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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RV Solar Series: For a solar-charged RV battery, 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
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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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Fort Huachuca isn’t known for snow. We can’t go any further south and stay in Arizona. Can’t really complain though. It is very pretty here at Fort Huachuca, pronounced Wa-Chu-ka. I don’t think we are getting an accurate representation of its typical beauty. Not much water nearby, so the kayaks are still on the car.
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Campsite Review: Patagonia Campground is located at Patagonia Lake State Park located about twenty miles northeast of Nogales Arizona. It is west of State Route 82 and east of Interstate 19. To get here when southbound on Interstate 19, exit on the West Mariposa Road exit eastbound, then turn south on Interstate 19B (business route).
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Everything is great here at Patagonia Lake State Park located about 20 miles northeast of Nogales AZ. A little too cold for the kayaks. May see snow before the weekend is over. As you can see, our site is quite unlevel we have about 8 inches of blocks under the front wheels. This would have
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Campsite Review: Agave Gulch Campground is a military-only campground located on Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson Arizona. It is a very nice campground / RV park. At the campground, there are six separate sections with 197 well-spaced large sites with full hookups. There are also 57 overflow – dry camping sites. Some of the
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RV Solar Series: Installation of the panels is the easiest part aspect of installing a solar battery charger on your RV. My panels are installed on a fiberglass roof — your roofing materials and desires will change your installation techniques. Running wires from the panels to the location near the battery is the hardest part
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RV Solar Series: How to Design a Just – Right – System. A just-right size, not too small, not too costly. Sounds like Goldilocks. Just right. Start with simple and work to more complex. Start with a battery. Add to that a positive and negative wire that leads to a small solar collector. Connect
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RV Solar Series: How much solar did we need? My answer was 600-700 watts of solar installed flat, (700 installed) to recharge our battery and live daily. Given six hours of sunshine, (winter) assuming the batteries were not overly discharged we should be good. Part of the assumption was that you can’t always count on
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RV Solar Series: How we Store Electricity is a key consideration, almost all RVs have some kind of central battery. We wish we had the best battery. Nearly all RV manufacturers put the lowest cost battery in an RV, just to give it the minimum. Thankfully when we purchased our RV, the original battery had
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RV Solar Series: Quit wasting electricity. Turn it off, make it better. Measure to know where it goes. Change your location. Turn it off One of the things I first encountered before measuring my energy use was that I had no way to completely disconnect the battery from loads. There was a switch in the
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Electricity – 101 RV Solar Series: Understanding Electricity is not optional but is not a concern in everyday modern life. What is electricity? Before you make a change to your RV electric system, you better understand at least the very basics of electricity. When you turn on a flashlight, you create a circuit. The components
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Measure to know RV Solar Series: How to know what just-right means. How to know what just-right means in an RV solar system design. The answer is you have to measure to know what you need. How do you measure to determine what your needs are? This is a key step. Lots of folks put
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RV Solar Series: Introduction “Boon-docking” or “dry-camping” is an RV style that refers to camping in an RV without the attachment of electrical, water, and sewer hookups. We bring our own generator to make electricity, sometimes campground rules restrict generator operation hours. The most restrictive generator hours we encountered were at Death Valley National Park
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Campsite Review: Gowen Field is a military-only RV park located on Gowen Field Air National Guard Base on the south side of the Boise Idaho Airport. It is a very small nice place with a noise problem. Gowen Field RV Park is a very small seven-site very nice secluded RV park. Since it is right
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Departing the beach. Solar panels on the roof, kayaks on the car… Be in Bonita for one more week, then we turn east for our longest route ever. Our objective for 2019 includes almost every cowboy state and most of the entire Oregon and California coast. Our stay at San Onofre was very nice and
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Our view at San Onofre at sunset was the best of the stay — So far. This is a great start for 2019. You can see our car and our RV and the great view of the lifeguard shack right in front of the RV. It may just be the location, but on this day,
Why would we leave San Diego, where we have a great parking spot on San Diego Bay, overlooking the marina and sailboats and go to Boise for Christmas. The answer is family. Several of our friends have offered to come to house-sit for us, in our RV, seems like all of them are further north.
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Snippet: Our 2018 loop is complete. That isn’t a loop, it’s a wander. Our 2018 loop is complete and we are back where we started in Coronado. Picture out the front window of the RV will be the same for the rest of the month. We were near the beach in Orange County and are
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We have a lot to be thankful for this year at Thanksgiving. At Seal Beach, it is delightful. We put 6580 miles in our travels this year (plus car miles). The last time we saw the ocean in San Diego was February 24. Since then we have explored the small roads across the west, crossed
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Halloran Summit – Bad Roads for RVs is located on Interstate 15 between Baker and the Nevada border. This road is steep for an extended distance. Since this is an Interstate Highway, there are at least two lanes and a slow lane on all the steep sections. The curves are not part of the problem.
