Nov 06, 2015
A good travel day but it is COLD out there tonight
Just at bedtime last night one of our two heaters packed it in. Colin had to go back into Walmart to get another one.
The new heater is on the right. This morning just for the heck of it we checked the dead heater and it was working!!
I know that many of you have a Mr. Buddy heater but how do you make it work? Have you run a line to your propane tank or ??? At the moment we run two small heaters off the generator or like tonight in an RV Park, off the 50AMP plug plus we run the furnace.
I must also confess to a dumb blonde moment first thing this morning, when I turned the electric kettle on at the same time that I was running the new heater. I blew the power bar. It should have had a shut off but it didn’t work. This was a new power bar just installed after the renos ( which I still will tell you about , only so many hours in a day ). So once again first thing this morning Colin was off yet again to Walmart to purchase a new black power bar. They did well off of us for our ‘free’ stay.
It was 32F when we got up this morning but we did get sun coming thru the windows for a bit helping to heat things up. Sadly we had a Carmeh moment when while we were bringing the slides in she tried to jump up onto a high stool to get to the dash. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her twist in mid air and fall back on her back. I screamed at her, upsetting her more than I should have…she seems fine but was most upset as I was. It is a constant battle with her. This time it was my fault for not putting the ramp up right away. We are in such tight quarters that it is almost impossible to move. I will show photos tomorrow. Of course once we settle at the Isla, things will be better but still tight compared to how an RV should be.
Finally driving at 7:30AM which was pretty good considering how the day started. We start out with hot drinks for us and about 90 miles later stop to feed the girls and I make us up a container of fresh fruit, a muffin for Colin and a yogurt for me and our second hot drink of the day to enjoy as we continue our journey. That brought us into Twin Falls, Idaho about 9AM.
This is the famous Shoshone Falls area but all I can see from the RV is this gorgeous gorge. We have never seen the falls nor the full vista as their is no parking for RV’s never mind the size. The visitor center only has rooms for cars. One day we will be able to stop, find a place to park and get back to check it all out.
We were barely 20 minutes south of I 84 when we saw snow, more then we have ever seen in all the years heading south this way. El Nino?
There was no snow at all the end of November last season.
The further south we traveled the more snow we saw.
A real winter wonderland.
As we left Idaho, the snow diminished somewhat.
We fueled up in Wells, Nevada at the highest we have paid for diesel @ 2.739. It was very cold outside.
It was a cold stop for the girls to do their business.
The roads continued to be in excellent shape. We only had the one 10 minute road repair delay and Colin did not want to stop for lunch. So we each feasted on a piece of left over cold pizza which was all that we needed as we continued the drive. We were anxious to head to our stop for the night because of the impending cold spell. We had made reservations at an RV Park in Ely, Nevada as we do every year. As the next 5 nights will be boondocking stops we needed to empty our tanks and to refill with water. Also this park allows us to send our online orders here which makes for a perfect stop. Tonight we also needed wanted to set up our dish so we could tape a few shows. When we arrived at 2:10PM it was already bitterly cold. However it all got done and already the satellite system has been put away.
By 4 PM we were even able to take a brief walk around the park. Already 10 more RV’s have pulled in for the night. Once dinner was over we brought in both of our slides. We just don’t want to take any chances with frozen awnings. In 2013 we had a major problem with freezing the morning we left. The ice did break off the slide as we brought it in but the metal piece that curls around the awning would not curl around as it was frozen. You can read here how we dealt with that incident and it was only 30F at that time. As we don’t want a repeat, we are now very very snug inside our RV. The forecast for tonight taken from a few sources puts us at between 16F/-8.9C with a wind chill of 5F/-15C to 14F/-10C with a wind chill of 1F/-17C………basically cold 😯 Colin has also placed a heater in the sewer area. Our basements are supposed to be heated but we don’t want to run the furnace all night. We will keep the propane water heat on to protect the pipes as best we can. Each RV is different and we are doing what we think is right for ours.
Today we drove 337 miles.
Be sure to check back tomorrow to see how we survive the cold tonight. This will be the coldest we have experienced.
We did manage a wee walk before we snuggled in for the night. Our colorful RV certainly stands out from the pack.
Not sure how I got the quote and italics for an entire section but folks it is bedtime and it is cold in here….time to join the other C’s in bed and try and warm up.
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Keep warm…. I remember my ELY days of minus 20… NOT FUN….
We had our camper plumbed with a gas line in the living area. Our Heater Buddy has served us well. Of course, we have our LP and CO2 alarms checked. We sleep with the heat on and follow the recommendations. Never an issue. This is one of those debates that has gone on since the radiant heater was introduced. Sorry, I like to be warm and we now know our solar and batteries can handle our electric blanket on the lowest setting. We put it under the fitted sheet and with the blanket it retains the heat quite well. Stay warm, it looks like you’re covering ground!
Our Mr buddy heater I plumbed right from out main propane tank and works wonderful, 9 years and still going string, love it.
Keep heading south it will warm up.
Plus 1 for the Mr. Heater Buddy. I have had it now for 3 or 4 years. I have used it with the little bottles, the big external gas grill tanks and now it is piped into my onboard propane tank. Well worth the cost. Well worth the battery savings.
Stay warm, a few more days and you should see some better weather. It got near zero here on Vancouver Island the other night, hubby and I crawled under the electric blanket with Buddy the dog sleeping on top of it. Yikes – we are such ninnies since we left Alberta. But the Ocean makes zero degrees seem way colder than -15 degrees in a dry climate.
Glad your trip is going well!
Any reason, other than noise, that you don’t run the furnace at night? As I understand the big class As, running the furnace also heats the basement compartments. I have a higher end C, so I have a heating duct that goes through the water compartment. Because of that, I would never go through a night colder than -10C without having the furnace running.
I’ve always favoured the oil filled radiators to any other heaters (example: http://amzn.to/1XWFLQW). Almost zero fire risk and no chance of gassing myself. Two of these alone can keep me comfy up to about -5C at night and -10C on a sunny day. I’ve had both of my heaters for going on eight years now, and that’s running them 24/7 for six months at time during several winters!
I’m with Chris about having a warm bed. I used to use an electric blanket, but now I favour my mattress warming pad. That combined with the furnace being on a timer means I can run the furnace on super low at night and have it come on to get the rig toasty before I get up (technology is a wonderful thing!).
-15C is the coldest you’ve ever done in your RV? Wow. I think my record was -55C, and that’s without windchill. No, it was not fun. 😀 But I do have a very good Canadian-made RV with decent insulation, so it could be a lot worse. And, of course, I’m not dealing with slides.
Can’t wait to hear you’ve landed somewhere warmer tonight!
Oh, my goodness, you will be so very glad to get to the Mexican/ Isla warmth 🙂 !!!!