May 10, 2010

It has been really difficult to remember what day of the week it is.  We still plan things by the day of the week.  We planned to ski on Friday and Saturday.  We planned to head out with the trailer on Sunday.  And since we haven’t had any difficulty executing our plans on the right days, we aren’t really having that much trouble.  I suspect that everything just seems wrong.  We skied weekdays all season, now we ski weekends.  And who really plans to go camping on a Sunday?  We were heading south while all the other campers were heading north back to town after their weekend activities.  I think the difficulty we are having with the days of the week is simply that our activities don’t fit into a sensible weekly pattern.

The return trip from last week’s first outing in the trailer went fine.  We still haven’t learned the routines for setting up and departing so we are a little deliberate and a little slow.  Still, it didn’t take us that long to get hooked up to leave.  As I got more comfortable with driving the rig, I took a little more control.  I decided that fourth gear really wasn’t too useful, except maybe on a sustained downhill.  I also figured out my mirror settings which gave me a better understanding of going around corners.  I was actually having fun driving in the city, a sure sign of increasing confidence.  The first trip yielded a mere 9 mpg average, a bit lower than I had hoped for a relatively flat drive. 

We rode our road bikes for the first time this year.  We took a quick 20 mile ride to Kincaid and back.  Well, it felt quick on the light bicycles, but it was still a lot of work, especially the section that was uphill into a strong wind.  And it took a lot more time than a quick 20 mile ride out to take.  Our legs felt like rubber when we were done.

We skied Friday and Saturday.  The parking lot was pretty full on Saturday, but most of those people were not skiing as it was only slightly more crowded on the slopes; still virtually no lift line.  It was spring skiing, although we still wore our winter coats without feeling hot.  A stiff breeze was keeping us cool on the lift rides on Friday, in spite of the blue skies, sunshine, and 50 degree temperatures.  The conditions were not as good as I had hoped.  With few skiers, some of the snow was too deep and slushy to ski.  It felt like cement shoes and the turns only came either slowly or abruptly with a hop.  I just couldn’t make a medium turn.  The parts that were groomed and getting skied were very nice, but the mostly teenage crowd that prefers snowboards or fat straight running skis does little for making rhythmic bumps, the real joy of spring skiing.  One of the main groomed runs developed some decent moguls by late Saturday, but the rest of the time I struggled to find a rhythm in the pushed around slush.

After our long bike ride and two days of skiing, we were exhausted.  We slept in on Sunday and then scrambled to finish getting ready.  I loaded the gear, four bikes, and the kayaks while Kris ran to the grocery store.  We somehow managed to depart before noon, although we have the second challenge of hooking up at the storage lot.  The backup camera is starting to work pretty well for me.  While Kris is still watching, I don’t get any instruction.  I just back up until I think I have it right and she confirms.  I have learned to use the parking brake which was the normal routine in my old stick shift truck, but somehow not intuitive on my van.  After rolling a few inches after putting the transmission into park and losing my alignment with the trailer hitch, I figured out the obvious.

The drive went well, although we got into some steepness in the mountains that had me down to 50 mph with my foot on the floor in second gear.  Most of the time, though, I had no problem holding the speed limit.  Moderately steep 65 mph zones were probably the worst as 65 in second gear is an awful whine and I usually dropped back to a more reasonable howl around 60.  While the rig will be a bit heavier when we head down the road later this year, I don’t think we will see anything steeper than our Alaskan mountain roads.  I am still feeling pretty confident in our rig.

It did feel pretty good heading out on a Sunday and seeing all that traffic headed the other way.    I didn’t know what to expect on a Mother’s Day afternoon in early season, but I was pretty confident that we could find a nice place to camp.  We drove to the turn off to Kelley and Petersen lakes.  We drove down to Kelley first and weren’t impressed enough to stay, although it was quite nice.  We turned around and took the dirt road to Petersen and knew we found a home for a couple days.  We parked the trailer in the corner of the large gravel turnaround with the doors a mere 40 feet from the lake.  It took some effort to get it level, but it is a spectacular setting.  I am looking out the window right now at the lake with the Kenai Mountains in the background.  And we are all alone.  There are spaces, more like picnic tables, for four campers, but who would come out on a Sunday afternoon in early May.

It is peaceful here, although the highway is less than half a mile away and can be heard at times.  We paddled our kayaks around the lake last night after dinner as the lake slowly turned to glass in the evening calm.  This is a beaver infested lake and we saw lots of them.  One of them was wading in shallow water as we quietly approached.  When I noticed it, I was startled at first, thinking bear, then baby moose, and not beaver until it ducked into the water and began swimming.  It was huge.  We saw lots of ducks; a few mallards, scoters, and goldeneyes.  A couple of shy loons kept their distance, but their haunting calls confirmed their identity.

We learned a couple of things on our first night of boondocking – the RV term for camping without hookups.  The first lesson came in the middle of the night when the evening calm turned into a windy night.  While I doubt that it was windy enough to be a problem, the clunking and occasional rocking associated with the awning was disconcerting enough to disturb our sleep.  We got up and retracted the awning.  Kris was impressed at how quickly we put it away while being half asleep. 

Being up gave me the opportunity to check the battery level.  We had left the heater on a low temperature, but it did seem to be running quite a bit.  The battery was showing virtually dead by that point.  I woke up a few more times to hear that the blower motor on the heater was sounding quieter and eventually woke again to a chill with no heater running.  We had drained our battery in less than one night.  I think the paradigm needs to be to warm the trailer up in the evening and then to restart the heater in the morning.  I suspect that will allow us several nights on one battery charge. I just wish the heater switch was next to the bed. 

Being alone in a remote location meant that I had no concerns of disturbing my neighbors.  I woke up pretty early and decided to brave the cold, an inevitable requirement, to set up the generator.  I had tested the generator at home and it starts easily and runs relatively quietly.  It was an easy startup and I was quickly back in bed, with the heater running again.  The drone of the generator did not disturb my sleep at all.  We woke up to a warm trailer.  After three hours of generator run time, the battery showed fully charged.  With less discharge and more frequent runtime, I suspect we will be quite sustainable.

It is too early to tell on water management.  I think we will easily be able to get through four or five days without having to fill or empty a tank.  Our conservative approaches to water from our tent camping experience should serve us well.  The only challenge is getting the water temperature right in the shower without wasting water.  I have hit too hot and too cold more often than just right.

The market for our condo is certainly slow.  We did have two showings on Friday, but haven’t heard anything from those.  I think our unit should stand out to any potential buyers.  It did to us.  In this price range, it is amazing how crappy many places seem.  I am not worried as I suspect that the expiring government incentive has created a lull.