More upgrades

So we met with an aunt and uncle that we will be travelling with for a while this summer and Alvin said "I want to go to Telegraph Creek" - I said - "Me too - but I will need new tires". The road is known to be terrible and it eats tires and the tires on the truck were OK but not good enough for that trip so the truck has new shoes.

We also added a Wilson Cell booster to the truck and I am putting an antenna on the trailer so that we can extend the range of the cell service (http://www.rfconnectionshop.com/).

We pulled the carpet out of the trailer because the linoleum is easier to manage with the dogs.

Next week - more work on the truck.

The solar panel is keeping the battery charged so we don't have to plug the trailer in when we are not using it.

Trailer Upgrades

Getting the trailer ready. We have added a 130 W solar panel to the trailer to charge the batteries when we are staying at places with no power (i.e. provincial campgrounds). We also added an inverter that is wired both to the trailer batteries and to the electric panel in the trailer. This allows us to charge / run the computers, hard drives and printers from all of the outlets in the trailer when we are staying at places without power.

The next step will be to add a cell booster (to both the truck and trailer) to boost the cell signals so we extend the cell coverage.

The list

Hey everyone I've looked through the posts that my mom left after the last trip and I noticed that she forgot one very important thing, the lists. There are three lists that we use in the trailer, the setup list, the pack up list and the back up pack up list. The pack up list is to ensure that everything is packed up, the back up pack up list is to ensure that nothing is forgotten. Both of those lists are used when we leave and neither of them have been changed since our old trailer because they have a bunch of unneeded thing on them. The set up list is used when we arrive and is used to make sure that me and dad have done everything before we start to relax, it is the most recent of the lists and therefore the most up to date, but not up to date enough apparently. I say that it is not up to date enough because after me and dad checked the list twice and left to relax we realized that there were a bunch of things that we hadn't done that we normally do off instinct that we forgot to do that were not on the list, like unpacking the stuff under my bed.

Malahat backed up

So, yesterday a truck overturned on the Malahat.  When we got to Whippletree Junction just outside of Duncan we pulled in and wandered the shops for a while trying to decide what to do.

We had to make some decisions...just as we were deciding we should get a campsite for the night, the highway finally opened again - 21 hours after it had closed.

Test run to CR

Out to Campbell River for a spring test run.  Don't have the solar yet (next couple of weeks).  Don't have the cell booster yet either.  That might have helped here.

Staying at Brown's Bay Resort - Ripple Rock RV Park.  19K north of CR then down a 5K unpaved road.   The scenery is gorgeous.  It is cold though.  Fresh snow on the mountains as we were driving up and it is 4C outside right now.

Coffee's hot and the muffins are just out of the oven.  Life is good.

Solar and cell power

As we are getting ready for our trip and preparing the trailer.  We decided we also need to have the trailer as our emergency supplies in the case of an earthquake (such as the one in Japan).

This means that the cell booster and the solar power we decide to get are not just for dry camping, but to keep us connected in the event of an emergency.  This also means the decision on which one to buy, and how much we need, gets more complicated.

Decisions, decisions . . .

Getting Ready

We are getting the truck and trailer ready.

With the truck it was in pretty good shape to start with. It has more power than stock and an exhaust brake to help with the extra weight of the trailer when going down hills. I had extra leafs added to the spring pack to help with the extra weight of the trailer - they added an extra leaf in the main pack and another one in the overloads. I also had heavy duty 4X4 shocks installed - it does ride like a truck. This will stop the truck and trailer from wandering in the wind like it did last year driving across Nevada.

I just had all of the filters changed and the fluids checked (partly because of driving through 2 feet of water during the flood in Bella Coola). I also had a heavy duty differential cover put on the rear axel. That should keep the rear differential cooler and will stop any distortion of the axel when we are towing.

Hey I'm the son

Hello the many of my friends and family members and parent's friends who will be reading this

I just thought I'd test out the blog by sending in a post myself

It is also a good way to introduce me

First post

We are less than six months away from starting our trip.  Just starting to get organized.  Need to think about what else the trailer needs (like a cell booster) for our trip.