The adventures of a Chinese guy, his sports car, and an instant pot

Roughly less than 6 hours later, and we finally arrived to Calgary. Mom and I go to grab some takeout to my Aunts house, roughly 5 minutes away from home. As I was exiting the highway, and waiting for an opening to enter into the city, a lady driving a Mazda 3 just rear ends me. Slight damage to bumper, and cracked left rear tail light. AGAIN. I just replaced it last month, shortly before I embarked on this road trip. FUCK! Luckily she was willing to settle this privately, so a small amount of cash exchanged hands, and everything was settled within a span of 24 hours. I also rush to WalMart to grab some red duct tape to cover the cracked housing, to minimize the damage of water ingress. I guess I will be dealing with it the moment I get back home. I just hope I won’t get in trouble with the RCMP on my drive home.

Just arrived in Swift Falls, Saskatchewan. I’ve been driving since 7:30AM CDT, and checked into a local motel at 8:07 CST. I drove a total of 1074km.

Amazing sunny weather today. Cooked my first burger at a local rest stop picnic area. It was quite successful!

I have less 600km remaining tomorrow. I think I will just sleep in a bit tomorrow morning, and leave here at 11AM.

Just very tired, so not much to report.

Currently stopped in Kenora, Ontario. I’ve been driving since 7:00AM EDT, and checked into another local motel at 7:26PM CDT. I drove a total of 986km.

Encountered heavy rain during the first few hours, again making the drive very miserable. However, the sun broke through, and the remainder of the drive was a lot brighter and easier. From the looks of things, I will be skipping Winnipeg, and driving further west tomorrow.

My two best friends. I’ve been making much use of these two. Surprisingly, I haven’t used much of the 1kw inverter at all. I was originally planning to use the inverter to charge these packs if I drain the battery as I drive, but I never went below 80% on either packs. It’s a quick top up every evening with shore power at the hotel instead. I did notice yesterday that the inverter has a nasty feedback hum to the in-car audio system while charging the big LiFePO4 pack. Well, it’s a very cheap modified sine wave inverter, there is no doubt they cut a lot of corners by not providing adequate noise suppression circuitry. No big deal, it’s very easy to just reach into the glove box, and flick the switch once the packs are finished charging. I am very curious how the audio system inside the BRZ will react with the same inverter.

I am currently stopped in Wawa, Ontario. I’ve been driving since 7:00AM. I check into a roadside Motel at 7:43PM EDT. I drove a total of 937km

My Mother had a good laugh at the InstantPot during lunch. She was doubly impressed when I told her that I also brought along the microwave oven!

I’m very tired. I am hoping to make it to Winnipeg tomorrow. Not much time was spent stopping and checking various roadside attractions. I will be doing that on the return trip. So I won’t be posting many photos at this time.

We encountered rain during the majority of the roadtrip, which unfortunately made driving much more exhausting. It looks like it will be raining in Wawa most of tomrrow too! Hopefully things improve by the time I reach Winnipeg.

Family emergency popped up, resulting in sudden need to be in Calgary next Monday with my Mom. Once I factored in the cost of two last minute plane tickets, along with the cost of the car rental, I realized it made more sense to just drive the Accord over and make a roadtrip out of it. So I installed the 1kw inverter into the glove box, packed the LiFePO4 batteries, the fridge, and the microwave, and will be driving first thing tomorrow morning.

Luckily the weather is somewhat co-operating, however I am hearing reports of some lingering snow fall in Alberta. At this time, I will be driving there on snow tires, just in case I encounter snowy weather along the way. Like the last roadtrip to Vancouver, I will not be making many site-seeing pit stops along the way there. I hope the weather co-operates.

It started October 23, 2023. Princess Auto had a sale on Duracell branded 1000w inverters for $55+tax. It was half the size of the Canadian Tire branded inverter I had installed in my car, at the same power capacity, so I did the obvious thing. I purchased 3 of them. One for the daily, one for the BRZ, and one for my friend. And I sold the old inverter on FB Marketplace for $50.

