Marty’s Van Has a Serious Gas Leak and We Headed to Our Next Camp at Columbia Creek

Monday September 21, 2015  Columbia Creek, near Maggie’s Summit Nevada

Posted from the computer lab at Owyhee, Nevada at the Duck Valley Indian Reservation

Marty’s blog for another view of stuff if you want to follow.

http://thenewadventuresofpattiandmarty.blogspot.com/

Early beaver

When I first looked out my van window this morning I saw this beaver swimming by. I was able to open my door and take a couple photos.

Morning paddle

We were going to move camp today, so I took my boat out for a yak before putting it back on the top of the van.

As I camp back to camp I could see Marty working on something on his van.

Marty’s van has a serious problem

Here he is working on fixing something as I pulled my boat to shore.

It turns out that Marty had noticed his gas line, where it was going into his carburetor was leaking at a gas station before we got to Winnemucca a couple days ago. He tightened the brass fitting up trying not to strip out the treads as that is a serious problem with these carbs, stripping out the fine treads in the input fitting. It’s a serious thing as it dumps gas all over the place and so it has to get fixed or else.

Marty felt the treads were very close to being stripped out, so didn’t want to tighten it up too much. He took it all apart and cleaned up the threads and applied what is called Rector seal or yellow snot by plumbers, to the treads and carefully tightened it up. We waited an hour before holding our breaths and starting the engine to test it out. It worked, but would it hold on all the rough roads we where going to travel?

Posting on the above the dam

We broke camp just before noon and drove up to the top of the Willow creek reservoir dam to see if his cell would work for an internet connection.

This is our view of the dam were we connected to the internet.

I published from here today using Marty’s internet connection.

We headed down the road along this road for about an hour.

Our vans bounced around a lot on the road and we hopped over some cattle guards, so after a while we stopped to check for any gas leaks at this spot. Things looked good so we moved on after a break.

We made it to the paved road and traveled up it past this road maintenance yard until the pavement ended.

We had about half an hour more of traveling on this dirt road before we made it to our new camp spot. Marty is following me. I waited a short time here for him to catch up.

We were on the road to Maggie’s summit, but we turned off just before going up the hill at Columbia creek where I knew some sheep herders hung out with a few thousand sheep and some dogs. We saw some of the sheep as we drove in the road to our new camp.

Making camp

After positioning our vans and putting out our chairs we rested up for a bit.

I said to Marty, let’s go check some of the stuff out around here.

We walked by this building which looks to have been some kind of cold storage shed, likely for hanging animals that have been butchered.

We walked across the road and checked out several beaver ponds and dams.

A close encounter

As we were walking through the grasses, I spotted this bee type nest just off the ground. The last time I was here the grass was greener and I saw this and thought it was a soccer ball and was thinking of giving it a kick, but didn’t and went by to look at the stream. When I came back by it I noticed it wasn’t a ball and if I’d have kicked it, things would not have been good for me.

The area has some nice beaver dams with some deep water. On the way back to camp we went by this old cabin set in the quaking aspens.

Back at camp we took it easy for the rest of the day.

Tomorrow we plan to try posting at the top of Maggie’s summit and then drive up to the Duck Valley Indian Reservation to gas and get some supplies and then head to our next camp up on Sunflower Flat. Getting a cell internet connection may become more difficult up in those areas, so it might be awhile before the next posting.