Nova Scotia Trip 2010

The Trip Up

The final week of preparations for our Nova Scotia trip was flying by and now hurricane Earl was threatening to make a mess of things. In the end the hurricane fizzled for us giving us only clouds and light breezes and a nice break from temperatures in the upper 90s that had been with us since May, but not a single drop of much-needed rain. The photo shows the edge of the approaching hurricane Earl. I had the bus pretty much in shape, having changed the oil and all of the filters the week before; all I had left was to go and pick up the tow dolly in Winston-Salem. Flora had been handling the bulk of the food and accessory preparations and was closing in on her end of the arrangements. We try to get a chance to let Flora go back home every summer to visit her family in Nova Scotia and I was not sure we would get to go this summer, but after I lost my job my schedule was pretty open so we thought it would be a good time for a shakedown cruise in the bus. We had taken one weekend trip to a bus rally in May and a weekend at Jordan Lake in the summer, but nothing that was much more than 100 miles. This trip of closer to 4000 miles would push the limits a little more and give us a chance to thoroughly test not only the systems, but also my knowledge of the bus systems.

Finally the big day arrived. I got up at 4:00 AM to do one final farmer's market and our plan was to leave right after I got home; well, actually right after I got home and loaded the car onto the dolly, as yet an unknown quantity. The dolly had come with a package of straps, chains, and hardware and promises of a video on their Web site that had "everything I needed to know". Oh sure, I had witnessed that song and dance before and had never much enjoyed the outcome. I had already rewired the lights on the dolly the day I brought it home because when I attached it the first time we had problems getting the pigtail on the truck plugged into the one on the dolly. The guy who was showing me how it was done (the expert) had finally jammed the thing together but when I got home and unhooked it, separating the plugs resulted in pulling out some of the wires. But I had repaired it, plugged it into the bus, and tested it so at least that part was behind me. I had also performed the "simple" task of sliding the hitch into the receiver on the bus. It was a good thing that I checked that out a couple of days earlier because it ended up requiring more than an hour of grinding on the hitch bar before I could finally get it to slide in; it was literally a square peg trying to go into a round hole and I had to round off all of the corners to get it to work.

I arrived home from the farmer's market, had some lunch, and was out loading the car by one o'clock. Everything else was ready and that gave me an hour before our anticipated two o'clock departure time. Getting the car on the dolly was simple; I drove it up the ramps with no problems. Then I got out the package of straps and chains and started to figure out how it all attached. After laying the harnesses out on the ground I decided I really did need to look at some pictures. So I had to go into the house and look at them on the computer since it came with no printed instructions. I would then go back outside and see how the pictures related to the pile of hardware that was spread out before me. I must have made at least six trips in to look at the computer and attached and removed the strap assemblies two or three times each before it occurred to me that something was amiss; the pictures and the reality were not lining up. The strap assemblies were each made up of about five pieces, and each one threaded onto a main strap in a particular order, but they seemed to have been assembled incorrectly. I had made the classic mistake of assuming that the manufacturers knew what they were doing or at least knew more about this thing than I did. In the end it was clear that I was right; I took both of them apart and reassembled them the way I thought they should be and bingo, everything worked. Of course by the time I had it all ready to go, we were an hour and a half late leaving.

The first thing I noticed after getting on the road was how much less power we had than when we drive without towing a car, contrary to the "oh, you won't even know it's there" wisdom on the bus boards. Without the car attached the bus would accelerate up through the gears quickly and now, well not so much. I figured even with the late start we should be able to get 200 miles in before stopping, which would get us to Staunton Virginia. That part of the trip went well; it was scenic but the secondary roads we were on were narrow and twisty. As we neared Staunton we had to cross over the Blue Ridge, a climb of a few thousand feet in a few miles making it a steep second gear-only climb. At the top I made the mistake of listening to the GPS, which told me to turn right instead of a left; I should have known better. And so we went right back down the mountain on I-64 with no place to turn around until we got back to the bottom. Technology is great when it works correctly but this is not the first time that listening to the GPS has gotten us into trouble. Note to self: Trust yourself before Garmin and others. We turned around, went back up and then down the other side and merged onto I-81. It would be nothing but interstate highways for the next two days. Staunton was the first exit and we easily navigated into a Wal-mart parking lot where we would spend our first night on the road.

