Campsite Review: Chosa Campground is on a converted oil well fracking pond south of Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico. That is right I said fracking pond. It is my choice location to visit both Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe Mountains National Park. This campground, if you can call it that is a square of […]
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First, on our trip northbound through New Mexico we stayed at Guadalupe National Park, Carlsbad Caverns National Park, and Brantley Lake State Park. These amazing places are all close to each other. We pushed north back into New Mexico staying at Carlsbad Caverns National Park, and Brantley Lake State Park. Two days were spent in
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We have added Texas to our map. After spending three days in El Paso we pushed east to a huge rock-climbing location called Hueco Tanks Texas. Seems that it used to be a free-for-all and now the Texas State Park system has cracked down, cutting visitors to 70 a day, plus guided operations. Normal campers
Guadalupe Pass – Bad Roads for RVs is located on US Highway 62/180 east of El Paso Texas, south of Carlsbad New Mexico. This road is steep but the steep section is short, about three miles long. US Highway 62/180 in the steep area is a divided four-lane, with two lanes in each direction. There are
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Campsite Review: Pine Springs Campground, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, this is RV is camping in a parking lot. Not my style of camping. Guadalupe Mountains NP is not an RV destination. It is a hiking destination and backcountry camping destination but it is not an RVing destination. We didn’t visit Dog Canyon Campground because the
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Campsite Review: White Sands Missile Range (Volunteer Park Travel Campground) is a military-only campground located on White Sands Missile Range Army Post. It is a very nice, very quiet place. While traveling on U.S. Highway 70 east of Las Cruces New Mexico turn south on Owens Road (NMSR – 213) to enter the main gate
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We are in full turtle mode at White Sands Missile Range….in the worst weather I have experienced other than a full-on blizzard in Colorado (Including hurricanes & typhoons). Turtle mode means that like a turtle we have pulled in the slides and are camping without our typical comfort. Our location is east of Las Cruces
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RV Solar Series: Which first solar or lithium? My install could have been done, either way. There are good reasons to put in better batteries first and there are good reasons to install solar panels before upgrading the batteries. I learned lots of things that I wouldn’t know had I done both at the same
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Portable solar panels are very popular with RVers. Do they work? How well do they work? When to use them and how best to use them? Did I need a portable solar panel? That is an interesting question. I have friends with portable panels and my brother uses a portable every time he camps. I
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Inverter/charger or Inverter & Charger each has some benefits. Separate also has some benefits. Which is better? Which would I choose? Inverters and chargers are actually two different items. Some manufacturers have built chargers into inverters and these units, depending on their design have some advantages over separate units. However, some inverter/charger combinations are not
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RV Solar Series: 12 volts or 24 volts is a question the doesn’t get asked very often. The fact is that there are advantages to both configurations. Before we consider the advantages of each, we need some understanding of how multiple batteries work with each other. Volts and Amps math Battery banks can be assembled
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RV Solar Series: Inverters change Direct Current (battery power) to Alternating Current (house power) so that you can use house appliances inside your RV. Some RVs don’t have any inverters and some RVs have huge inverters. Some, (usually older) RVs don’t even have a battery (this is very rare). My RV has a small inverter,
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This is my Lithium/Lead Acid Final Analysis where the determination isn’t necessarily all data-driven. Live style makes a big difference in the end result conclusion on the Lead/Lithium debate is going to happen. One of the biggest problems with lead-acid is that they don’t like to give up electricity without a fight. Tell this to
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Battery choice is critical to living with an RV solar battery charger. Battery design determines success or failure. The question comes down to Lead or Lithium batteries. Originally published March 2019 Updated June 2020 and March 2024 The first question that the RV Solar Series needs to address pertaining to batteries is that there are
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RV Solar Series: Limit of the design. Everything has limits. The limits I have are daily sunshine is required and battery size and type. Even though I met all the design goals, I need to have the sunshine every day. In the summertime, I will have much longer daylight periods to charge the battery. The efficiency
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RV Solar Series: How to use the Generator with Solar. The sun doesn’t shine every day so you can’t expect that solar is going to be your only power supply. My solar coupled with a bigger battery bank of the right kind of batteries could bridge multiple cloudy days and return to a full charge
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RV Solar Series: Analysis & Conclusions is the summary to the testing page. The testing page has more meat and this page details what happened. I also offer theories as to what could have happened with different decisions. We are very happy with the results and look forward to more off-grid camping that will be
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RV Solar Series: Testing the System is not such an easy task and involves camping at various times a year without outside electricity. Testing in mid-winter will come at some later time. Testing in March is a good balance between summer and winter conditions. How did I get these numbers? The combination of our battery
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We have gathered data on electricity used in our RV and have compiled a solar report to analyze the actual results. We still have issues of understanding what is going on, but overall we are thrilled. Yesterday was the true test and we did really well. Data to follow. Starting last spring we monitored battery
Our spot at Rockhound State Park looks more exposed than it is. Only 21 RV campsites further down the road past our site. It’s not actually a designated spot, but they were all taken at 9:30 am and the ranger said it was ours. It really looks like we are camping on a highway or
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We are boondocking at a winery. This is not a country road in Arizona, but rather a vineyard. Behind our camp for the night are the grapes. Behind that pistachio trees. I did not figure on finding wine in Arizona, but here we are, camping in a vineyard. We are southwest of Willcox at least
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