January 20th

The skies were still mostly clear in the morning, and the sun started shining on us around 9. We took the opportunity to air out our bedding and cushions.

This brings up a point we forgot to mention earlier, during the install of the solar panel, Ben must have broken the seal around the skylight with all the weight he was throwing around on the roof. It leaked horribly during the drive down, soaking the floor and whatever happened to fall onto it. We had bought some silicone before we left Campbell River to fix another leak where the solar panel wires came through the roof (fixed that on the ferry from Duke Point), but we didn’t notice the other leak until later, and then it didn’t stop raining until we got to Pismo on Monday. Long story short, just after we arrived, Ben backed the Xterra up to the Trillium and climbed on to the roof to run a bead around the skylight. The torrential rains that came the next day proved the repair to be successful.

Over the last few days we have been setting up an on demand water heater. This hasn’t been without it’s challenges; cheap ass Canadian Tire hose failed in less that 12 hours, the failed end bits have been replaced now with much higher quality fittings; the installation location has migrated from the front right, to the front left, to hanging off the refrigerator vent on the left; and the discharge has changed from a shower head outside to attached directly to the sink. Now that we seem to have it all sorted out, it is sure nice to have hot water on demand for dishes!

We also installed new LED lighting in the girls’ bunks and it adds a huge amount of light to the trailer! Super crappy install with loose wires and lots of electrical tape, but it works!

Oh yes, and we did actually find time for some fun too. We spent an hour or so on the beach, playing with a skim board, rolling in the sand and turning endless cartwheels. We also made our pilgrimage over to the monarch grove and admired the butterflies.