On our way towards Alaska, we entered Canada! Oh, so full of hope and plans for the next three months.

We drove our coach 238 miles / 383 km, about five hours of driving, from Lynden / Bellingham KOA in Lynden, Washington, USA to a boondocking spot in the parking lot of Mount Begbie Fire Lookout, 70 Mile House, British Columbia, Canada.

Here’s a map showing our route, heading north:

An interactive map, with potential stops pinned:

Canadian Border Inspection:

Welcome to British Columbia, Canada:

Maximum 100 km/h:

Trans-Canada 1 East:

Circle Route British Columbia Heritage Discovery:

Welcome to Hope, BC:

Yale rest area:

Yale Tunnel:

Saddle Rock Tunnel:

Saskatchewan train:

Sailor Bar Tunnel:

Spuzzum Tunnel:

Two tunnels in quick succession:

China Bar Tunnel:

Wildlife Corridor:

Thompson River:

We attempted to fuel at a Esso card lock pump, using our Open Roads fuel card, but it didn’t work:

A little later, we had better success at a regular Wesco diesel pump, albeit having to do three separate $250 transactions (yes, our coach takes a lot of fuel); fueling our coach was an ongoing hassle in Canada:

Arriving at the boondocking spot:

Welcome to Mount Begbie Lookout:

Our boondocking spot, where we spent the night with no hookups:

After breakfast the next morning, we walked on the trail up the mountain:

View partway up:

Cell tower at the top:

Lake view:

Fire watch tower:

Back to our coach:

There’s a larger area below where we parked, but it wasn’t very level:

We drove our coach 113 miles, about two hours of driving, from Cummins Coach Care in Coburg, Oregon towards our our home base, but turned around in Salem when the Check Engine and MIL lights came back on with the same error code.

Here’s a map showing our route, heading north then back south:

An interactive map, with the rest area pinned:

Our coach backing into a Coach Care service bay:

We spent the day in the customer lounge:

Second breakfast at Chick-fil-A:

We parked our truck behind the lounge, and turned on our smaller Bluetti battery, so we could use our truck’s Starlink Wi-Fi (the Wi-Fi in the lounge was not very fast):

Our coach emerging:

Parked for the night:

Doing an engine regen:

Heading out again, full of hope:

We stopped at a rest area, to see if that triggers the issue, as it had before:

Alas, it did:

So we turned around at the next exit, and headed back to Cummins:

We stayed the night again, then had Dutch Bros Coffee for breakfast while they looked at the coach again:

And later, went to the cafe at the nearby truck stop to have breakfast for lunch:

That afternoon, we had more news: the engine’s turbocharger was damaged (which I had suspected based on Facebook posts). The tech showed a scope shot of the damaged turbo:

So, this repair just got way more expensive; about $11k to replace that and the actuator, including labor. Sigh. But at least they finally found the root issue!

We left our coach there, and drove our truck home, while they ordered in the part, and did the work.

We drove our coach 255 miles, about five hours of driving, from Cummins Coach Care in Coburg, Oregon to our home base near Shelton, Washington.

Here’s a map showing our route, heading north:

An interactive map, with potential stops pinned:

Our coach parked at Cummins:

Helpful tip:

Preparing to leave:

Heading to I-5 North:

Roadworks:

Exit to I-205:

Entering Washington:

Closed rest area:

Bump:

Fuel stop:

Soon after the fuel stop, about three hours (200 miles) after leaving Cummins, the Check Engine and Malfunction Indicator lights came back on, with the same SPN 102 FMI 18 fault:

At that point, we decided to just continue home. The exit to Shelton:

City limits of Shelton:

Welcome to Shelton:

The SPN 102 FMI 18 fault code on the dash:

Back to Cummins after the weekend!

Jenn drove our coach just 13 miles, about 20 minutes of driving, with me following in our truck, from Oregon Motorcoach Center in Eugene to Cummins Coach Care in Coburg, Oregon.

Since OMC didn’t have any luck figuring out the check engine fault issue, and I noticed that Oregon’s only Cummins Coach Care facility was just across town, we decided to take our coach there. Cummins is the manufacturer of the engine (and generator), and they have better diagnostic tools. If they couldn’t solve it, nobody could.

An interactive map:

Following the coach:

Arriving at Cummins:

A tech reading the codes from the diagnostic port in the engine bay:

They couldn’t investigate the issue(s) for a few days, so once again we left the coach and headed home. Fortunately, they have electrical hookups available:

Our site:

The place was practically deserted at the time, with no other RVs parked outside (there may have been some inside their shop, though).

We drove our coach just 47 miles, about an hour of driving, from Blue Ox RV Park in Albany to Oregon Motorcoach Center in Eugene, Oregon. Yes, again.

Here’s a map showing our route, heading south:

An interactive map:

The evening before, we had an issue with the electrical pedestal; one of the 50 amp legs dropped to just 42 volts, which is potentially damaging to a coach. Fortunately my Power Watchdog caught it, but not before the heat from low voltage and high amperage partially melted the plug:

I switched to the neighboring site’s pedestal, since that site was empty. In the morning, I notified the RV park, so they could fix the pedestal.

Leaving Blue Ox, again:

Arriving at Oregon Motorcoach Center… again:

This time we spent the day in their customer lounge while they investigated the things they broke:

One of the issues was the entry step, which was always retracting when the entry door was closed, even with the step switch off (and key off), which is supposed to keep it out. Something it didn’t do until they worked on the coach. They didn’t find the cause of that, but found a workaround, moving an entry step wire in the front electrical bay; fortunately there haven’t been any unexpected side effects of that change:

They also cleared the check engine fault code, on some implausible theory that they triggered it when fixing the accelerator pedal (the control to move it in and out wasn’t working, and the pedal was squeaking).

A tech took the coach for a long drive, and didn’t make the code come back. So we toaded up and left… but of course as soon as we got on the freeway, the fault code came back.

So we turned around and headed back to OMC:

They didn’t have any luck in tracing the issue (and may have triggered some new codes too).

We spent the night there, with the idea that they’d try again the next day:

Not entirely pleased with how things went. I used to like OMC, now I’m not sure I’d trust them with chassis stuff again.