THURSDAY 14 July

Today was a repositioning day, as we moved the travel trailer from Bouctouche Baie Chalets & Camping in Saint-Edouard-de-Kent, New Brunswick, to the Cavendish KOA Holiday in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island (PE).  We chose the faster highway route, with an estimated travel time of only 2 hours and 15 minutes.  Check-out time was 11 AM and check-in time was 2 PM.  The office said we could check out late as long as we were out by noon.  The KOA had a $20 early arrival fee.  We pulled out at 11:58 AM.

The route was Hwy 11 to Hwy 15 to Hwy 16.  Although mostly two lanes, they were limited access and generally good roads.  Much of it was 100 Km/h, with some slowdowns to as low as 60 Km/h in a couple of construction zones.  There were also a couple of places with only one lane open and flaggers or stoplights to control traffic flow.  We crossed the Confederation Bridge and then followed what seemed like a circuitous route of back roads.  We didn’t mind as the roads were OK, and we enjoyed the rural/agricultural scenery, which was beautiful.  It was obvious that PEI is a developed island, quite different from where we have been most recently, and that Cavendish is something of a tourist town.  We finally arrived at our new campground at 2:30 PM.  (We checked a map later, and our route was actually fairly direct.)

Arrival at the Cavendish KOA Holiday was interesting.  The entrance area had a building that we took to be the office, but just a parking lot in front that was too small for RVs.  I spotted the entrance gates by a building labeled “Security,” but did see an obvious staging area for arriving RVs, so I pulled up to the gate on the right, figuring it would open.  It didn’t.  The security building was closed but had a sign saying to register at the office, so Linda hopped out and went over there.  (We found out later that there was space for two arriving RVs marked on the ground, essentially in the road, but I didn’t see them.)

It took Linda about 15 minutes to get us registered, during which time I had no intention of backing up from this location.  (She had to fill out a form for the cat and under “type” she listed “black.”)  It became moot as three more RVs arrived and lined up behind me.  Vehicles with passes were able to get in using the left gate, so no harm no foul.  Getting to/into our site was easy (W3W=unequal.pitch.cobs).  Our full-hookup (3-way), 50A, pull-thru site was only slightly off-level both side-to-side and front-to-back, and we were able to level and disconnect the trailer fairly quickly thanks to our LevelMatePro+.  This device/app has proven to be an excellent purchase.  We were not parked next to Paul and Nancy, who had left and arrived much earlier, but were close enough to walk easily between the rigs.  This park was a little tighter than the last two on side-to-side spacing, but it was OK for our needs.

As with KOA campgrounds in general, and especially Holiday campgrounds in tourist areas, this is a family-oriented, well-equipped facility and operation, with scheduled activities for children.  And that was also fine with us.  We were family campers when our children were young, and we remember how much we enjoyed it, so it was nice to see other families doing the same.  A real bonus to this KOA was the free, unlimited, fast Wi-Fi, which was a bit of surprise given the number of rigs/people that were here.

Dinner was leftover macaroni salad and bulgur salad at Paul and Nancy’s rig.  We started a campfire first (around 5 PM) as it was a bit chilly, and brought our plates out to eat by the fire.  We had a small glass of Bodacious Smooth Red with the meal and a very small glass of Inniskillin Ice Wine for afterwards.  We eventually went inside and tried to watch Episode 1, Part 3 of Obi-Wan Kenobi, but it was buffering constantly.  We went back to our rig, used our iPads for a while, and went to bed early, surprisingly tired for not having had a very hard day.

 

FRIDAY 15 July

We will be on PEI for five nights, so we were not feeling pressured to get out and be tourists today.  Besides which, we had heavy ran overnight with more forecast for the day and, at best, it was overcast, chilly, and a bit damp.  We also had chores and errands to take care of.

Linda and Nancy had both been cleaning out things they didn’t need and wanted to donate to the Humane Society.  They also needed to make a grocery store run and Charlottetown, about an hour away, was where they needed to go to do all of these things.  PEI is an island, but it’s a big one.