Then on Black Friday, Walmart was selling a miniature microwave oven for $64.99+tax, so that was a no brainer. I know some microwaves have difficulty dealing with the modified sine wave output from cheap inverters, so here I am testing it making popcorn with my new oven straight from my car. If it didn’t work, I would’ve just taken advantage of Walmart’s generous return policy, and turned it back in.

As you can see, the pack of cheap Walmart branded popcorn, popped with no issue

Then my friend called me and asked if I wanted a portable compressor based air conditioner for a criminally low price. It was brand new in box, with original packaging. I could not say no!

And yesterday, I was with my family having dinner at the same friends place, and he presented me with a Christmas present… a freaken Energizer branded 500Wh LiFePO4 battery bank/inverter!

It is so small and light!

Not pictured in this post would be my instantpot, and minifridge.

How the hell am I going to fit this all in a tiny BRZ? 2024 is going to be a very interesting year for roadtrips. I’m looking forward to it!

Sadness is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Anger is a choice. They really are. We make our choice daily. Today, I choose happiness. And tomorrow, too. I’m a simple man. I choose effin’ joy. Who’s with me?

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We woke up a bit later, filled up with the free breakfast provided by the hotel, packed up, and began the long drive back home.

We made it home by 7pm, and had some quick Chinese takeout, and unpacked and cleaned up the car. I immediately changed the oil the next day.

The fridge and instantpot made great roadtrip companions. We also made good use of the portable hot water kettle for coffee every morning! Since we stayed at hotels every evening this time, I didn’t use the 1000w inverter at all. The only situation I encountered was the rear springs were sagging almost 2 inches relative to the front of the vehicle. It hasn’t been changed for over 10 years, so I’m not really surprised. I also caught a slight leak on the oil pressure sensor switch behind the oil filter. This is a known issue with this engine, and luckily, the leak wasn’t too intense, so I’m not in a rush to get this resolved. Since it isn’t urgent, I will be ordering parts and replacing them some time in the fall before winter hits. Overall, I think the roadtrip was quite a success, even with such an old vehicle. I wouldn’t hesitate to do this again next year. I just wish it was a manual instead!

Here are the performance metrics of the vehicle

Total Date	2023-08-12 to 2023-08-17
KM Traveled	2120
KM/L	12.3482677477226
MPG Converted (mixed)	29.40062832
Fuel Consumed (L)	171.684
Fuel Total Cost (Canadian Pesos)	$298.32
$/KM	$0.14

Overall, the fuel performance the Accord didn’t do as well as the roadtrip to Vancouver for two primary reasons. First, we drove with 4 people in the car instead of two, along with a lot more luggage than normal. We also stopped and drove a lot more city driving than highway with more variations in elevation, especially in Montreal. At the end, I’m still quite pleased with the performance, and the vehicle never exceeded my estimated budget for transportation.

We drove from Montreal to Quebec today. It wasn’t a very difficult drive, but I think after a few days of non-stop driving, everybody is starting to get a little tired and homesick. Luckily, this is our final day.

Our first stop at Quebec City was Quartier du Petit Champlain, a small Commercial zone where you can walk up and down a pedestrian walkway over cobblestone roads. I got a bit of a European vibe to things. It was very nice and refreshing here. We ate a late lunch at a sidewalk restaurant close by. Parking was a nightmare around here, because it is such a popular tourist destination.

Afterwards, we went straight to Chateau Frontenac. And it suddenly started to rain hard.

The rain eventually let up, and we explored around the area a bit more. Then Mom wanted some ice cream, so we went straight to a nearby Costco for some ice cream bars, Apple cider, and hotdogs for a late dinner.

We will most likely sleep in a bit later tomorrow, and make the long 8 hour drive back to Toronto with minimal stops.