A Canadian Gypsy

Well we made it. This place is really fancy. kinda wishing i brought my golf clubs. Not a motor home friendly resort. i’ll post some pics and updates after the weekend….

cheers!!!!

Tags: Canada, canadian gypsy

Were house sitting….lol AND ITS LIKE WERE ON VACATION!!! Were pluged in, WIFI kinda works only because their router is in the basment. After the last two days of this intense heat wave its nice to have the AC unit cranked. Which makes sleeping so much more enjoyable. Were on city water (hooked up) so we made that pile of dishes disapear before dinner last night… The flys seem confused. I plan on climbing into that hot tub later tonight, just to add to the vaction effect.

The motor home passed its emisions test yesterday!!!! So were legel now!!!!!!!! which means we can move around more during the day. I also found a plastic tool box. The kind that fits into a pic-up truck box! It works and doesn’t leak. I’ll be putting that onto the hitch cargo carrier i made up two weeks ago. It’ll be a quick fix untill i come across more materials. the same guy (james) buddie of mine, also was saying another friend of ours has a shit load of laminate flooring that he has been giving away. I could use some….so we’ll see what i can scroung up.

Sorry for the lack of pics of my finds this weekend, but someone puked all over my cell phone. the phone didn’t work but it was a nice camera and alarm clock.

Tags: canadian gypsy, motorhomes, ontario

Well Hello everyone! I know its been a while but things have been crazy busy on our end. Working working and even more working. I’ve been installing sidding and working for a carpenter amost every day for 3 weeks now. And my gf has been working crazy hours at the gym here in town. which is seriously cutting into our exploring. The RV is doing ok, We just picked up our last temp permit on friday so were good for ten days now and thats it. We’ll be taking the beast into get its emmisions test done over the next couple days, which i’m nervious about. If it fails, we won’t be able to get another sticker for the plates. So that means more driving around with expired tags. But my fingers are crosed and i’m staying positive. Trying anyways!

OH did i mention our car craped out again. yes the alternator is shot. So we’ve been dry camping and bumming around town which isn’t a tourist friendly town at all. We don’t blend in here one little bit in this RV. So the car is parked at our camping spot at my dads property waiting for parts and were trying to keep on truckin. Every other week it seems to be something different.

between sleeping and work We’ve been trying to get some things done around here. The flooring needs to be riped out and replaced…

as you can see its not done right and its drivin me nuts looking at it every day…so the plan is to rip the carpet out, and of course that crap peal and stick stuff the past oweners installed instead of doing it right the first time. And once we have a couple bucks to spare we’ll put hardwood or lamenate in its place.

when we have the cash for a can of paint or two, i’ve been pulling down everything that was once white lol and is now yellowish and cleaning it up. fresh coat of paint makes a world of differance.

We also got a new wast hose. Thanks to our dog…..we needed one anyways but now we have a new one.

so thats our last couple weeks in a nut shell. Were planing a trp to Ottawa at the end of the month not sure if we’ll be taking the Motorhome yet or not. But we need a change. I’d like to move on but the money is flowing and its needed really badly….but were almost caught up again.
cheers!!!!!

Tags: Canada, canadian gypsy, Motorhome, ontario, rv

This past weekend flew by. I was working all last week framing and sheeting a monster garage in a small town close by. Thanks to that work I was able to replace 2 of 3 batteries and buy that 2″ square steel that fits into the hitch(20 bucks). And for a jug of whisky and some mix my friend helped me weld er all up. I’m now convinced anyone can weld. Its been 5-6 years since I’ve welded and with out ever using a mig welder I pulled it off. With a few pointers and no ice in our cups it was a ten min job. One job started and checked off the list.

It doesn’t look pretty but its strong

yep thats farmer wes, guy i’ve known snice high school, over ten years now….he jumped and bounched on it and didn’t even spill his drink. Some free scrap wood and a coat of trem clad it’ll look pretty good. My air compresser and tools will soon have there own place in, on or attached to our motorhome.

