guythalizardadventures

[guythalizardadventures]

Agassiz BC Canada sunset

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The gazebo in our Campground in Agassiz BC Canada

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Busy day at the campground. Many snowbirds returning from the south. Beautiful day today for the first of spring. Turning waterlines on for the season.

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Oatman Arizona visit yesterday.

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Roof vent and resealing the camper. Last week I replaced the missing roof vent then today put liquid rubber roofing on the camper to make sure it is sealed well. We used Superior Rubber Roofing. The Superior RV Liquid Rubber Roofing can be applied as low as 35F (1.6c) today was +6c the colder the temperature, the longer it will take to cure frost will not damage the coating that is already applied this stuff can be applied in temperatures as high as 95F (35c). It went on quite thick at this temp. but seemed to smoothout by itself. Now don't have to worry about the roof over the winter. ~GuyThaLizard

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Oyama Lake - September 27 2019 Was chilly when we arrived at camp. That evening and night it bagan to snow. We had our Big Buddy Heater (Mr Heater) blasting out heat in the camper to keep us warm all day/night. Snow was pretty much melted by morning. Was a good test of the camper for winter conditions. It is doable but not sure how cold it will be good to. But it is working for us for quick getaways or weekenders. Our big buddy heater has 3 heat settings plus a built in fan. We are on heat setting Low. With the fan on and we are currently at 20c inside the camper with the window open. Due to there not being a 12v battery in the camper we didn't use the furnace much to save truck battery power.

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Enjoying Crazy Creek Hot Pools for a few days. Making our way back to the South Okanagan Valley.

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Our new (to us) weekend getaway RV. Rather than take out the trailer for quick weekend get aways we managed to get a good deal on a pop-top truck camper. I never had a truck camper before so this kind of truck camper camping is all new to me but it looks like it will be fun to sneek away at the drop of a hat and get away from working at the campground. Stay tuned for more adventures to come with our Starcraft. ~GuyThaLizard

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One of my favorite gifts this Christmas gifts this year was a little weather station from my wife. So far at the campground I have recorded 65kmh winds over the winter. This winter has been a warm one with very little snow. Odd for this area.

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Took a winter break from the campground and headed to Nakusp and Halcyon Hotsprings. It has been a mild winter here in the South Okanagan Valley so we headed over the mountains to the hotsprings for a few days for a soak. Planning another visit over the mountain this spring to explore Ainsworth Hotsprings and maybe some others.

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View from our site.

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Off-Grid living is not easy.

People wonder why people go Full-Time in RV's. Our government is screwed up! We live in an RV and many RVers have solar and can live off grid completely. So here is a man who tries to reduce his carbon footprint and gets forced to pay tax on HIS power HE produces for his family in his house even as he feeds his extra power he produces into the grid for others in PEI. The same thing happened in Kelowna BC. There was a fella who did the same and was forced by the city that he had to hook up to city power, water and sewer and pay taxes even though his house was also built for total off-grid life. He ended up putting shutoff valves etc to the city's utilities and shutting everything off after they were connected but he still has to pay taxes for the utilities even though he doesn't use them. What a piss off!! I am glad we can live in our RV's as nomads in this mad world we live in. NEWS QUOTE: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-electricity-hst-solar-net-metering-1.4139700?fbclid=IwAR1yHWVKMQ7yJhXEXZQag7F_mUapt7ApN930-P64XghAnFVMLHs5L7Y-XpY The local power company a few years ago encouraged people to change from incandescent bulbs to fluorescent bulbs because they use less power so you the people can save money so the city changed to fluorescent then the city jacked up the cost of electricity. Then a few years later they told everyone fluorescent bulbs are bad so they encouraged everyone to switch to LED because they use even less power and they the people will save big dollars. So we did, we changed to LED and saved a lot of money but once everyone was using LED they jacked up the electricity even more and put in smart meters so they can monitor your power. It's all about money and control. Funny thing is when they switched to LED the city's signal lights on the streets were getting covered with snow because the LED lights no longer produced heat that would melt the snow. LOL now they get to pay someone to figure out how to heat the LED lights to melt the snow and end up costing them more than just going back to the old incandescent bulbs they once had.

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Shade Cloth A while back we took some shadecloth and made some window coverings for the sunny side of our RV. The nice thing about the shadecloth is it lets you see out in the day very easily but hard to se in and helps kep it cooler in the day, putting the shade cloth on the outside. We also made a PVC pipe sunshade for our outside dining area. Using the shadecloth over the PVC pipe. The PVC in slipped over rebar rods we put in the ground about one foot.

