Across the bottom of BC
Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 1:46 pm
*WARNING* Asstro content ahead! 
Three days before departure to "The Pender Bender" (more on this later), I notice an amber fluid dripping from the front of the Asstro.
Coolant.
$814 later, I have a nice, new radiator. I know, I know. "We don't have those" The Asstro does, though, and it won't travel far without it. Know why it was leaking? Because it was made of... (pause, pause, drum roll....)
PLASTIC!
The #^%$@* radiator was a three-part, stamped-togther, irrepairable, un-recyclable combination of aluminum heat exchanger and plastic. The end caps had obviously been staked on to the core with a very large machine. Cheap and easy for them, impossible for me, the customer. Unfortunately, plastic, not at its best under heat, ruptures after a few thousand heat/cool cycles. The end casing had split. &&$^#@$
No wonder Detroit is in the toilet.
Onward.
First night out, following a ride on the world's longest free ferry,
Under a full moon, I camp beside a rushing mountain stream and awake to this:
However, "Detroit, we have a problem". The Asstro has suddenly begun using fuel at a prodigious rate. Normally, I get 20 mpusg. Yesterday's fuel burn was nearly twice that rate. WTF?
The smell of gasoline that greeted me that morning clued me in. I was leaking fuel.
The filler neck is joined to the tank by a flexible hose coupling and fuel ($) was pissing out the junction. In Vernon, BC, I searched out a wrecker and an employee and I removed a suitable replacement from the half-dozen or so hulks baking in the 35C sun. A measure of GM's attention to detail was shown by the screws on the hose clamps. Both of them had their slotted sides oriented upwards - against the floorboards. Oh so convenient for the installers who were looking down on the as-yet uninstalled tank, yet impossible to access from underneath by the customer.
We actually had to drop the tank to access the hose clamps. An hour and $35 later, I was on my way. Still leaking fuel, but armed with a solution.
A few hours later, I was here, alongside the Fraser River. North America's last un-dammed river of any size. It drains half of southern BC, so it is definitely "of any size"
I used up the last of my colour film, so I had to revert to black and white for this one.
The transition from the interior drylands to the coastal rainforest is nowhere more dramatic than along The Duffey Lake Road, BC 99 running north from Vancouver to Lillooet.
Duffey Lake:
The Coast Range:
My penultimate destination was this: The Big House. A friend's residence on the BC coast at Pender Harbour on the Sunshine Coast.
Here, a half-dozen or so retired and not-so-retired film people, another half-dozen or so American Sign Language interpreters, several guitar players, at least one banjo attemptor, two deaf couples, fishers, swimmers, an Italian Marquesa and at least a dozen persons of ambivalent sexual preference meet every year for The Pender Bender. It's a three day session of food, intoxicants and bullshitting that defies explanation.
The journey continued uneventfully to Victoria BC, where my sister and I changed shifts looking after my aging dad.
Three days before departure to "The Pender Bender" (more on this later), I notice an amber fluid dripping from the front of the Asstro.
Coolant.
$814 later, I have a nice, new radiator. I know, I know. "We don't have those" The Asstro does, though, and it won't travel far without it. Know why it was leaking? Because it was made of... (pause, pause, drum roll....)
PLASTIC!
The #^%$@* radiator was a three-part, stamped-togther, irrepairable, un-recyclable combination of aluminum heat exchanger and plastic. The end caps had obviously been staked on to the core with a very large machine. Cheap and easy for them, impossible for me, the customer. Unfortunately, plastic, not at its best under heat, ruptures after a few thousand heat/cool cycles. The end casing had split. &&$^#@$
No wonder Detroit is in the toilet.Onward.
First night out, following a ride on the world's longest free ferry,
Under a full moon, I camp beside a rushing mountain stream and awake to this:
However, "Detroit, we have a problem". The Asstro has suddenly begun using fuel at a prodigious rate. Normally, I get 20 mpusg. Yesterday's fuel burn was nearly twice that rate. WTF?
The smell of gasoline that greeted me that morning clued me in. I was leaking fuel.
The filler neck is joined to the tank by a flexible hose coupling and fuel ($) was pissing out the junction. In Vernon, BC, I searched out a wrecker and an employee and I removed a suitable replacement from the half-dozen or so hulks baking in the 35C sun. A measure of GM's attention to detail was shown by the screws on the hose clamps. Both of them had their slotted sides oriented upwards - against the floorboards. Oh so convenient for the installers who were looking down on the as-yet uninstalled tank, yet impossible to access from underneath by the customer. We actually had to drop the tank to access the hose clamps. An hour and $35 later, I was on my way. Still leaking fuel, but armed with a solution.
A few hours later, I was here, alongside the Fraser River. North America's last un-dammed river of any size. It drains half of southern BC, so it is definitely "of any size"
I used up the last of my colour film, so I had to revert to black and white for this one.
The transition from the interior drylands to the coastal rainforest is nowhere more dramatic than along The Duffey Lake Road, BC 99 running north from Vancouver to Lillooet.
Duffey Lake:
The Coast Range:
My penultimate destination was this: The Big House. A friend's residence on the BC coast at Pender Harbour on the Sunshine Coast.
Here, a half-dozen or so retired and not-so-retired film people, another half-dozen or so American Sign Language interpreters, several guitar players, at least one banjo attemptor, two deaf couples, fishers, swimmers, an Italian Marquesa and at least a dozen persons of ambivalent sexual preference meet every year for The Pender Bender. It's a three day session of food, intoxicants and bullshitting that defies explanation.
The journey continued uneventfully to Victoria BC, where my sister and I changed shifts looking after my aging dad.
