Category: Revelation

Starlink, star blink, first star I see tonight…

We bought Starlink specifically for this trip. In case you’ve been living in a cave for the past couple of years, Starlink is a small antenna that gives you internet connections based on a fleet of satellites launched by the Space Nazi himself. Evidently Starlink is the only part of SpaceX which is currently profitable.

We’ve set it up and tried to use it at just about every campsite, and so far the score isn’t great. Shady sights with lots of tree cover, like I tend to prefer for aesthetic reasons, do not get you sufficient space for the Starlink signal to get through. As a matter of fact, the only place we’ve had decent service this whole trip is the place I hated the most, Carol’s near Sudbury. And mostly for the same reasons – no trees.

Providence Bay should have been a decent connection but it kept telling me I was too obstructed. There was a solid line of trees behind me in that picture in my last post. The instructions that came with the Starlink devices say that the antenna has a 110 degree field of view, so in line with that and the line of trees, I attempted to get the best field of view by tilting the antenna down so that it was 60 or so degrees off the horizontal. I asked for help from facebook group for RV Starlink users, but just about every single one of them ignored the whole business about the 110 degree field of view and the tall trees, and said I needed to have the antenna perfectly flat. Only one of the dozens of respondents told me something useful, which is that you need to clear the obstruction map every time you move it. Unfortunately I didn’t get that info until after we’d left Providence Bay.

I already wrote about our arrival at Carol’s. The next morning, we went to Science North. It made me nostalgic for The Ontario Science Center. The architecture was really excellent, especially the way they incorporated the natural rock into the design and the learning. It was mostly set up for kids, of course, but Vicki and I were entertained and impressed. We also bought tickets for the IMAX show. It was, as to be expected, gorgeous and very informative. On the way home, we stopped for a few things – so much easier to do that when you don’t have the trailer.

Carol’s was the only place where we managed to watch streaming YouTubes without buffering or stuttering.

The next day, we “reluctantly” said goodbye to Carol’s and headed off to Arrowhead Provincial Park. Another beautiful drive. If it hadn’t been for that tourism brochure I linked to in my last post, we probably wouldn’t have bothered and just booked an extra day in Algonquin Park. But honestly, it was probably a life saver because the last couple of miles I was having trouble keeping my eyes open.

Arrowhead is a gorgeous park, with tall red pines and a lovely lake. The campsites were far apart for lots of privacy. Just like I remembered it when Mum and me camped there 40-odd years ago. I don’t recall why we camped there, but I can think of two possible reasons – either there was an orienteering event near by, or it was coming home from our canoe trip in the north end of Algonquin.

But the tall trees meant our Starlink was useful enough to download a web page to read it (as long as you didn’t mind hitting refresh and waiting a bit, then repeating 3 or 4 times), but you wouldn’t want to watch even a Facebook short video on it.

Our Arrowhead Sky

We unfortunately only had one night in Arrowhead, but I was eager to get to Algonquin. Well, I say “eager”, but we didn’t leave Arrowhead until nearly 2pm. So we had some walking around time there, even if we didn’t have bike riding or paddling time.

We hit Algonquin and even the road in was bringing back so many memories. I don’t think I’ve been here in 40 years, and some things have changed a bit. There’s obviously been some tourism money in those years because the lodges and restaurants in the park have gone very upscale (except Lake of Two Rivers Store, which looks like a tourist dive from Lake Placid). There are several new interpretive trails, but all the old faves are there. The park museum has moved from where it used to be, which is now the Algonquin Art Centre, up to not very far from where we are camping. They’ve also added some cycling infrastructure, including a long trail along the abandoned railway line, and another trail that looks like it has real mountain biking potential.

