Wednesday: Decision
time in the morning: try for a spot at Tet or go to the Superior National
Forest. I called the campground when
they opened at 10. They had one
non-reservable open. So we packed up
and got on the road. We got to the
state park at 11, and the site was taken.
Boo. So, we cobbled together some
sites. Our first night would be in a
non-electric. After that, we’d move to
a non-reservable electric site that we can have for up to 14 days.
We got the rig parked with few problems. But we couldn’t get the rig level from front
to back. It was kind of bad, but for
one night we figured we could deal. The
site was nice with decent privacy. Lots
of squirrels for Cassie to chase. We
had a campfire and played scrabble. It
was kind of strange to go back to regular scrabble after so many weeks of
playing Words with Friends. For one, it
was worth it again to look for bingos.
Fun times!
It got quite chilly at night. Down to the mid-30s, I think. The frickin furnace didn’t work at all. We ended up bundling in warm clothes and
running the generator and using an electric heater. The genny ran out of gas at some point, and
we woke up to somewhat cold temps.
Could have been worse.
Thursday: We hiked over to look at the waterfalls after
breakfast. First up: 2 step. We ran this rapid a couple of years
ago. Now, with the drought, it’s hardly
recognizable. Seems like just a trickle
of water going downstream. The small hope
I had that a non-forecasted rain would appear and make the river runnable is thoroughly
extinguished. Wherever we go, we bring a
curse up on the land with regards to kayaking possibilities. After 2 step, we went to high falls. Normally this is a monster, with the falls
able to be heard from far away. Again,
very low water. No loud rapids, no
gorgeous mists rising from the pool.
Sad. But, we did get to rock
hop to the lip of the waterfall and sit for quite a bit. It’s not everyday that you can do that.
After our hike, we checked our new spot. The people there hadn’t left yet, so we
decided to go have showers before packing up our rig. The showers here SUCK! Mine was 4 feet above my head. I had to try to jump up to get any hope of
rinsing off. We’ll just use the fitty
from now on. After we got packed up,
the new campsite was free. Moving this
time was a little harder. We needed to
be in a precise spot (from left to right) whereby the ramp could be used and
the slides could go out. Whenever we
have to work with such a narrow parameters, we usually have difficulty. We ended up pulling forward and reversing
again and again and again. But, we
finally got it parked. This site is
just as unlevel as the other one. The
landing legs are all the way retracted, which makes the rig look funny; like it’s
crashed to the ground.
I took Cassie on a hike on the Superior Hiking Trail. The
trees are displaying their fall finery, and with sunny skies and low 60s, I had
a great hike.
Friday: Today’s
weather was amazing! Sunny and upper
60s. Slight breeze. We took advantage of the nice weather by
spending most of it outside in our loungers.
I did take a break to walk Cassie to the High Falls. She once again displayed poor trail etiquette
when passing people on the narrow trail.
I might try working teaching her a new command. “Cassie: Be Polite!”. That would be sweet if she picked that up!
We had another campfire, to cap off another great day! (We discussed in great detail how we should
plan our next 4-6 months. But we just
couldn’t come to a consensus).
Note: I figured out
the furnace problem!!!!!!! I had an idea
in the middle of the night, and I tested my theory the next day. The issue is the left side of the 2 sided LP
hose system. This is why it was
impossible to diagnose and fix. The
furnace seemed to work or not work based on the whims of the gods. But it turns out, it was just linked to the
left LP tank. Whenever we were drawing
from the left tank, the furnace didn’t work.
What made this issue so goddamn tricky to solve is that the LP tank got
used like normal. It wasn’t like NO gas
was getting through, so we could find the fault. Nope.
It worked fine for the fridge and for the stove, and emptied at the same
rate as the other one. But whenever the
furnace was turned on, it wouldn’t work.
When the gas was switched to pulling from the right LP tank…the furnace
worked. I don’t think in a hundred
years we would have seen this pattern.
The only thing that made me think of it was one time when we were going
to run the fridge while driving, I couldn’t get the fridge to work when the
left LP tank was picked. I switched it
to the right and planned to look into it later. But there was never an issue again. I don’t know what made me think of it in the
middle of the night, but I am so grateful it’s solved. Now we just need to get a new hose
mechanism, and we’ll be as good as new.
What a relief!
Since I googled the hell out of this issue and didn’t get any
hits for this solution, I’m going to put a few phrases here for future googling
of poor saps with the same issue. Hopefully
some other people can benefit from our hard-earned knowledge. Here goes:
Fucking furnace won’t fucking work, but then it will work, but then it
won’t. Fucking piece of crap furnace
keeps quitting for no reason. I hate my
furnace. Why won’t it work when every
goddamn setting is the same? Please fix
my RV furnace!
