venturing4th: Hoodoos and spiders

Today's hike was abbreviated, very abbreviated, by spiders and rain.

Last night the power went off about 10 pm. After about two hours of no electricity we decided to switch the water heater from electricity (shore power) to gas (from the propane tanks we carry). There's an indicator light in the bathroom that will light red when there is a problem with the gas feeding the water heater and it kept turning red last night.

Frederick got out the manual and read about spiders that can get in the line and prevent the gas from flowing to the burner. When we called CanAm, Peggy, our service advisor, said the same thing. So early afternoon we prepared to do battle with spiders.

(Instead of being vertical, the pipe is actually horizontal. I should have rotated the picture before I uploaded it.) There's the pipe, with a silverfish metal jacket with air holes around it. We didn't have a flexible bottle-brush to stick in the pipe to dislodge any spiders, but Peggy suggested a plastic zip-tie, which we did have; tried it; and, it worked. Apparently it's a common problem so we'll have to get a flexible bottle brush for the future. How could such a simple fix take three hours?

Part of the reason is because another Airstream owner, who is parked in the next row, came over to see if he could help, and we had a nice chat with him. He and his wife are from Kentucky, and are on their way to Alaska; not with our caravan, but on their own.

There wasn't much time left for a hike so we just went across the street to the Hoodoos trail and walked out the 0.9 mile to the end of the trail. We also spent some time watching elk on the island in the picture above. There was also a wolf that was running around trying to worry the elk.

These are the Hoodoos. You can also see a red raft on the river and if I had had my zoom lens, I might have been able to capture the elk on the white sand in the middle left of the picture. I don't think that even enlarging the picture will bring them into view.