Arrival day got cloudy soon after we arrived, and got rainy later. Today was our first real day here, and it was pretty rainy. We took the time to do some laundry (which involved a trip into town to hit an ATM and get some change, because Canada is so into tap-to-pay that we’ve been here 10 days and this is the first time I’ve wanted cash. I was actually a little surprised that the park laundromats didn’t have tap-to-pay. Can you imagine some beat up old washing machine that looks like it survived two wars, with a shiny new tap-to-pay device on the top?) After the laundry, we went to the Algonquin Visitor’s Center/Museum. Amusingly enough, we arrived just as about 10 or so uniformed park employees were leaving, which made us worry we got there just as it was closing, but nobody said anything and it turned out it didn’t close for an hour.

Other than disclosing that I’m not as good at recognizing birds (or at least shop-worn taxidermied birds) as I used to be, the exhibits were very well laid out and explained. And an hour is just about the right amount of time.

Tomorrow I’m hoping the weather is better and we can get up and out for an early morning paddle or bike ride. Our time is limited, especially since we tend to consider a travel day a nothing-but-travel day.

Speaking of which, a friend from college noticed I’d posted something from Arrowhead, and said he’s at his cottage, not too far away and do we want to come by for a day or two. Well, don’t want to cut short our Algonquin time, but maybe trim the 2 night Parry Sound stay down to one and try to flog ourselves into doing something touristy on a travel day.

But all this is hard to arrange because once again, we’re in a beautiful sun dappled campsite which means Starlink can’t find shit.

I believe there might be a Starlink satellite coming by soon
Some campsite, eh?

I finally caved and bought a Canadian data e-Sim to at least be able to do some amended route planning and stuff like that, that is if Vicki doesn’t use it all watching cow hoof trimming videos.

Further updates coming eventually. Hopefully I’ll catch a satellite soon to upload this.

To Sauble Falls, and beyond!

Setting up in Sauble Falls, we discovered that there are a lot of mosquitos around. There hadn’t been any at the previous two nights, but we should have expected it. Good thing we’d brought both Deep Woods Off and Coleman 100% Deet. The second one is harking back to my backpacking days, when Muskol was the only thing that really worked.

We had two nights at Sauble, and the first one was basically set up and go to bed early. The friendly campers in the spot next to us played Corn Hole and sat around their fire until all hours of the night, so we kept the windows shut on that side of the camper.

Early the next morning, the camp host stopped by and gave us a paper copy of that map, and a news letter about local day trips. I’d originally thought we’d spend our day touring the local lighthouses. But after taking the dogs for a walk up to see the falls, we just sort of vegged out around the trailer, Vicki mostly inside, and me and the dogs outside in our new camp chairs. Vicki doesn’t like to cover herself with Deet the way I do, so I was perfectly comfortable out there in the mosquitos.

On our walk around, we got to talking to one of the other campers and found out that the ferry to Manitoulin Island, the Chi-Cheemaun, can be very picky about the lengths of your combined truck and trailer. And I thought back to when I’d booked the ferry ticket I’d just sort of guestimated the full length. I dug out my way too short tape measure and figured that based on kicking lines in the dirt at each tape measure length, we were actually 50 feet long instead of the 46 feet I’d booked.

I tried calling the ferry company but it was after hours, and so I left a message on their voice mail and sent an email. And I worried all night. Early the next morning, I got a call back from them, and it the person on the phone said that the ferry was fully booked, and there was a good chance we wouldn’t be allowed to board. Ok, now I’m really worried. I decided we needed to get there as early as we could, so we packed up early and headed to Tobermory.

And just because it’d been too long since our last disaster, we discovered that the running lights on the trailer weren’t lit. Fortunately the important stuff (brake lights, turn signals, trailer brakes) were all working. The rear camera on the trailer was cutting in and out, but that had happened last time we’d travelled with kayaks and bikes in the bed of the truck so I don’t know if that means it wasn’t getting any power, or if the wireless signal was being attenuated by the bikes and boats.

When we got to the ferry terminal, the guy there just measured our rig (I think they just had marking on the ground, rather than pulling out a tape measure) and said it was 51 feet long. He made us pay another couple of bucks, and directed us to the correct line. He also noticed my two-four of Molson Export in the bed of the truck, and jokingly said he’d have to confiscate that. I said there were cold ones in the fridge if he wants a couple of them. He laughed and said they weren’t allowed to.

