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All Tales From The Road since the beginning of times:

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Hello!

Do you like COLD? SNOW? Then keep reading we got plenty of that this month 🙂

 

 

Lessons Learned

We’ll keep it short this month, so check our Fifth Month Article for our winter’s lessons learned (4×4, keep the van warm, dry our ski gear). Also check our Van Report below; we have a few things to say about the van.

 

 

New Kids On The Blog

Here are the articles that were added to the website in February 2018. Thanks for reading!

 

 

Van Report

Webasto Heater

Since we last replaced the burner insert because of carbon buildup, we ran the Webasto for over 700 hours and we’re happy to report that it’s still running fine! 🙂 We’re very tempted to say that the issue is fixed, but we will still wait just in case… (context: How To Install a New Burner Following Carbon Buildup)

We had some REALLY cold weather since we arrived in Canada in February; we had to deal with temperatures around -5F (-20C) for over two weeks and we’re happy to report that we didn’t freeze to death! The Webasto worked really hard to keep us comfortable in the van 🙂

 

Leaking Roof

We read a few reports of leaking roof on the Transit (source: FordTransitUSAForum), but we thought bad things only happen to others… yeah right! So here’s the situation: there are a bunch of threaded holes on top of the Transit roof. These threaded holes are used to install roof rack and such. If you climb on your Transit roof, you won’t find any of these threaded holes because they come with rubber plug and Ford simply painted over them. So let’s say you want to use the threaded hole, you would have to remove the paint and the rubber plug. We didn’t use any of these threaded hole so we left the paint untouched. Unfortunately, it seems that the paint cracks over time and as a result the roof leaks:

 

Here are the threaded hole locations:

 

We noticed dripping water coming out of the wall over the sliding door; because our ceiling is insulated and finished, we could not locate the exact location of the leak. But we assumed it came from one of the threaded hole, so we climbed on the roof and we found that the paint was slightly cracked around the plugs (see previous picture). No big deal, we had some Silicone II in our toolbox and sealed the deal:

 

Don’t Panic!

It’s a quick and easy fix. If you’re at the early stage of your conversion, you should probably seal the paint as a preventive measure. You could, for example, use the Dicor self-leveling sealant leftover from the roof fan installation (faroutride.com/fan-installation).

Note: if you’re thinking of sealing from inside the van, be aware that some of them are located under a frame and are not accessible… (source: FordTransitUSAForum).

 

Food for thought

Because we insulated our van using Thinsulate (faroutride.com/thinsulate-installation/), water found its way down; we were alerted of the leak immediately and we could fix the issue at the source. If we had use foam board or spray foam (or whatever), water would probably have been trapped and accumulate somewhere (remember some of the threaded holes are hidden within frames) and rust over time or drain all at once when driving and make a huge mess. Also, as opposed to denim or fiberglass insulation, Thinsulate is hydrophobic and don’t retain moisture; it will dry soon enough. We think that’s another good reason right there to choose Thinsulate (amzn.to/2Fju0Ui) for insulation…

 

 

 

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Tales from the Road

Sixth month map:

 

 

Our last month ended in a week-long storm cycle in Crystal and Alpental ski resorts:

 

Rain showed up on the pass, but we think we pretty much figured out the Pacific North West normal weather pattern:

 

Vantage, Washington

Fortunately we got an invitation from @tiny.world_big.van to go rock climbing on the sunny side at the Frenchman Coulee in Vantage (Point #2 of the “Sixth month map”). Sweeeeet!

 

Sun and warmth is nice, be we missed winter already. Since the Cascade range was still under the rain, we decided to drive back to the interior. We made a few friends in Whitefish (Point #4) at the beginning of our trip (first month), so we knew we would be treated well there 🙂

 

Whitefish, Montana

Our friends @paddlefishsports offered us a place to park (and a place to relax, eat, chill, recover… thanks!) and @mikechilcoatphoto (make sure to check his awesome portfolio here: www.mikechilcoat.com/) showed us the goods in Whitefish Resort:

 

Back to the metric system, yay! 

 

Fernie, British Columbia

Fernie (point #9) is a sweeeeet scenic little town with great skiing, but it was sooo cold we didn’t feel like taking pictures outside… so here is a picture of inside:

 

Lussier Hot Springs, British Columbia

Waking up 1 minute walking distance from a undeveloped natural hot spring is a pretty good incentive to get out of bed early! There are 3 pools ranging from 104F to 98F (guesstimate) and the road was icy but well maintained. Google Map will bring your there: goo.gl/maps/2fLFBGaW8DU2

 

Somewhere along the Trans Canadian highway…

 

Kicking Horse Ski Resort, British Columbia

 

Here are some couloirs accessible from the top of the lift if you don’t mind walking out-of-bounds a bit (we did the one in red):

 

Rogers Pass, British Columbia

Mother nature treated us like V.I.P. guests with deep snow, awesome terrain and breathtaking views. This place is huge and wild. For us, its beauty is unmatched and so is the reward… Having our home parked at this location feels unreal and sharing our time with full-timer @barrywinston was a pleasure!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Antoine into the last section of the McGill Chute:

 

Barry:

 

Isabelle:

 

 

 

 

 

 

What’s Next?

We’re fully immersed in winter and we’re loving it! Here is a tentative plan for the upcoming month:

 

 

TO BE CONTINUED…

 

 

 

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All Tales From The Road since the beginning of times:

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WANT MORE?

Check out our Build Journal, learn everything about The Van, read our VanLife Guides, or if you’re new to this start by reading The Prologue.

 

 

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All the photos above were capture using our favorite photo/video gear! Aerial/Underwater/Long Exposure/POV/Gimbal, all of this in a portable package, check it out:

 

 

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