We found a really beautiful spot about 41-43 minutes north of ft St John, BC.  No signs.  Nothing

We tested very carefully and the soil was dry and hard enough, but also had grass for our passenger’s tent.

About midnight I’m seeing high beam late model Ford half ton diesel headlights shining in our front window.

Nothing was marked, we thought it was crown lands.

No this here’s private property.  You’re not in America now, you’re in CANADA.

I know, and I’m sorry.  We didn’t vote for that jackass.  That’s not how you oughtta treat people.

I’m wearing a nightgown and this guy is full up belt buckles and stetson.

You’ve got to go.

I’m not sure I can drive, and what guarantees this guy is telling the truth and won’t follow us and when I’m not sure I can drive. 

Why don’t we call the mountees?

THE MOUNTEES?

Yes. Let’s call them.

You want to make them drive 41 minutes out?!?

I can wait.

And I closed and deadbolted  the door. And I went in back to find my phone in the dark and yet stay out of the blazing bright high beams as if avoiding lightning bolts.

He pulls the truck right up next to us and I know he’s right dead in front of Florian’s tent. He had to see it, didn’t he? I peeked out the window and he was tiny outside the truck talking in the window to the rancher in the big truck.

So we wait for the mountees.

It takes 43 minutes.  All the while the headlights right in the front window.

The mountee was very nice and verified, and acknowledged nothing was marked.  I told him I was afraid to drive yet, and it had been four hours, so did I feel like I could drive ok he asks.

I can try, I told him, it had been four hours at this point since I had had any intoxicant. 

Turns out I could.

So the mountee led us to a logging trail where we could sleep the rest of the night. Florian put up his  stuff back into the bus.  Mellie stayed on her bunk, and we drove five miles up the road to a new spot.

The guy should invest in signage.  People DO pay attention for them.

We will be home to see those lonely kitties tonight!!!!

We got hit by a huge rock between Ft. St. John and Fort Nelson.  Luckily Service Glass in Ft. Nelson got us right in and was able to cut and replace the broken glass right away. The windshield nearly shattered, but only a handful of glass shards flew into my face from the inside and the glass pane stayed intact until we were able to get to the next town.  If it hadn’t, I’m sure we would have gone off the road from the shock of the impact.

We stayed two nights at the Tutshi lake boat launch.  Monday morning it was swarmed by tour buses, at least 14, and people kept smoking by, looking into, and touching and opening the door of the bus.   The driver of that first shuttle bus in particular was a huge asshole when we brought the problem to his attention.

Southeast tours: on my sh*list.

I have not been around so many people and been so underdressed in a long time. 

We slept overnight in the parking lot, which wasn’t as sucky as it sounds.

This morning, we were looking for a Tim Hortons for coffee, and Google just kept trying to take us to the Tim Hortons in the mall food court, so we ended up driving at random away from the mall.

At one point, I had to stop the bus in the middle of traffic because a small dog wearing a harness was trying to kill a jackrabbit in the middle of the road.  The dog, however, was not much bigger than the rabbit, and clearly pretty stupid about how to do it. 

The rabbit appeared to have been badly injured and was on its side trying to kick the dog and keep it away. 

I put on the flashers and set the brake,  the dog and rabbit were right in front of the bus, almost in the intersection.  I grabbed my six foot windshield brush and got out and swung it at the dog, and yelled at it to get away, and finally saw (presumably) its leashless owner coming toward what was happening.  When I swung the brush at the dog it backed off from the rabbit, but not before trying to get a final chomp in toward the rabbit ‘s belly, which was still intact. 

The rabbit stayed on its side on the hot asphalt, his golden yellow eyes were just terrified.  It couldn’t get up.  Blood was coming out of its nostrils.  It’s pupils dilated further when it saw me reach down to pull it from the road.

  He didn’t struggle when I grabbed his feet and laid him in the grass above the curb between the sidewalk and the road. Being in the grass seemed to instantly soothe him, but he was badly injured.  His belly fur was damp and matted where the stupid suburban dog had tried unsuccessfully to rip his belly open. 

I couldn’t tell why they were in the street, but my guess was there was no way the little harness dog had chased down the rabbit, but the rabbit had probably bolted and had gotten hit in the busy street.  I could see a them in the middle of traffic a few hundred feet ahead before I had stopped .  it looked like two animals were fighting in the road, and some other cars had gone around and avoided them, but there was no way for me to do so by the time we pulled closer. They were directly in front of the bus, and when I stopped, it had presented the dog with cover to continue his attack without vehicles swerving around his attempts to grab the rabbit.

I couldn’t leave the rabbit in the road.

I couldn’t help him to recover- that seemed impossible. He could barely kick and just seemed to be spasming.

And the stupid dog might run back once I leave and keep tormenting the helpless thing. His owner appeared hapless at best.

I wrung his neck quickly.

He stopped twitching and laid still. His eyes looked calm.

I got back in the bus.

I washed my hands and then kept driving.

Apparently ammonite jewelry is only available through the approval of the Alberta government.

Giant sea fish drawing: approved.

We are staying at Horse thief canyon lookout tonight.

