It was one of those last minute decisions to go to Valens. Thursday night Dave asked if I though we had what we needed to throw some things together and head to Valens on Friday. The plan was to stay overnight then go to Cambridge to pick up marine carpet for the boat, then on to Rutherford Rd in North Toronto to pick up a used kicker plate for the boat. We figured we might as well stay at Valens and save an hour drive from home.

This was the coldest weekend so far this year and again, we had propane issues. On New Years weekend, although not as cold, we had issues with our propane tanks frosting up and not working properly, always at night. We’d have to switch out a partially full tank with a full spare. We put the frosted tank in the front pass thru (well away from the heating duct and let it warm up. Then of course we could use it again. This happened again this weekend so we devised a plan! The propane compartment is enclosed for a reason and we don’t want to interfere at all with that, so we decided to hang a trouble lamp with a 100 watt bulb inside the propane compartment but as far from the actual tanks as possible. Well, it seemed to work, but unfortunately the tank we were drawing from overnight didn’t have a lot of propane left in it  and ran empty. Dave had to get up and switch it over. He confirmed that the tanks had no frost though which means the light seems to be working.

New Years weekend we also couldn’t get our water pump to work. I’m confident that it wasn’t a “frozen parts issue” as the temperature was much milder than some weekends last year when we used our fresh water system. The front compartment was running well above freezing, usually above 15C but the pump would not draw water, nor even pink when the settings were changed to “winterize”. We were already winterized, we were just testing to see if the pump worked on any setting. Dave called our dealer and they said to check the small valve at the connection end on the water panel. We didn’t take time this weekend because it was a short one where we wouldn’t have used our water system anyway.

Next weekend we’re back and hopefully we’ll have sorted out our propane issues for good! We’ll give it a go at fixing the water pump and I’ve a few other chores to do too. The floors need to be washed in the fiver and we want to take down the TV in our bedroom and bring it home. We never use it, so it’s going and a nice photo or something will go up in it’s place. I also want to bring our step ladder and hang my suction cup feeders on the windows! The fiver sits too high and our regular little ladder just isn’t high enough!

Hopefully we’ll have some time to do some ice skating next weekend too! We have to work in a road trip to Mount Forest area to look at our next toy – a used truck camper! Yes, we’ve been looking at used ones for awhile. It would be a weekend warrior toy so we could tow the boat behind. We can’t do it now with the fiver, we’re too long.

Well that’s it for this update! I’m so glad we sneaked away to Valens this weekend! It’s always such a great get away!

Cheers and happy camping!