Paul had been in touch with his American Coach (Rev Group) “concierge service” regarding the bedroom slide-out motor brake, but still did not have a definitive answer about the “lever” that manually engages and disengages it.  (This brake is supposed to lock the slide-out both in and out, but had somehow moved to the manual disengaged position, allowing the slide-out to creep out about 1/2” while driving.)  I found some possibly useful additional information online suggesting that this brake is actually a clutch pack consisting of a plastic disc with metal discs on either side clamped tight with a spring.  When the switch is pressed to move the slide in or out, the clutch is released electromechanically.  The lever we were trying to find and move disengages the clutch altogether.  This insight, however, did not help me figure out what to move and how to move it.

Paul already had the access panel off when I got to the coach so I had a second go at finding and moving the lever and was finally able to do so.  For context this lever is covered by a rubber dust boot, so we could not actually see it and everything we were doing was by feel.  We were also working with incomplete and inaccurate information based on a prior model of this mechanism.

What I finally figured out, and would like to have known up front, was that the lever was a “scissor” design.  It had two vertically oriented “blades” sticking out horizontally, in the closed position, i.e., one aligned with the other.  The “front” blade was free to move up about 22.5 degrees relative to the rear blade, which was stationary.  In the aligned position the motor brake was disengaged.  With the front lever up, the brake was engaged.  This design, or at least the way the brake was installed, appeared to open the possibility of the moveable lever dropping down into the disengaged position on a bumpy road.  And we had spent the last few weeks on some really bumpy roads.  The technician eventually called Paul back and confirmed that we had done it right and that “no,” the lever should not move on its own under bumpy road conditions; hypothetically, as that is unproven.

When I returned to our rig, I got my computer connected to the park Wi-Fi and then worked on this blog post.  At some point the Wi-Fi connection dropped and when I tried to reconnect, it said my code was “invalid or expired.”  Nuts.  Linda and Nancy returned from their run to Charlottetown around 12:45 PM where they found a Sobeys supermarket for the grocery shopping.   They also stopped at the Price Mart and at the Humane Society.  We had sandwiches for a light lunch and then Linda reorganized some of the food storage to make room for what she had just bought.  Juniper lost here lunch, so Linda ended up taking a throw rug down to Paul and Nancy’s rig to wash.

By mid-afternoon the rain threat had vanished and the sun was peeking through the clouds, so we decided to venture out for a bit, just the two of us, and headed to the Anne of Green Gables Heritage Center, just around the corner from our campground.  The Center is part of the Prince Edward Island National Park (Parks Canada), so we figured they would have park guides and trail maps, and they did!  We did not spend much time there as we planned to return tomorrow with Nancy and Paul.  We drove out to the Cavendish Beach area, again PEI-NP, just to see how to get there and then drove west for bit on Hwy 6 through Stanley Bridge before turning around and returning to camp.

While meal preparations were underway,  I hooked up our waste tank discharge hose to complete our 3-way services connections.  I then got out the mini grease gun and added some grease to the two pivots for the weight distribution (WD) bars of the Propride 3P hitch, which was a bit “creaky” on the drive yesterday.  I also used a spray lubricant on the yoke and the two WD jack swivel linkages.  Nothing else looked out of order on the hitch.

As long as I was working in this area, the motor cover on the tongue jack has a small bubble level on top secured with three small screws.  The bubble is not centered when the trailer is level, which I find annoying.  I thought the screws might allow it to be adjusted, but I needed a special screwdriver and did not want to dig one out of my toolbox.  Instead, I tried to adjust the entire cover, which is held with four screws, two on each side.  That sort of almost kind of worked.  Not that it matters, as the LevelMatePro+ works really well, but this would be convenient to get “close” to level without the use of additional technology.

Dinner tonight was vegan lasagna, prepared by co-chefs Linda and Nancy, and it was amazing.  We finished off an open bottle of un-oaked Chardonnay, which paired nicely.  We built a campfire before eating but did not light it until we were done.  The fire proved to be fussy, requiring constant fanning to get enough oxygen to make flames instead of smoke.  The fire pits here are just that, small (24”) metal rings completely buried in the ground, with no way to adequately draft.

While enjoying the fire several of us heard an occasional deep rumbling.  I eventually noticed some rather dramatic clouds to the northwest and Linda confirmed on radar that a thunderstorm cell was moving towards us from the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  I walked to the end of the campground to get clear of the trees and used her Pixel 6 phone to take a few photos.  When the first raindrops appeared, we took our camp chairs and headed back to our trailer.  Not long after the rain started for real, and eventually got very heavy for a while, with thunder and lightning.

Here are four of the photos of the storm clouds:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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