Calderitas (day 5)

Thursday January 15…10:30pm

It rained on and off throughout the night. When we got up it was raining, and it rained all morning.
Steve and Glen had a taxi due to arrive at 9:15am, but it never showed up. They took this as a sign they were not supposed to leave today, and decided to stay put. Now, they are questioning even going backpacking at all, since it doesn’t seem to be very much fun in the rain.

All of the moisture seems to be playing games with Sherman’s electrical system. I had turned off the fridge last night because it was supposed to go down to18C (65F) overnight, so I figured we could just leave it off overnight. But when I turned it on this morning, the gas burner wouldn’t stay lit. There is a sensor that is supposed to shut off the ignitor when it senses the flame, yet that wasn’t working, so it would shut off the gas supply. Plus, a few times when I purposely turned it off, the flame stayed lit, which it is definitely not supposed to do. I saw quite a bit of condensation on the electronic control module, and after trying several different things, including checking all the connections, I finally removed it and dried it out over the stove. This is supposed to be a sealed unit, unaffected by moisture…but apparently not! Anyhow, when I put it all back together, it thankfully all worked as it was supposed to.

On another note, I was going to use Ruth’s hair dryer on the fridge electronics, but when I went to start the generator, it wouldn’t stay running without my holding the start switch on. I’m guessing this is another moisture problem, but who knows. It was still pouring rain as we were working on these problems, so I will have a look at this generator problem on the first sunny day. And of course the solar panels aren’t getting much energy into the batteries because there hasn’t been any “solar” the last couple of days!

Played Canasta in the afternoon, then had S&G over for supper since they had pretty much emptied out their fridge because they thought they were going backpacking for a couple of weeks. That is still up in the air, and they will decide for sure tomorrow. Then we played euchre in the evning and did some reading. High today was only about 24C, and although the rain eventually stopped, it was overcast all day.

Total nights sleeping in a motorhome…449

January Fuel $ 45.50 CAN

January Grocery $ 92.01 CAN

January Overnight costs $ 87.36 CAN