Now some people may wonder why its so long, Its because of how our spare tire is mounted on the back of the RV. I need a couple feet of room to get the cover off, so i have 2.5 ft. I’m going to try and build the box with out blocking my tail lights but, I’ve been toying with the idea of instaling two tail lights on the box and wireing it into the trailer plug. But we’ll see how it all goes…… cheers!!!!!!

Well the car past the E test! So thats a good thing. Like I said i was going to do, I got the 3 Deep cycle batteries tested….All 3 are cooked! 2 were just FUBAR’d and the 3rd had a bad cell…..Long story short 3 New batteries are in order

Were slowly getting back on the road. well i guess we were on the road for twenty mins last week. I got the alternator re built, and a new belt, so we moved the motor home to my fathers property. The only down side is we can’t plug in here. but we have a nice spot to call home till we get our sh!t sorted out. The RV Runs good charges good but yesterday after running the generator for an hour or so i noticed the acc. batteries aren’t holding a charge. So This morning i pulled all 3 batteries out and got them loaded up in the back of the car. I have to go in for an E-test today on the car so i figgured i’d get them tested while i’m at it.

Still haven’t got the generator fixed. But i’m borrowing on from a buddy. works alright in the mean time but it has a 110 and a 240 volt plugs on it…no 220 outlet…so we can’t run our AC unit or Fan at all…it doesn’t like powering colmen much.

Finding a safe plce where i can tie the dog up is always fun….it doesn’t take long for her to get all tangled up into everything posible.

besides trying to get back on the raod were keeping our solar night lights charged up during the day so we can see at night. They work great we bought 4 of them in New Liskard for 2.50 i think. maybe a candel or two and these solar lights and were good to go….well maybe not a generator and some batteries would be nice.

were both working hard or hardly working. I haven’t even had a chance to fill up the fresh wather tank yet and make sure the pump and heater work. I guess i could have tryed it this weekend but not much point when were sortin other issues out. we have a big blue 5 gal. water jug we fill up when we need to. Normaly 2-3 times when we’ve been lazy and the dishes pile up.

I’m also going to start building a storage box on the back. ( trailer hitch style) For the extra propane tanks, air compressor and anything else that needs a place to call home, NOT IN THE RV. everything gets clusterd real quick. But in the mean time I’ve been cleaning up out side the rv, scraping stickers and getting ready to cock and re seal the seams…..anyways we’ll keep in touch cheers

not only do we have air ride on the front….we have it on the back. lol i’m not gonna lie i thought i was going to have to hammer hockey pucks in the rear springs to bring it up two inches.

I was playing with my docking lights and i noticed the air velves under them. I never really gave them much attention till now. At first glance i figgured they were twist switches for the lights. nope valve cap

I got my air compressor out put twenty pounds in um to see if they were wrecked……nope…….back end lifted up two inches at lest………lol i learned something new again today.

Well i learned something new today……

I un hooked the on board propane tank, and just for shits and giggles i tryed threading it into a small bbq propane take (tape messure, and pipe wrench in hand)…and guess what….it fits!!!!!! For the last few days i was thinking that i’d have to get some kind of adaptor, only thinking this because at first glance it didn’t look the same as the line on a bbq. guess i was wrong again. So Yes tonight we have the furance running more then normal.

So were broken down still. I went to a starter/alternator shop in the next town over with the old alternator in hand. The guy that rebuilds them is gone for the week so i was stuck with the lady at the front desk trying to match up what i had and needed. She said they didn’t have one in stock so she got on the phone and had one shiped up the next day. So thats two trips over to the port. I have to give her credit for effort but i was some pissed when i got back under the hood to find out the new one was to small and not even close to being the right one. Well maybe it was kinda close but not even close enought to wing it cause the mounting brackets don’t line up. So tomorrow morning my dad is picking me up so we can go over and try and get the right one…or my money back. That’ll make 3 trips. How many different alternators do they make for a 1989 gmc 454 7.4 liter? That = more lost time at work.