In 1998 we had packed everything we owned into a storage unit and took a tour of America and Canada in our first motorhome. On that trip we drove through about 35 states and throughout the heartland of America we saw firsthand the devastation that Wal-mart had caused. It was the double whammy of their sourcing everything they sold from China (I can remember Sam Walton back in the beginning bragging about Wal-mart selling American-made goods; by 1999 that policy was history). This alone did much to accelerate the downward spiral of American manufacturing. On top of that, most of the small town retail outlets had closed as their customers took their business to Wal-mart. We saw town after town with most of downtown boarded up and witnessed little prosperity anywhere except at the Wal-mart on the edge of town with few of the dollars spent there re-entering the local economies. I honestly think that much of the current recession is the delayed effect of the Walmartization of America and as a result we no longer have those thousands of manufacturing businesses anymore to put people back to work. This might all be good for the Walton family but not so good for the country. Ever since that trip I have boycotted Wal-mart. So now I faced an ethical dilemma. On a trip like this when we drive all day and need nothing at night but a place a park the bus, it seems wasteful to pay the inflated price for a space in a local campground each night, which is usually in the range of $30 - $40 for those with few amenities. Unfortunately, one of the few places that you can park an RV and not be rousted out by security in the middle of the night is Wal-mart. We even went so far as to download a custom point of interest (POI) file to both MS Streets and Trips and to our Garmin, both of which we use to navigate, that show the location of every Wal-mart along our route and whether or not it allows overnight parking (many do not). So at least for this trip we would be parking overnight at truck stops and Wal-marts.

The second day was all spent on I-81. It was Labor Day and for the most part the traffic was light. We traveled through Virginia and into Pennsylvania, refueling before we crossed the border. I had researched fuel taxes before we left home and Virginia’s tax on diesel is significantly lower than any other state we would drive through. The next fuel stop would be in New Hampshire. Having a 140 gallon fuel tank gave us a wide range and the ability to pick and choose our fuel stops. The one place we wanted to buy as little fuel as possible would be in Canada where the price before we left was over $1.00 per liter.

One funny thing that happened in the morning was the result of Flora’s constant checking of the car we were towing. We have a rear-mounted camera on the back of the bus and Flora loves to check and make sure that the car is still there. She has little confidence in the tow dolly and seemed to always expect that the car would somehow fall off and roll over a cliff or something. Sometimes the brightness on the monitor gets a little out of whack from hitting big jarring bumps in the pavement and from the changing angle of the sun, and occasionally I have to adjust the brightness knob to see the image clearly. So after a few such bumps Flora yelled “oh my God, the car is gone!” I had to laugh a little as I adjusted the knob and brought the picture back into focus; there was the car, right where we left it. Aside from that, the day was uneventful and ended in a Wal-mart parking lot at Pittston PA, just past Wilkes-Barre, where we dined on Flora’s famous lobster sandwiches, what a treat!

Tuesday was to be our long day so we intended to leave early. We planned on driving through at least six states and end the day in New Hampshire, where we could also fuel up. The dog and cat were getting into the routine somewhat, but it seems that dogs are always up for most anything; cats on the other hand, maybe not as much. Opal (the cat) mostly slept under the couch while we were rolling and came out only when Flora tempted her with treats. While in a rest stop I had let air out of the air suspension on one side of the bus to level it so that I could accurately check the oil. When we moved on I forgot to air that side back up and did not notice that the bus was leaning to the right a few inches. When we entered New York and started encountering the potholes in their poorly maintained roads, the under-inflated suspension did little to cushion the ride and we were both nearly thrown through the roof. It was only after a few miles of this that I realized what had happened; we re-inflated the air bags and things were back to normal. It is always those lessons that are learned the hard way that stay with me the longest. By the time we pulled into the parking lot in Newington NH at the end of the day, my eyes were about shot; they just don’t hold up as long as they did when I was a pup.