Ok, now we had some time to kill before the ferry, so I spent a lot of time diagnosing the problem with the running lights. Or at least I tried to. When we first bought the truck and the trailer, we got all the way home from the RV place (which had involved some thruway traffic) before we discovered that we didn’t have *most* of the functions from the 7 pin hitch plug – no electric brakes, no brake signals, I think one of the turn signals was working, but also no running lights. I used my pathetic skills with a multimeter to determine that there was no power coming from the truck on those pins. After taking it back to the dealership twice, both times which they said it was working fine, we finally put our foot down and demanded they fix it, the morning we were supposed to leave for our first trip. It turns out that each time we’d taken the truck back to the dealer, they’d hooked it up to their own flatbed trailer (not a RV trailer) WITH THE 4 PIN HITCH PLUG, and pronounced it working. This time the owner of the used truck dealer took it to a guy he knew who worked at a muffler shop, and that guy determined the problem was some blown fuses. I pretty much decided that the truck dealer didn’t know what they were talking about and tried to avoid using them for maintenance.

But anyway, based on that, I bought two boxes of assorted fuses, but somehow I didn’t get the ones that Ram uses. I mean, the Ram uses a bunch of different types of fuses, even using 3 different styles of fuse for the same amperage. I have no idea why they’d do that other than shear bloody mindedness. And the 3 fuses that seem like were most related to my problem were not the standard blade type fuses. So trying to replace fuses to see if it helped was out. Instead I just pulled those three fuses and reseated them. I was going to pull out the multimeter and test if there was any power coming on the various pins of the 7 pin hitch plug, but that’s when the ferry showed up and it was time to get ready to load up.

We’d been dealing with mist off and on when we left Sauble, although it was quite sunny while waiting for the ferry. But before we left the dock, it started to get misty again and by half way through the ride we could barely see the islands around us. Otherwise the ferry ride was uneventful, although the food they served was about half as good as what we got on BC Ferries. Also, when you leave the car deck, there are signs showing you which level and sector you’re on, but when you come down the stairs to the car deck, there are no signs! You have to open the door and look at the sign on the other side. Fortunately there are only two car decks, and we were second from front, so it wasn’t that hard to find.

By the time we got off the ferry, we were going in and out of rain. The private park we were booked (Providence Bay) into wasn’t anything special, but it wasn’t bad either. The Starlink was complaining about how obscured the antenna was.

Spot the obstructions

We set up as quickly as we could between rain showers, and eventually it stopped. That allowed us to take the boys for a walk along the boardwalk on the beach across the road. But it continued to rain off and on so we mostly had an evening in the camper.

Next day it was still raining off and on, and we packed up when we got a break in the weather. We drove off Manitoulin Island to the north, and drove through some of the prettiest scenery I’ve ever seen. Just gorgeous. It rained off and on, but the hardest it rained was when we arrived at our second private campground, Carol’s. Like the previous one, this one was recommended by this tourism pamphlet thing we used as the basis for planning this trip. When we pulled in, we almost pulled right out. It looks like the epitome of one of those check-by-jowl campsites where you can’t look out any window without seeing a bunch of people a few feet away. It also immediately started pouring rain. I was tired because of dog troubles last night, and the driving, so I said we’re staying at least one night, maybe we’ll pull up stakes and find somebody better tomorrow. We unpacked as well as we could in the pouring rain, but we didn’t unhitch, didn’t hook up the sewer hoses, and didn’t unpack the Blackstone. A hour or two later, the rain seemed like it was well and truly gone, and with a nice view of the lake and blue skies, it didn’t look so bad. Maybe we will stay two nights. At least it’s got full hookups. I think tomorrow we’d like to go see Science North and maybe the Big Nickel.

It’s only 6:30 pm, but I’ve had enough writing today. Tune in for the next installment.

