It was true a Double Feature of a camping adventure, as the poster collage illustrates; Caprizilla VS Mothra, featuring Jason and the Shit Show.
But let's start at the beginning; Monday we loaded up Myrtle and headed out for for a two nights of camping in the foothills of Kananaskis, Alberta. Myrtle and her awesome rebuilt engine (her original 318 poly stroked and bored to a 408) performed perfectly tackling the highway and mountain passes. You can really feel the extra torque and she purred along easily. We arrived at our first come first serve, off grid, provincial park campsite and found a perfect spot surrounded with large trees and lots of spaces between sites. The sites are basic with a gravel pad, fire pit and picnic table. There is no water, no electricity but there is an outhouse and water pump at the central part of the campground. But no worries, Myrtle is fully self contained with a kitchen, bathroom, running water, solar power and even an Jackery portable solar generator.
There are some great hikes around and a short walk to the river, which came in handy later. We came for the peace and quiet and time in nature so it was perfect! We enjoyed a nice lunch of potato salad I had prepared at home. We spent the afternoon lounging and organizing Myrtle for a future planned longer trip. Supper was BBQ vegan hot dogs, grilled peaches and snacks enjoyed by the campfire. A great day!
Then it began.... Jason was washing up the dinner dishes and when finished it sounded like the water pump was still going off and on. He inspected the washroom and found the toilet leaking clean water from the inlet and as he reached back to try and fix it, it sheered off in his hand leaving a jagged edge that made a 2 inch cut on his hand. He was bleeding now while trying to stem the flow of water. Due to the way the lever sheered off it was stuck inside the inlet hose making it impossible to cap. The pump was turned off while he continued to work on the inlet hose. I on the other hand was blissfuly unaware of the chaos happening inside while I was enjoying the campfire. Jason finally called me in, with a hand wrapped in tissue secured with electrical tape as we surveyed the scene. Jason performed a miracle and was able to get the stuck piece out and cap the line. We were contemplating heading home but with water restored we realized would could just water bucket the toilet and continue on the adventure. I fixed up Jason's hand with our well stocked first aid kit (well stocked due to the last fall's misadventure). By now it was dark and all the lights where on inside as the water was being restored. The lights are an important detail. Lessons learned in this chapter; travel with an extra toilet valve and a drill to make drilling out the line easier.
Oh did the adventure continue... I had been distracted by the toilet drama but now I started to notice the uncomfortable number of moths inside Myrtle, like forty of them. I started catching and releasing them outside over the next hour or so, sometimes releasing some of them multiple times as the flew back in to attack the lights. Some of them would watch me through the window, taunting me, as I carefully opened the door to toss out their compatriots. We came up with a system of lights on while I caught one, then Jason would shut off the lights and fling open the door while I sent them back into the night. We finally got out the last of them and settled down to go to bed at about 1AM. We were stewing all night wondering if we had an infestation in the camper or if they had invaded while we were distracted with the lights on working on the toilet. Lessons learned in this chapter; keep your doors shut and your lights off or you too may suffer the fate of Mothra.
The next morning was spent ripping apart the entire motorhome, every cupboard, every drawer, every bag of linens, under and being everything looking for any signs of an infestation. We have always kept our interior well sealed up with all linens in bins or sealed bags, no food left in it and we liberally use peppermint oil which is supposed to deter mice and so far it has. We found nothing and breathed a sigh of relief thinking our luck had changed.
We were wrong... After a nice breakfast, which included using the Jackery and Nespresso machine on the picnic table for mountain espresso, I noticed that suddenly the toilet was no longer flushing with the water bucket method. This was not good news. Jason spent a great deal of time plunging in the stifling hot little bathroom, with the bathroom window we don't open as its the only one with out a screen and we didn't want a return of Mothra. At this point he sent me out to find a long thin stick to try and auger out the block. In the terrible heat Jason decided to strip down to just shorts. This proved to be wise when the toilet decided to back flow and explode on one of his vigorous plunges, covering him and the bathroom with last nights BBQ. It was a shitty situation and to make matters worse, nothing, I mean nothing cleared the blocked toilet. We were again left surveying the scene and deciding what to do. We cleaned up the mess and decided a freezing cold bath in the mountain river was in order. After the arctic dip we headed back to camp, had a nice lunch and weighed our options. We decided we would go to another full service campground about 10-15 minutes away and try to clear the block at the sani-dump. Spoiler alert, that did not work. Lessons learned in this chapter; travel with a snake tool, use only RV toilet paper and less of it, get a better plunger, add digester to your tank.
It was now Tuesday evening and we decided to call it a day after 1 night of camping and 2 very full days. We had plans to stop in a nearby little town on our way home to visit cute vintage shop, so we thought we might as well do that one day early. We were wrong... closed Tuesdays.
So we headed back home and I jokingly said wouldn't it be funny if the block cleared on the bouncy winding trip home? And that folks is exactly what happened. We unpacked Myrtle and headed home to very hot showers. Today we picked up all the items from Canadian Tire that we wished we had on this trip. I hope we don't need them.