The next morning, after refueling, we drove up to Scarborough ME to visit a huge Cabela’s store. This place is like the mother of all sporting goods stores and I got myself a nice oilskin hat for rainy days in Nova Scotia (there are always at least a few). They also had a free site for dumping our waste tank. After almost three full days on the road the tank was only about a third full, meaning that we could probably get by for a week at a time if we were careful and took only Navy showers. I was also able to refill our fresh water tank, which also holds 100 gallons. The next stop was the LL Bean store in Freeport where we shopped for a while, but I was getting eager to get on up the road so we did not stay long. After being without income for so long, my spending habits have become a bit more conservative. We arrived in Brewer Maine in the late afternoon and as usual we got permission to stay overnight. We met two other couples who were also spending the night, the first other travelers we had actually talked to. It’s interesting to see the diversity of machines that people use on their camping expeditions, everything from minivans to monster buses. When I had researched what kind of machine I wanted to get I had thought about a travel trailer (5^th wheel or bumper mounted), but pulling anything larger than a very minimal trailer the distances that we tend to travel requires a larger pickup than ours and for the price of a new pickup I could have a bus and keep my current truck that is already paid for and that gets better mileage than the larger ones.

The next day we drove over the mountains on Hwy 9 to the border crossing at Calais Maine. The road is a single lane each direction and is mostly steep and curvy. This meant 100 miles in third gear, which allows a maximum speed of only 49 MPH. For the most part the maximum speed limit was only 50 or 55 and every few miles there was a truck lane, so seldom did a line of more than 5 or 6 cars build up behind us. The border crossing was easy; the woman who checked us through was personable and nice and did not nit-pick us as the border agents sometimes do. We have encountered some total jerks through the years and you never know what to expect, so this was a pleasant surprise. Just like the last time we traveled this road up to St. John NB, the fog was thick and I had to hold back some on the speed. We reached our stop at Moncton in the late afternoon and picked our spot in the parking lot. One side of the parking lot was quiet but not at all level and the other side was level but was bordered by a busy street. We chose the level spot and I had enough time to check the water level in the house batteries. The batteries had been giving us some trouble and checking the water level was the first part of the troubleshooting sequence. All of the cells were full so that meant that the problems were elsewhere. By evening eight other RVs had parked around us, the most we have seen on the trip. The Yahoo group that I subscribe to that deals with Wal-mart overnight parking advises keeping a low profile but with this many RVs it is hardly that. It poured rain much of the evening and we spotted a fairly severe leak around one of our windows that I will have to fix once we arrive in Clare.

We arose early (for us) but it was 9:00 (the usual departing time) before we were back on the road. It was about 330 miles to Meteghan and there was not a single rest stop along the way. Since pulling this big rig over requires quite a bit of space, I drove straight through without a stop. I was quite happy to pull into Eric and Janice’s yard where I could finally unhook the car. These Detroit Diesels are famous for slinging oil and so the car that had been towed behind us for 1700 miles was pretty well coated with the stuff. A bucket of suds and a brush made quick work of the mess. I had had to add only three quarts of oil, so the usage was not excessive. I was glad to be back to driving without a tow vehicle again as we drove the ten or so miles over to Gaston and Kim’s where we would be camping for the week. Even with the leaky window and battery issues to deal with I looked forward to relaxing with family and friends for a week before the return trip. Turning into their narrow driveway and making the turn into their yard was quite tricky and I just about tore off my right-hand rear view mirror on a tree while doing it, but eventually we got the bus into the space they had cleared for us and I got the bus fairly level.

Here are the numbers for the trip up from NC to NS:

• Total miles one way: 1700
• Average miles per day: 300
• Top speed: 62 mph
• Oil consumption: 3 quarts
• Fuel used: 190 gallons