Kyle has been on the roof two days now working on the solar install.  Kraig has been indispensably helpful as well over the past two days.  I can’t lift anything more than two pounds above my head, so I’ve been gophering forgotten tools and sundries and helping from scaffolding with what I can.  But the boys have been doing the hard work to get the solar in and it’s starting to come together.

At the end of the day today, Kyle and Kraig had most of the install complete.  Tomorrow morning they hope to finish placing and linking the last two panels.

We will have to do some.internal wiring before we can link it to my power system, but that doesn’t have to happen on the roof, thankfully. 

More pictures when we have them all up!

In between rain the last few days, we upgraded some of the bus lights.  The new lights look amazing and I can’t stop admiring them.

We lost a lot of sunny day this morning getting additional items to paint the roof.  It took a lot longer to mask off the roof that we thought it works and Kyle didn’t get to start rolling until the afternoon, by which time it was quite hot up top.

Unfortunately we are racing the weather.  With storms now predicted to roll in tomorrow at 1 pm, it means we might not get the paint on the roof in time for it to dry before the rain rolls in.

That means we probably won’t get the solar installed before Kyle has to leave Tuesday.  Kraig can help Kyle lift panels and rails up on Sunday, but unless we get the right windows of sunny weather when we need them, that solar won’t get put up before he leaves.

WISH US LUCK!!

Kyle arrived from Juneau a few days ago, and we have been working on the interior bus demolition.

Before he got here, Mel and I removed all the unseized screws from the interior sheet metal ceiling in the front half of the bus. 

My nephew, Anthony, came down to Red Lodge and removed the entire AC system.  We also moved almost everything we traveled with into Keri’s warehouse or living space so we could break out the interior panels to access the roof for the solar install.

Kyle brought the new odometer module from the Anchorage Freightliner dealer, and I installed it today.  We drove about 14 miles and adjusted the settings until both the odometer and speedometer functioned accurately.

I went through my Google timeline since a April 28th to calculate the miles for the trip, and how many miles the bus has put on since the ECM data was pulled.

From our house in Juneau until we had the appointment at Floyd’s Truck center in Belgrade, MT, we went 1,662.9 miles.

After that appointment, I drove about 3,384.9 miles to Red Lodge, then on the rest of the way to New York state.  We left New York and returned west and went back to Montana, camping in Oregon,  to the Bus Fair, and back to Red Lodge. 

Total miles for this trip so far have been 8002.4!

It would have been far less had we not traveled all the way to NY state- that added about 5000 of the total miles this summer.

We will likely put about 2000 more miles on the bus before we get home.

Total base mileage for the bus so far is 141,607.1— that includes the ECM reading until today— when I installed the new Odometer.  It took us 14 miles to properly calibrate it, and so now we will add 141610.1 miles to the current reading to have the actual mileage for the bus. (It registered 11 miles of the 14 we knew we traveled during the calibration.)

WOO!

Most of the paint has arrived for the roof prep.

On the way back from Oregon, we stopped at Green Tech power in Bozeman and bought some Iron Ridge solar racking rails and hardware.  I also ordered adjustable angled attachment feet from Skoolie.com which will compensate for the curved shape of the roof. 

It’s raining today, and going to rain tomorrow, so we plan on finishing the roof scuffing and prep if we can between showers.  Hopefully by the weekend we will be able to paint the entire roof and get the solar panels mounted on the front half of the roof.

I’m excited to keep working on the build, although we won’t be able to accomplish everything I had wanted for the summer with our change of plans. 

We went to Crater Lake before the bus fair, but we weren’t able to drive around either rim road because they were still closed due to snow.

There was huge partying next to our campsite at the bus fair, and we really had already gotten out of it what we wanted so we left this morning and headed back toward Montana. 

Right now we’re at Plymouth Park which is an army corp of engineers Park.

Also, our power system died again last night and it was over 70% when we went to bed. I’m getting really irritated at this point that it will only last 3 days without being plugged into the grid. We had set up solar during the bus fare and between Wednesday and Saturday it was able to stay above 70% but then last night it simply croaked for no apparent reason.  The maximum load we put on it was 200 watts and it should have lasted well over a day with no input whatsoever with that amount of usage and 3,000 watt hours left in the batteries.  I reactivated our service ticket with Bluetti and I’m getting irritated that it goes back and forth and we get zero answers for why the stuff doesn’t work right and just crashes and dies well before it’s worn the power down, and why it won’t take the full wattage that we give it from the engine.

We would have just wild camped if we didn’t need to plug in and top up the Bluetti.  But here we are paying for power and a shower again. 

We will continue on our way back to Red Lodge in the morning. 

If we go thru Pasco again, I suspect we will make another chocolate stop.  Those truffles are some of the best I’ve had.

We are at the bus fair.  Yesterday there were a bunch of seminars.  It was hot.

The last two nights we stayed at a paid campsite with plug in power. The Bluetti was totally out of power after camping in the rain and shade at Sunset Falls.  I took advantage of the power and spent hours cleaning the bus, especially taking the chance to vacuum for the first time since we left Juneau.

There were a zillion pine needles in the bus after the weekend.

Headed by to Crater lake for the day.  More later!