Have i said yet how much of a pain in the but it is to get non portable generators out? well its out and in the back of a friends truck waiting for me to decide wether or when i can afford to get some one to have a look at it and get it running again so we can be indapendent. The exhaust came apart in pices the muffler brackets thread right into the bottom of the generator so guess what happens when one gets striped. Out comes the sawsall out comes the pry bar and a few blocks of wood. I’ll have to get it welded back together once in get that bolt out. Anyways I’ll have to post when i get this alternator situation sorted out.

cheers!

Well i guess its been just over a month since my last post. Its been stressfull, interesting and frustrating. And I’m not sure where to begian. So much has happend.

Moving day:
Or should i call it moving out day! Hey the move went great but we woke up to 2 inches of snow, hail, rain and the roads were coverred with slush. I drove my GF to work and finished loading up the trailer and the motor home. I drove 2 miles down the road in the RV and pulled off beside the resort to get some gas money from my GF…..when i came back the rv wouldn’t start so guess where we spent the first night. The first very cold learning experance. -5 i think it was. the next morning i started trouble shooting the 89 GMC 454 and when i pulled a plug to see if i had spark i snaped the plug in half. Lucky the shop up the road had one and it only cost 4 bucks. Turns out it was flooded and these old motors are don’t like the dampness.

The resort closing:
Yes we were at work and one of the owners came in (my 2nd cousin) and told us as of tonight at 11pm were closing down, and there will be staff meeting at 9am tomorrow. This was 4 days after we moved into the RV full time. We coulnd’t have bought the RV at a better time. Now its a month later and they still haven’t paid any of the staff for the month of march were despritly waiting for some money to come are way. we figured it was around 2 grand they owe the two of us. I wonder if they owe us some kind of severance pay because they didn’t give us any notice?. another two weeks pay would be nice.

The Road trip South:
So after a very frustrating week of wondering where the heck our pays are we decided that we can’t wait anylonger. We called in a favour, borrowed $200 for gas and some food and we headed south. We both had jobs waiting for us. I don’t think we’ve every had that kind of luck. Lost our job with no notice and with out any notice we both had jobs to come home to. AMAZING!!!! The drive south was good. Weather was good, and the motor home didn’t break down. Opps i said it cause the next day i notice my brake lights, signals ect ect wern’t working. My drive battery was dead. After playing with the multi meter my alternator is dead. Yes we spent the day in the Canadian Tire parking lot waiting for a rescue bost from a friend. WE parked out side the gym where my girl friend works for a week. Still playing catch up working and trying to make up the important payments and keeping the repo man away from our car were still brokin down but we moved up the road and are parked beisde my bosses house. they were nice enough to allow us to plug in. Oh yea guess i forgot to mention that the second day we were in the motor home the generator shit it self. white smoke, running like a bag i notice there is gas mixed in with the oil. I emptyed the pan filled it back up and within 2 mins of running i pulled the dip stick and yep…..more gas. Not good. It was just today we got the geny out and in the back of my buddies truck.


Now that were parked beisde my bosses house i notice our holding tank pipe has a small crack right before the switch valve. Must of been from the first boondockin site when i was backing into the parking spot. the trailer hitch reciver was full of dirt i should of known to check the plumbing. So since i’m working for a plumber renivator we have all kinds of scrap pipe and fittings laying around after jobs. So i’m hoping after this week and we get the alternator fixed we’ll have to find a place to empty our tanks (were seriously full) and i’ll replace the pipes.

So thats our interesting month. Good buy resort worker! not gonna lie getting paid to fix stuff, go snowmobiling and ice fishing is kind of a dream job. Now i know the kind of work i’m good at and like doing. so i’ll leave this with a few pics of our interesting month.

CHEERS!!!!