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Cajon Pass – Bad Roads for RVs is located on Interstate 15 between San Bernardino and Victorville. This road is steep for an extended distance. Since this is an Interstate Highway, there are at least two lanes, occasionally four lanes in each direction. The curves are not part of the problem. There are dedicated slow
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After Death Valley, I planned our route to be in Las Vegas for Tami’s birthday. I started planning her birthday party three months ago, getting the plan in order. The plan was to meet at her brother’s house on Tami’s birthday. Going to your brother’s house on your birthday doesn’t make for a surprise party.
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Mesquite Springs It was quiet in Death Valley especially at our new campsite in Mesquite Springs. and beautiful. Eight days might be a little long. Each day provided new views and light shows with unexpected attractions. We saw the Milky Way span across the sky, identified Mars and Saturn without a telescope and counted at
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Westgard Pass – Gilbert Summit is on California Highway 168 west of Big Pine California to Oasis California. This is a bad road for an RV. In Oasis Highway 168 connects to Nevada Highway 266. Westgard Pass connects to White Mountain Road and leads to Grandview Campground. Nevada Highway 266, south from Oasis is also
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Death Valley Days 2018 brought to you by 20 mule team Borax. It is still very warm in Furnace Creek, Death Valley National Park at the end of October, next time we visit the bottomland will be in January. I am surprised that anyone ever came to the valley in the summer, especially to work.
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Another RV term is “Toad” which means a car towed behind the RV. The word is used in a sentence as if “What kind of toad do you have?” Our old toad was an Acura, very nice and we got it already with the necessary equipment to tow behind the RV. The Acura had one
Not Recommended We found our comfort limit today. It is 8! We did a narrow winding road, 30 miles long at less than 20 mph at 8% grade, sometimes it got steeper, and we went both up and down in first gear. At one time the canyon walls narrowed the road down to one lane.
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Yesterday was not a good day on wheels. We’re stuck. No starter. We are broken down waiting for repair. We are still at our friend’s house. No jiggling of the gear shifter is getting me out of this one. Willy the local mobile mechanic came over with his repair truck and diagnosis was a break
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Squaw Creek Canyon – Bad Roads for RVs is located on U.S. Highway 95 south of Marsing. This road is a steep two-lane road. U.S. Highway 95 is also known as the I.O.N. Highway No. 456 ( I.O.N. stands for Idaho, Oregon, Nevada) The road descends part of the Little Squaw Creek Canyon and Squaw Creek
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Virginia City and Perfect Beef Stroganoff I bet you didn’t expect this in our travel blog. We are visiting Virginia City, and Tami is standing in front of one of the many bars. Tami is not leaning. The building is leaning –honest. Perfect Beef Stroganoff Well to get perfect beef stroganoff, first, someone has to
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It is a long way from Boise to Gardnerville, Nevada even though we stopped in Winnemucca. It is a long way from Bend to Boise but we made it in one day. I realize that some people in RVs will knock off 300 mile days without complaint but we were tired on all three legs
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It has been a great stay in Boise, Idaho with family. We will be going about 500 miles south to our friends, Joel and Patty’s house near Topaz Lake in Nevada. Yesterday we passed the seven-month mark being out of California. After that, we cross Death Valley — just because we have never been there.
We stayed at Sisters, then LaPine followed by Bend in that order, all while waiting for our repair. Sisters What a wonderful place Sisters. Our campsite was in the city park and we could and did walk to downtown, to what is now my very favorite bakery. The taste is great, but the size of
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This is the Tamolitch Falls called the Blue Pool on the McKenzie River, near Sisters Oregon. The falls are dry because the water filters into the porous lava rock under the pre-historic path of the river. In wetter times of the year, not all the water flows underground and cascades over the edge of the
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More waterfall hunting today. Our campsite at Foster Lake Oregon has acres of open space between Foster Lake (very pretty) and a shallow pond just behind a hedge of BlackBerry bushes. Foster Lake is on Highway 20 between the Williamette Valley and Bend. The nearest town is Sweet Home. Foster Lake is very pretty and
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We re-routed to Eugene Oregon to get our RV worked on. We lean towards the passenger side. Parts to fix it were sent to the shop by Tiffin directly. Tiffin choose the shop to do the work, all we had to do was show up and wait for the repair to be done. First Plan
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