Definitely time to start using a paper checklist

Last week, Vicki was out of town, so I used the time to install a rack on the back of the trailer to carry the Blackstone grill. Afterwards, I wondered if putting the heavy grill that far behind the wheels would lever up the front (hitch) end enough to cause swap problems, so I loaded up and pulled the trailer out to the local CAT scale. First I weighed it all loaded and hitched, and then I wanted to unhitch the trailer and weigh the truck without the trailer, and the trailer without the truck. In order to get the trailer squarely on the 3rd weight pad, so even the hitch jack was on that pad, I had to back up a bit. Then for some stupid reason, I decided to use more wooden blocks under the jack than I normally use – mostly just to reduce the amount of extending and retracting of the hitch jack I had to do. I disconnected the weight distribution bars, and unhitched. Fine, I thought, ready to reweigh, except then I noticed the front tires of the truck weren’t on the front pad any more, so without thinking I pulled forward. Unfortunately I’d left the safety chains attached because I hadn’t been planning to pull forward, and I heard and felt a bit of a calamity happen when I pulled forward. I quickly jumped out and found the chains had pulled the trailer forward enough that the hitch jacks had toppled the stack of blocks, and make a big bend on the rear part of the hitch jack pad. Fortunately it had landed on the weigh pad, so I took my data and then got the hell out of there, properly hitched and with my tail between my legs, feeling like an idiot.

After that, I took the trailer back to the storage lot. I was feeling pretty good about myself because I’d backed it into the spot in one shot, almost erasing the shame of the previous error. Once again, I used the bigger stack of blocks. But when I pulled the lever to release the trailer hitch from the ball on the truck hitch (too many hitch words, got to come up with something better), the truck fell further than usual, and the trailer jumped enough that it fell off the blocks again. This time it fell off the back of the blocks, and so bent the front part of the jack pad.

You’ll notice I’m back to only 3 blocks

Not too surprisingly, what it took the weight of a 7,000 pound trailer to bend, I can’t unbend with a little hammer.

So now I felt twice as stupid as I had after the incident at the CAT scale, and I resolved not to drop the hitch without chocking first.

Flash forward to day 2 of our big long Ontario loop. We’d only spent one night in our first destination, near Niagara Falls Ontario. I like a short first day because it sort of gets you back in the camping mindset without stressing you out too much. Because we were just staying overnight, I left the trailer hitched up.

This morning after I thought we were ready to go, I took walk around the whole truck and trailer, mentally checking off everything on the checklist I’m working on in my mind. Everything looked perfect. Off we go, and I feel a tiny bit of a bump just as we’re starting off. It was a lot more gentle than last trip when I tried to set off with the chocks still in place, or 2 years ago when I almost set off with the stairs down. Thinking it was probably just something in the road, we continued on. It was a longish day by my standards, and we didn’t stop for much except some fuel and snacks. But on our way into the campground, I stopped at a water spigot to fill the fresh tank. As I’m standing there listening to the water flowing in, I noticed something was off. The hitch jack was pretty darn low. And I suddenly realized, with horror, that that little jump I’d felt when we were leaving was because I hadn’t retracted the hitch jack, and that was just what it feels like when you leave 3 of your wooden blocks behind. Fortunately we didn’t do any more damage to the hitch jack plate, and we were lucky there weren’t any speed bumps or sharp pitch changes on the any on ramps or something.

But that’s it, I can’t keep my checklist in my mind. I’ve got to make it extensive, and probably have it printed so both Vicki and I can do our own walk around and make sure nothing is missed.

Big day

Today, I had a big day (for me). My pain levels were moderate, so I got down to do several things I wanted to get done before our big trip.

