[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

Richard:

I'm glad someone read it, I suspect you are the only one, unless lots were lurking.

I learned a lot about long distance travel by vehicle this time. It was a pretty good experience overall - I could use more practice, I'm sure.

Other than having way too much Amateur radio gear [a total of three bags worth of misc stuff], and a few items we just never used - film camera, tent, oven [once, but it folds really small] BBQ [do not buy the "pyromid" BBQ for any reason except cool factor, it's a real PITA to use] that only got used once, a Tarp we never even unrapped.

Things I'm glad we brought:

Two spare tires for the car. Having two usable tires saved us $ when the front end went bad and we wasted a front tire before we could get it fixed. Since a tire shop did the work we did put the unmounted spare on so that we would still have a good mounted full sized spare for the car - but we did not have any punctures or ruptured tires, thankfully. Yesterday, we saw quite a few trailers with blown tires, but the oversized tires on our rig, plus the low load on them was not a problem even at 98 degrees F. outside like it was in the area around Redding.

Ez-up shelter with side walls: Worth it's weight in gold - as shown in some of the pics, with the side walls it was both drier and the mosquito coils worked better. With sandbags, we were able to hold it down even when on pavement, and with staked side walls it was pretty good for almost all nights. some nights we did stow it before going to bed due to possible wind but it worked so well during the usual heavy drizzles we got almost every day.

Chairs: Our folding chairs were so handy that I don't think there was a campsite where they did not get unfolded. We got the GCI chairs from REI - they are like a director's chair, but fold pretty small for a full height chair and are made of sturdy tubing - but the sewing again leaves something to be desired - one of the seats is separating after only a few months use so back to REI it will go. Some day, quality will come back into fashion, I hope.

Mosquito coils: Chemical Warefare, these burn for quite a while and if we used two and the side-walls the infestation was usually tolerable. Much to my suprise, I only put on Deet a couple of times, but I did wear a jacket with a hood that reduced my exposure to hands and face only. It was cool enough weather to get away with this most of the time.

Carhartts jacket: Bought this on impulse in Fairbanks - it's canvas shell insulated with an integral insulated hood - it's short cut but the hood makes you water resistant for a time and helps keep the bugs off, plus the sitting temperature range gave it a workable 50 degree rating and if you were walking, cooler was better - the insulation keeps you toasty. I wore this most every day after I bought it.

Hat: I bought a Filson hat, pricy and you can get others, but I wear glasses - a nice brimmed hat keeps your glasses dry in anything but a downpour, plus it give you a natty look. And on a sunny day, it's shade. I wish I had needed that function more this trip.

E-Book: I received a Kindle book reader as a gift and it was so handy - I downloaded a huge number of books before we left the lower 48 and had books for almost all of the trip - I did read 3 of the paper books we brought as well, but man, how nice to have 40 books on tap in one small package.

DC-AC Inverter: I bought before we left a small [120 watt] inverter, sized to power my wife's laptop, and used it also to charge the e-book, the I-pod, the cell phone, and run the laptop as a DVD player. This one draws little enough power that you don't drain the batteries to charge up low amp items like wall warts. I also had a 12 volt to USB adaptor for the I-pod.

Least used important equipment: Coleman Lantern. You might as well not bother, you won't need it once you get north of Vancouver BC, unless you really like to stay up late - we actually used it every night in the lower 48 I think just a couple of times once we got into Southern BC/Alberta - once we got to Whitehorse, it was more a matter of wishing it would get dark enough to sleep. Real blackout shades would have been nice.

Inside the trailer, the three interior lights will let the blind find a contact lens in a dustbin.

Wants: Heater. I hate to say it, but trying to keep the interior dry during high humidity cold nights....sigh. You stay warm enough, but if you have to close up the windows you will nearly drown. We had puddles on window sills and wet curtains - but only on the cold, wet nights when we could not open the vents. If we could open the vents, and better, run the fan, we were OK.

I have thought about just using the coleman lantern inside with the windows cracked a bit to dry it out when we are not sleeping inside. That thing throws off much heat.

BTW, ordinary Nalgene bottles [the white plastic HDPE ones] make super hot water bottles - they can tolerate boiling water and seal leak-free for keeping the feet warm.

Also came to appreciate the oversized propane bottle - with a 20# bottle, we were good for 40 days of camping with fuel in reserve - less than a gallon a week I guess - although we did not cook hugely, we did have bacon, pototoes and eggs for breakfast at least a couple times a week plus many pots of water for coffee/tea, cleaning and cooking dinner most nights.

Lunch was usually cold.

Overall a good experience, we look forward to our next trip soon - probably just a few weeks in the west US.