll be back in business…
Well, no rehearsal this week so I go back to being a plumber. Or an RV tech. Or, at least trying to approximate one or the other.
I borrowed a good basin wrench and found a file. So, other than a bit of memorisation over the weekend, I get the opportunity to run the new water lines and hopefully, deal with that little leak problem. Of course, this will take place after the game is over…
Did you ever have one of those days? I picked up most of the supplies to fix the plumbing on the camper yesterday. I managed to get the grey water tank off and cleaned off the other day and needed some new copper tubing and fixtures to patch into the water line and replace the leaking bits. However, that’s where it sort of ended.
Tapping in the new line is the easy bit. I do have to get the fitting off that meets up with the water heater. Here’s where the real fun starts. What I really need to do is latch on to it with an 18″ pipe wrench but, since it’s a camper, you have about 3″ of space to fit the 18″ tool into so you can remove it. The ideal tool in such a case is a basin wrench which should work, unless the fitting is in too tight to get it out. On my shopping list yesterday was a basin wrench (they cost about $10-15). Needless to say, I forgot to get it.
That’s okay. I wanted to put some penetrating oil on the fitting to make it easy to remove anyway and will pick one up today. However, when I cut into the line to put in a union and measure the tubing, I ran into a bit of a problem. Cutting the tube was no issue. But to flare the end, you need to file the end of the cut down to remove the rough edges left by the tubing cutter. In the 400 sq. ft. of garage, do you think I could find a flat file? More shopping, I guess…
After class today, I get to run the grey water tank to the RV repair shop to see if they can fix the leak. Hopefully, it is patchable since replacing it is a major pain. Patching it involves polyethylene welding, since there is no adhesive that will actually stick to the material. Think of it this way: try to glue something to a plastic milk jug. It’s the same material. When the black water tank gave up the ghost, I had another made from aluminum and added the holes, fittings, etc. to match it to fit. Hopefully, I find out this afternoon that I’ve avoided this…
I always enjoy the first read through of a play. I’ll discount the fact that I kind of know the contents. However, when you get to see an actor’s interpretation of the dialogue, it is always neat. A script is really nothing more than words on a page and how it gets presented is always a congruence of the vision of the director, the actors and the designers.
There’s a great quote, although I can’t remember who said it or exactly how it goes. Basically, you pour your heart and soul into writing a play, and then, hand it to a directors, actors and designers who ruin it. Since I’m the director and the designer and half the actors, and since Heather is doing a stunning job in the other half, I don’t think we’ll ruin it…
There are a few things left to get on this weekend. I’m going to need a large coffee urn, although I do have a backup plan if I don’t get it. I need to draft the press release for the play. I need to line up someone to videotape the play during tech week. I also have to do a bit of design work yet, too. I don’t know what days the play will run or the times it will run. I find that out next week. At the same time, I find out which of the two rooms we go in, and I’ll need that to finalize quite a few things.
I also want to fit in some work on the motorhome. After all, camping season is coming right after the festival and I need to be ready. With the winter we’ve had, the lakes should be open early and the sooner fishing comes, the better…
This is the second time we’ve gone camping and the second time we came in for a memorial service over the weekend. I went out on Thursday definitely not in the mood for a camping trip, but under some profound encouragement, went out anyway. I didn’t think I was going to be the happiest camper in the world. I was a bit down in the dumps over Steve Cardiff’s death and have not been feeling well for a few days. Neither contributed to the possibility of a great weekend.
In spite of it all, it was a nice weekend. We went out with Shawna and little Hanna and the weather, in spite of a forecast that had rain as the high point for the entire weekend (thunder showers were the forecast for the less than good days). The weather did hold for much of the weekend although the Kusawa Lake road was not in its best shape. Actually, the road was some of the worst I’ve seen it since they upgraded the road about 10 or so years ago. This was kind of curious since, at the turnoff from the Alaska Highway, there is a big Canadian Economic Action Plan sign with Road Improvements listed as the project on it. I suspect that whoever was overseeing the project spent a lot of money on beer.
As mentioned, we did come in for a bit. I came in Friday afternoon to go to the play reading of Catherine Frid’s Homegrown. I was definitely curious to see what all the controversy over the play was, since the Prime Minister’s Office stated that the play “glorified terrorism” and may have resulted in the termination of federal funding for the festival where it first ran. In case you’re curious, the children’s book Goodnight Moon is probably as controversial.
Saturday, Clara came back in the morning so we could go to Steve’s memorial service. It was a nice service and at least 400 people came out for it. After the service, I went outside for a bit. It was held at the Convention Centre, next to the High County Inn, locally famous for the 20 foot high wooden mountie in front. The last time I stepped outside for a smoke with Steve was under the mountie, so I sat out there for a bit myself with a nice little cigar. It’s kind of a hokie thing, but…
We went back in that evening. It was incredibly windy most of the weekend. I’m glad that we didn’t bring a boat with us since we would have taken it for nothing.
Katrina came out Saturday as well, so we had quite a group. Ryan was supposed to come out that evening, but he didn’t make it. We had a bit of a panic and Katrina and I drove out to the highway to cellphone range and called him. He had left too late so wasn’t coming out.
The girls left on Sunday after we made Sunday dinner: salt beef, roast, chicken and vegetables. Clara and I decided to stay an extra day and spent most of the evening on the beach in front of the campsite. We got up early and came back so I could pick up the new outboard for the inflatable boat. There should be pictures of that coming up shortly. All in all, I did have a decent time and, as you can see, camping isn’t the most stressful thing in the world…
A long weekend is always a good time to head out of town and enjoy the fact that we live in a beautiful place. The weather was less than perfect. Saturday was far and away the best weather day of the weekend but we spent part of that day in town. We went to a friend’s memorial service for part of the day. There was a great turnout and it was a lovely service.
Sunday and part of today, it rained, quite hard at time. However, there were still some high points.
For example, we had a marvellous sunset on Saturday evening. The sky had turned a neat shade of red and yellow and the sunset picture had a lovely view of the horizon over the ice and some open water. The additional bonus is that this sunset happened at 11 PM. It is late May and there is still almost a month left until solstice. So, there is still an awful lot of daylight left to add.
The lake, as you can see in the picture, is still largely iced over. Some of this is not really solid and much of the lake cover is more like a slushee than ice but it will still be a week or two before anyone gets to throw a boat in and do a bit of fishing . I’m still trying to figure out how my knee surgery will fit into the lake’s schedule but we will see. I have to get the boat inflated and put the floor boards in and then configure the trailer since that has yet to be done. I also have to determine whether or not the bloat will function with the motor as a long shaft or whether I have to remove the adapter and convert it back into a short shaft. And, since I can’t take any real vacation until after June 1st to make sure that everything gets done, this may not happen.
So, when will I get out next? Ryan’s grad is next weekend so we won’t go anywhere then. Therefore, we must wait and see, wait and see…
Doug Rutherford 