First thing I did was mow my grass. I mowed it yesterday, but because the grass was very high from our 10 days in BC, the first mow left big lines of grass clippings and some strips where the grass bent down and popped up after. So this time I did it 90 degrees to the first mow, so it got most of the clippings and most of the places where the grass sprung back up. I didn’t used to be this concerned about my lawn, but I got kind of shamed into it – my next door neighbor on one side is a lawn fanatic, who mows his lawn about every other day, and when he does he does 3 passes to get exactly the right diamond pattern. I don’t want to emulate him, but I also don’t want to get him mad at me because he’s an excellent neighbor. One thing that has changed is that he always used to mow the grass that technically belongs to us but that is on his side of our driveway – about a 3 foot strip – but this year he hasn’t. I suspect that’s a reaction to the fact that I’ve driven the trailer on that piece of lawn, and when we’re loading/unloading it we leave the trailer’s steps down on that grass. Oh, and when we assembled our Blackstone we ended up doing it on that stretch of grass and left it a bit muddy although it’s 100% recovered (although we never did find some screws we dropped). The neighbor on the other side mows his grass at a much more sane interval and doesn’t try to make baseball diamond style patterns – he’s who I try to emulate with my lawn care. Which reminds me, I’m going to need to hire somebody to mow the lawn while we’re away on our big trip. One of the neighbor kids was offering a service last year, hopefully he’s still doing it.

The other two things I did were at the trailer.

I first wanted to turn my hitch jack 90 degrees. This is a common modification, because when you’re hitched up, you can’t quite open your tailgate because it hits the switches on the hitch jack. Turning it gives you just enough room to open it. It’s a relatively simple procedure, although it involves two things I’ve never done before – drilling a hole through steel, and tapping a screw thread in that hole. But when I looked at the size of the existing holes, I realized I’d ordered the wrong size tap – I had a 5/8th instead of a 5/16th tap. I blame my Canadian education not equipping me with the experience in fractional inches to realize how wrong 5/8ths would be.

So with the wrong tap, I decided that first I needed to do the second thing – assembling and installing the hitch mount cargo carrier. I had a few small problems like misplacing (and later finding) two of the bolts I needed, but mostly it went together well. The biggest problem was that the carrier interfered with the spare tire. I see an under frame spare holder in our future. As I said it’s a hitch mount, but it is pretty amazingly solidly connected. It came with a hitch clamp tightener, which helped, but when it came time to attach it, I was wondering how I was going to be able to reach it to clamp it down, and then I realize the carrier was rated for 500 pounds, so I sat on the carrier to tighten it up. Pretty happy with how it turned out. But I’m definitely going to hit a CAT scale to make sure that having the Blackstone back there doesn’t take too much weight off the truck’s hitch, because too little tongue weight can lead to sway.

With that done, I ran out to the hardware store to buy the proper sized tap. I also bought a Diet Coke because I was dying of thirst working in the hot sun. Previously I had taken some ice out of the freezer and melted it into a cup, but I knocked it over before I could drink it.

So with the correct tap, I was ready to rotate my hitch jack head. Anyway, the video I’d watched for how to do this told me I’d need a 7/64th inch drill, and a 5/16th inch tap. Well, that turned out to be a lie – I drilled the two 7/64th holes, but there was no way to get the tap into the hole. So I tried the next biggest drill. And then I tried the next biggest after that. I think I eventually ended up with 9/32nds. Again, I blame the fact that the Canadian education system taught me the far superior SI system that doesn’t use weird-ass fractions. Drilling the holes was surprisingly easy, especially since I took one of the video’s suggestions to get a punch to make it easier to start drilling on a curved surface. However, driving that tap in was a real pain in the … wrists. But eventually it started going in correctly, and I got it all put back together and tested. Again, I’m pretty happy with the results.

Next up: repacking the pass through space because I think we’re accumulating cruft.

Big RV trip

I’ve finally finished booking all the campsites (and the ferry) for our big Northern Ontario trip. It roughly follows https://maps.northernontario.travel/best/trip/10-day-ontario-provincial-park-rv-route/15589 but I’ve stretched it out to 18 days by adding adding a bunch of double and triple nights and also breaking some of the longer travel days into two.

With the price of diesel, this might be our only long trip this summer, but we’re still planning some short ones and a few medium length ones (like this year’s version of the Keystone Cougar 22MLS Great Lakes Regional Rally (Part 1?))