Sympatico Unplugged

We have discovered Sympatico Unplugged. This is a new high speed internet service using the cell phone towers and transmitters. All you need is a modem and a power outlet. As long as you are in a coverage area, you can pick up internet wirelessly. Presently this is only in the major centres, but will roll out over most of the populated areas of Canada over the next few years. Rogers has a similar service, and Clearwire service is rolling out in the US. This may well be a cheaper alternative to Satellite Internet. Of course Satellite Internet (Datastorm/Motosat) will always be the best service for coverage area as you can be in middle of nowhere and still get connected, but for the casual user, this may be something worth looking at.

A wonderful aluminum table

I must tell you about the fantastic aluminum table we bought at Loblaws! At the end of summer, last year, we were shopping at our local Loblaws and saw some aluminum roll top tables on sale. It comes in a bag and is easily assembled. The top is roll top aluminum and it fits onto the scissor legs. It is steady, light and very sturdy. We like to have our "kitchen" outside and have all our electrical appliances on a table. We used to have a Coleman folding camping table, but it has a particle (?) board top. After the first summer the top started to sag and it became impossible to get a level surface to work on. We are thrilled with this new table. As soon as I have some photos of t I will post them.

A Great Weekend!

The weather turned out sunny, but cold. We had a very nice site right next to Lake Ontario. Everything in the trailer worked just fine and we were very cozy. Our Rockwood has a heated mattress which is wonderful when it is just above freezing outside. There were not many campers, just a handful of motorhomes, trailers and pop-ups plus a few hardy tent campers. It was so cold after the sun went down, that the tent campers over the road from us packed up and left in the night.

We took a long walk along the lake shore to the bird sanctuary in the GM plant grounds. There were birds everywhere (I guess that's because it's a bird sanctuary). We saw a lovely little Canada goose family swimming in the bay. The swans were swimming around with their wings all plumped up and they looked so regal!

There were a lot of fishermen on the bay. I wonder what they catch? We have only seen carp in the water, but I guess there must be other fish there.

This was the first weekend that Darlington was open, so we were able to stay beyond the 2 pm deadline because no-one else was booked on the site. We packed up slowly, re-organizing cupboards as we went. We are deciding what we can get rid of so that trailer will be lighter for the long trip down to the States in August. How did we accumulate so many chairs?? Two umbrellas? 4 tables? 2 kettles? These extras have to go.

I am off again 2 weeks and we are booked at Darlington again for the long weekend. Suzanne's baby is due soon, so we won't be going anywhere too far away.

Heading out in the morning

We have decided to that we will go ahead with our plans for a short weekend camp at Darlington. It will just be for 1 night, but we are leaving early in the morning and coming home late on Sunday. That way we will get the maximum amount of time for the least amount of money. We'll make sure that the water system works, that there is propane in the tanks and that everything else works after the long winter closed up.

The weather is not going to be the best, but a bad weekend camping beats a weekend staying at home!

Water Problems!

Today we went to the camper to clean it and get it ready for a weekend of camping next week. Michael's main job was to de-winterize the water system. When we bought the camper it included an inline water filter made by WaterPur. This filter was fixed on the line from the tank to the water heater, situated under the sofa, in a place that is very difficult to reach.

Every year when we winterized we had to by-pass the filter, or else it took up a lot of anti-freeze. Perhaps we should have just let it fill with anti-freeze, instead we decided to by-pass it last winter. We used a small hose with metal fixtures. Something happened over the winter and the metal fixtures damaged the plastic ones on the hoses in the camper. When we tried to de-winterize, the water started squirting out everywhere. Now we were in a pickle. What to do. We had already decided that we were going to remove the factory installed filter because the new carbon cartridges cost C$40+ each. Instead we will fit a Camco RV Filter that fits on the water line outside the camper.

The problem now was that whenever Michael turned the pump on, water squirted everywhere. What to do, what to do. After some "discussion" Michael went to Owasco in Whitby and bought some new fittings for the pipes, came back, attached the filter inlet pipe to the filter outlet pipe and thus eliminated the problem. Now we don't have to worry about bypassing the filter or disconnecting anything every fall.

We are now ready for camping and, depending on the weather, we will go to Darlington this coming weekend. Camping is GOOD for the soul!