Montreal Road Trip

We left Friday morning from central Connecticut headed for a music festival in Joliette, Quebec which is about 30 minute north of Montreal.  We expected the trip up to take about 7 hours or a little more.  This turned into over 10 hours as we had an 1:45 minute wait at the border and that threw us into Montreal rush hour traffic where we lost almost another 1:30 in time.  We still made it to our destination, Festival Mémoire et Racines, in time to hear the first bands play in the distance while we set up our T@B.  After getting set up and having a hot meal we were able to relax from the hectic drive and start enjoying ourselves.  We had good weather for the weekend and the T@B performed perfectly.  

The camping was in a field without hookups.  We ran up with the fridge on DC and I was glad to see that the alternator in my TV was able to keep up with the drain of the fridge.  Because of our late arrival we ended up camping under the trees so sunlight was at a premium.  We have Zamp 160 panels are trying to avoid buying a generator.  I had a small patch of sunlight I could chase with the panels and get about 5 hours of charging each day.  We are quite miserly with our power use and even with the fridge and ALDE running we could make do with this for many days except my wife has a CPAP machine and this is the first time she used it in the camper  and it took a pretty heavy toll on the battery.  Luckily she can do without it because we probably we have drawn the battery down below 50 percent after the third night if she had to use it.  If we had full sunlight we would be fine with her CPAP running for a night but even with our 100 ah battery I don't think we could go two nights if we could not get nearly a full charge into the battery during the day. 

In the camping area they put out some portable toilets that are pretty ripe by the end of the festival and there was one portable cold water shower.  A half a mile away in the main venue there are about 4 shower stalls that you can use but the lines are very long.  We have tent camped in the past at this event and this is one of the things that drove us towards a T@B with a shower and toilet.  The first day we didn't fire up the ALDE and the water was pretty warm from sitting in traffic all day.  The second day we fired up the ALDE and the small but private hot shower was so nice. I don't mind the portable toilets but my wife was quite happy to have a nice clean fresh smelling bathroom.  

Since this was dry camping we arrived with empty waste tanks, a full water tank and another 5 gallons of fresh water in the TV.  This was about perfect and while we were careful we did not have to scrimp on water use and I even dumped a few gallons of fresh water on our way out Monday morning.

Walking around the campground we found one T@G in the perfect colors with a huge side tent and lots of old VW campers.

Issues we encountered besides the traffic were very low mileage in the Green Mountains and a blown cruise control.  Unlike western interstates that tend to have long but not too steep climbs the highways in New England tend to have shorter but much steeper climbs.  My TV is a 10 year old Ford Explorer with a six cylinder and 4x4 drive.  It never got great mileage and with the T@B on rolling highways I get between 12 and 13 mpg.  When we had to cross the Green Mountains we hit some very steep grades and my mileage dropped to about 9 mpg.  I tend to use cruise control and it has a serious issue with the steep grades when pulling the T@B.  I help it out but using the throttle on the climbs but on one climb I wasn't paying attention and the cruise control shut off and would not come back on.  I am hoping it is just a fuse and will check now that I am home.  I won't make that mistake again.

Very happy with the T@B after our first real trip.  Next up a week and a half in the Gaspe Peninsula.