Ardra - thank you so much for the information about the color of the water. That is fascinating to me and saves me doing the research to find out for myself.
We took off from Jasper's Wabasso campground at 8:00 this morning, easily picking up the pieces since we had nothing to disconnect and only had to get the jacks up, the pads stored and the slides drawn in. We stopped by the dump station and partially filled our fresh water tank that was down to ⅓ of a tank and empty the holding tanks.
On our way up, we ran across several turnouts going southbound that would afford great photos so we planned on catching each one on our way down this morning. The Garmin said the trip would take until 1:00 but I calculated it would take us until 4 or 5PM, figuring a lot of stops for photos and an hour lunch break. Unfortunately, we got few good photos and didn't need to stop at many of the turnouts because the weather was horrendous, raining off and on the entire trip with the ceiling so low, it was hiding the mountain peaks. When we were at the highest points of the trip, we were even with the clouds or they were no more than 50 feet above our heads. We still took a lot of shots but there were few that I consider outstanding.
I forgot to put the pool noodles on the bedroom slide when we set up at Wabasso. We use them because I have run head first into the edges of the slide too many times from absentmindedness. Yesterday while checking tire pressure and changing a battery in one TPMS sensor on the inner rear tire, I stood up and walked right into that slide with the edge catching me in my forehead, mouth and chest. I hit it hard enough that it completely knocked me off my feet and almost blacked me out. My first thought was to check my teeth, and they were all right. My second thought was to get up because it had knocked me into the grass and brush outside of the gravel we were parked on and I was afraid of ticks. I tried to get up and fell back down, making me realize just how hard I had hit the slide. After a few seconds that seemed like minutes, I was able to stand up, but staggered all the way around the coach to the door, having to sit down as soon as entering. Fortunately, today my chest is sore and bruised but all else is well, discounting my pride.
Things like that have made me wonder the entire trip if I am intentionally trying to shoot myself in the foot but the man upstairs keeps moving my foot away from the line of fire. We have been dodging bullets the whole way, with today being nothing different.
Because we didn't stop and take pictures as often as we thought we would, we made it back to Radium Hot Springs and the Canyon RV Resort by 2PM, just in time for check-in. The nice lady behind the counter remembered me from four days ago and put me in a spot only two away from where we were earlier in the week. We began setting up but I immediately realized we had a problem when I got into the electrical compartment. When we were at Banff, we didn't use the Progressive EMS surge protector we bought before the trip because we had to use a 30 amp dog bone since that RV park only has 30 amp service and the EMS is a 50 amp protector. At Wabasso, we had no hookups. So when I got into the compartment and began to uncoil the electrical cord, I immediately noticed my EMS was missing. I wasn't sure, but thought I remembered seeing it in the compartment while at Banff, so I assumed someone had stolen it out of the compartment while we were in town or asleep because I didn't lock the compartment door. It was either that, or I left it at Canyon on our trip up north, but that didn't make sense because the lock and cable I use to secure it to the pedestal was in the compartment. After kicking myself in the keister for several minutes and wondering what my insurance company was going to think if I turned in two claims for one trip, I told Judy that we should walk the dogs down to the office so I could ask the lady at the counter if someone possibly had turned it in. Of course, I knew the chances of that happening were slim to none. For one thing, I was pretty sure it had been stolen at Banff and for another, this was an expensive unit that could very easily sprout legs and walk away on its own. But human nature fooled me again when the lady in the office told me someone had turned it in this morning. Apparently, the people who were in that site the two days before thought it belonged there and never removed it, but the people who were there last night realized it didn't belong on the pedestal and turned it in. I had unlocked the cable and put it in the coach but left the EMS on the pedestal. A lesson learned by not losing a $350 unit less than 60 days old. Someone up there is looking out for me. Think about it - aside from finding an honest individual to turn in something that expensive, what are the chances we would have left it at an RV park where we returned four days later? It's the first time we have ever done that anywhere.
Our trip is more than half over. In terms of time, it's almost two-thirds complete; in terms if mileage, we hit the halfway mark today. In terms of distance away from home, we are now on our way back down from the farther point away we were at this morning. So far, we have been very fortunate to have the coach run well with no serious problems that we couldn't take care of ourselves. Today while on the road, I heard a slight beeping noise coming from behind me and asked Judy to check it out. She said the fridge was beeping and the readout said "Lo." I didn't know what was wrong because even though we used the furnace a lot while up north, we still had ⅓ tank of LP left according to the internal readout. It worried me that it might not be getting enough LP because due to the accident, we can't open the compartment door that contains the tank to get it refilled. I asked Judy to go back and check the amperage of the house batteries, thinking that may be what the "Lo" reading was referring to. She said the readout showed 10.5 amps, much too low. It then made sense to me that was what the readout was telling us because we hadn't turned on the generator this morning and although the furnace and CPAP worked all night, it had drained the house batteries to the point that they could not provide enough spark to light the LP for the fridge. I turned on the generator while driving and allowed it to recharge the batteries. Once it came on, the fridge worked fine with no further error readouts. Another bullet dodged. I plan on changing out those batteries before our next trip, given their present age. It seems in Florida, batteries usually don't last as long as in other parts of the country. I found the same to be true about batteries and anything made out of rubber while living in Las Vegas.
We now are in one of our more difficult times of this trip, driving for five straight days. It was going to be six until we rearranged the itinerary and added more miles each day so we can stay in Vegas, our next destination, for an additional day. I know better than to do this to myself, but the days won't be too difficult and Judy said she might do a little driving if we're not in mountains. We'll see about that.
We plan on driving from Radium Hot Springs to Missoula tomorrow, with stops in Columbia Falls to pick up a package at a previous RV park and a friend who kept my weapon for me while we went to Canada. It will be a long day, as will the next day driving from Missoula to Pocatello, ID, with both days being planned out to take 9-9.5 hours on the road, which translates out to about seven hours actually driving. I usually like to limit myself to about six hours of driving each day. We plan on being in Las Vegas by Wednesday afternoon.