Summer Travel Map

Friday, July 27, 2007

Another day of touring – in the heat!

July 26, 2007
Grand Bay-Westfield, NB

Today dawned sunny, without a cloud in the sky. Well, at least I think it did, because that’s how it was when I got up at 8:30. Since it was nice (and who knows how long that will last), we decided to take another day trip, this time up-river toward Fredericton, the provincial capitol. We started out heading east, away from the ferry, through some small towns along a bay in the St John River called “Long Reach”. At the end of the bay, we circled back to the west and picked up the formal scenic route, the “River Valley Trail” which follows the river north – duh.

Today’s drive was scenic, but not as dramatic as the coastal route. We went up along the river, crossing on a couple of ferries and a bridge or two, about a third of the way. I didn’t realize it until checking the map that the St John River tracks along the border with the US along the upper tip of Maine. I’m sure that Rick and Annette know this from their time at Loring AFB.

[Andy Rooney voice] – Did you ever notice how sometimes words and names have a way of popping up in multiple places? “Loring” is one of those. Rick and Annette spent several years at Loring AFB in extreme northern Maine, and Dave and Sandy Thompson’s place is in Loring, Ontario. Why is that? I’d like to know.

Sorry; I’m back. We decided to stop in Oromocto for lunch (we were looking for a McDonald’s with a sign out front saying “McLobster is back”, but didn’t find one). We found that Oromocto is home to a fairly large military installation, as every other street corner had a tank or cannon or some other piece of old field equipment parked there with flowers around it, and there were people dressed in fatigues and berets everywhere.

From there, we headed back home on TC-2 to NB-7, coming into Grand Bay-Westfield from the north for a change. As I said, it was a scenic, but not a “stop the car and take pictures” kind of route.

As the day progressed and we moved inland, it really started to warm up. By the time we were ready to head back around 2 PM, the temperature was in the low 90s (about 33°C), so we needed the A/C in the car. I was wondering if it would be cooler near the coast. Probably, but not where we’re staying! It was pretty much the same when we got back home, and it was quite warm in the coach even though we’d left the windows open.

We’ve been having low voltage issues all week when using the microwave, so I knew this wasn’t going to be pretty. I checked the voltage at the pedestal with a multi-meter and, sure enough, one leg was low and the other was high. When the least little load was applied, the voltage dropped like a rock, to right around 100 volts. This is way too low for the systems in the coach, as the electrical management system (aka “EMS” shuts things down at around 105-107 volts to protect the equipment.

The good news for us all week has been that the upgraded inverter has worked well. Whenever the voltage drops, it switches on instantly and picks up the slack from the battery bank. It’s so good that the clocks on the microwave and alarm don’t even lose blink. This has been OK up until today, since it’s been cool enough that no air conditioning has been required. Not today! I tried a few things (dropping the amps on the charger, hooking up to the 30 amp circuit) but no joy. So, I just fired up the generator and put all three roof A/C units on for a while. Everything worked flawlessly, just reinforcing the fact that it’s bad power coming in from the park. I can’t even see a distribution panel somewhere near us, so the wire runs have to be quite long. If they used aluminum wire and/or cheated with the wiring to simulate a true 3-phase circuit and/or “daisy-chained” the circuits for the sites instead of running them separately, it’s understandable why the voltage would drop like a stone when a load is applied. I checked a few empty sites with the meter and all were low, and I checked with the people on either side of us and they were both having A/C problems, so we’re just toughing it out. There’s no sense arguing with the Park about it since it’s a pretty cheap place (C$175/week for full hookup), although I’ll mention it tomorrow when I go to the office to use the Internet connection. We’re just at the end of a long wiring chain and everyone’s using their A/C in front of us. Since most of the sites before us in the circuit are seasonal, it’s likely that they’ll be taken care of before us transients. It’s just the way it is. Fortunately, we’ve got the generator, although I really don’t want to disturb the neighbors at night. Hopefully, it’ll cool off enough to allow us to sleep, and the power will stay on enough to keep the battery bank charged up!

Even though it was warm, there was a stiff breeze blowing in the afternoon, so we sat outside for a bit while the generator-powered A/C units cooled off the coach. The “big ass” recliner must have been a little too comfortable, as I took a good power nap until just about 7 PM! We opened some wine (Szekszárdi, a Hungarian red I found for C$10 for a 1 liter bottle at the Provincial store; light and fruity, and pretty good for the hot weather) and sat out at the picnic table until the bugs came out, then inside the screen room. I was composing for the blog and Geri was reading, but neither one of us felt like food so we just passed on dinner. We probably should do that more often!

Tomorrow, the plan is to stick close to home, hit the internet connection, and start packing up some stuff in anticipation of our departure on Saturday.

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