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CAMPGROUND STAFF - Blogpost: 2018-05-14 We haven't blogged in a while, here is our update. We have moved on as of April the 1st 2018 We are currently both living and working fulltime at a campground in Penticton. As caretakers and part of the management team. We have a new site that has been built for us while we are here. Currently, we are not sure how long we will be here for but we agreed on one season for starters. We could be here for a year maybe a few or maybe 10 years, now sure as of yet. We will see how it goes after the year is up. Kathy has been working seasonally here for the past few years and I left my 10-year job doing Irrigation Repair to groundskeeper here at the campground. This is a big change and adjustment for the both of us. We do get one month off during the offseason that we plan to head south to Arizona or Southern California. This campground has 250+ sites, a pool and right by a lake. I still get to fix sprinklers so that part of my job won't change but I get to use the skills and abilities I have acquired throughout my life here in the campground. Looking forward to spending a little time kayaking on the lake this summer on our off-time,.. do we get off-time? we will see how it goes. We are looking forward to the experience we can gain from this new life as campground staff and take this new experience wherever we go from here. The possibilities are endless as to where we might go in our future being full-time RVers. ~GuyThaLizard

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Almost the end of winter and time to reminisce of winters gone by. We were prepared and made it through the cold, the snow, ice and humidity this winter 2017/18 and are on the home stretch. Halfway through February the snow has melted but still below freezing. Last week we were fooled with +12c temps but now cold again but the warmth of March is coming. Looking forward to moving the RV and going camping/exploring again. last winter (2016/17) we went south to California and Arizona and we started heading back to Canada too soon. Ended up at Cultus Lake and weren't prepared. People were kayaking and it was beautiful! 2 days after we were there it began snowing, we ended up with 3' of snow and were stranded in the campground for the month of February. Dealing with no heated hose and only taking the drain hose out to dump then empty the hoses before putting them back in storage where they would be warm to keep it from freezing. Our water source had a small valve that pissed water out in a 6"round PVC tube in the ground full of ice cold water where I had to stick my hand and arm in to my armpit to turn it on and off. So had to remove my coat before turning on/off then dry off and put my coat back on and wait outside with the hose filling our fresh tank because we didn't have a heated hose. We makeshifted a tarp under the RV taped up like a boat under the rv to the frame and stuck a little heater inside the tarped area just to keep the temp 1 degree above freezing so our pipes wouldn't freeze. This season we built proper skirting, got a heated hose and Comp. Toilet and put plastic over the windows, etc so we could survive the winter and we stayed in Canada. Next winter we are getting out of here again. I hate winter with sub freezing temps. Going south!! lol Keep learning and don't give up, life is good and freedom is there, you just have to look and work towards it. ~GuyThaLizard

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PLASTIC WELDING A quick tip for RVers out there. A lot of the materials on an RV are made of plastic and many types of plastic. If you can find a piece of plastic the same material as what you may have cracked or broken you can "Plastic Weld" it rather than glue it in many cases. There are many videos of Plastic Welding on your tube out there and I stumbled upon this simple video using a soldering iron. You may want to pick up an inexpensive soldering iron and do some practice for the time when you may discover a crack in the shower stall or sink or any other plastic parts on your RV or kayak, boat or jug. For instance I had discovered a while back that our kayaks are made from the same material as a laundry detergent or milk jug. So when we needed a repair we could buy a jug the same colour as our kayak and then we have repair material. Just something to keep in mind. A heat gun is also helpful for removing minor scratches in the bottom of a kayak too. RV TIPS; GuyThaLizard

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123 days and no more flushing! Here is our update Since we changed over to the composting toilet and have used it for a while we have no regrets. We have been going for about 18 days between dumping our compost and about 3 days for the urine bottle. Just the other day we went to a B&B for a night out with a fancy hot tub and one of those fancy steam showers used their flush toilet. It was frightening how much water is used for flushing process. It was an awesome night out but it is noce to be back home again. We are on many RVing sites and follow other peoples problems with winter rving. Many have their tanks freezing up, waterlines freezing,, etc. We are so glad that we had last february's freeze at Cultus Lake we learned about the importance of having the underbelly skirted and heated, and how to live off grid while snowed in. Wasn't easy at times and quite the learning experience. We had out 5 galon bucket makeshift DIY composting toilet set up and it worked awesome! So we finally set enough money aside and purchased out Nature's Head Composting Toilet and installed it 123 days ago. We will never look back. Fresh water is lasting longer in our tanks. We have a 46 gallon fresh tank and 42 gallon Gray and black tanks. In the spring I have plans to re build our waste tank valves in such a way as to combine the two for a larger capacity gray tank. Some BLM areas and BCFS areas dumping gray is not possible or legal but some are so having the extra capacity available at the pull of a valve will be handy. Only having gray tanks to deal with simplifies things much while off grid camping. Compost in many areas can just be buried in the ground away from a water source, usually about 200 feet away. Compost can be disposed of in so many ways. If you have questions re composting toilets please see previous post with Q&A's here https://tmblr.co/ZSwTYy2QLzpXEe GuyThaLizard