Our trip and power

Our trip down southeast gave is a few days without power.  Twice we ran the generator and AC all night (with permission) and once we slept with just the windows open because it was a cool night.  We also ran it going down the road a couple days (turned off while fueling).  The owners manual says our gene runs on six tenths of a gallon per hour my experience shows right at a half a gallon no big difference, which is good.  So with 55 gallon gas tanks I have about 40 gallons usable for the gene at best.  So we have just over 60 hours of gene fuel if needed and we started on a full tank of course, which still leaves over 13 gallons of fuel to drive with.

Our miles per gallon ranged from a low of 6.5 (includes a night on the gene) to a high of 10.5.  Lower end miles seemed to be in the mountains and at elevation and the higher mileage was on the flats below 2000 feet.  The most typical miles per gallon was in the 7 mile per hour range.   So I will stick with 7 miles per gallon for planning purposes since most of our current time is spent above 5000 feet..

Our refrigerator did seem to have some issues keeping below 40 degrees at time when it was above 80 degrees out if not on 30 amp shore power so I will be looking into this.  Most days in travel mode we put 13 pounds of ice packs in the refrigerator and they just kept it below 40.  More on the trip later.

RV Auto Steps Broke in Out Position

RV Auto Steps Broke in Out Position while driving through a bug city.

We got up early (4am) to drive through a big city with a lot of road repair underway.   So when we left I did not do a walk around and just looked through the mirrors into a dark void and thought the steps retracted. (Mistake!)  Later as the sun came up Kathy saw that the steps are out!  We pulled over in a closed store parking lot and spent over two hours figuring it out.  There was no damage to the steps and there was no traffic this morning.  Lesson learned always do a walk around and run a checklist.  Ours only takes about two minutes tops.

Last year when we had our RV in for some work I asked the technician to just talk me through manual retracting the steps and slides at our RV pick-up.  I had read the owners manual but standing next to the RV and having the technician explain it helped us. So now I pulled out the manual for the steps and looked at the diagram than crawled under.

 Above the steps are out.

 Here (above) you see the grounding clamp with wires attached, they were broken off at the clamp that morning.  So once I found them and reattached them the steps worked fine.

In this final photograph you can see a round yellow step light and just to the right is the step retracting arm.  On my RV all I needed to do to retract the steps (if I could not fix) is pull a carter pin which would allow me to free one end.  This action frees the steps so I can tie them up in the closed position if I needed to until repairs.  Thankfully, I found the broken ground and saved a repair bill.

Please note that these steps worked for me and our RV.  Your RV is different, read your manuals and or seek good advice for your issue if you ever have one.  What worked for me does not mean it will work for you.

Casino Camping

Casino camping was a good experience.  On our round robin to Florida, Illinois and back to Wyoming we visited several casinos and slept/camped in a few.  Some charged 30 to 40 a night with full hook-ups.  One of the free sites even told us we could run our generator all night for our internal power.  So we will ask about the AC in parking lots at all  stay overs in the future.  Of course   we parked off by our selves and down wind of the few other RV's in large parking lots.

 Below is lot camping away from the main entrances, all the places we visited allowed overnight RV parking or m

 The below view is from our paid site at a casino with water and electric power and a dump on the road out of the lot.

Lodge Cast Iron

Stopped by the Lodge plant and store while heading north from Florida it was a nice stop.

On this trip I did not buy any additional iron, it still was a great stop-over.  The Lodge store is set to move to a new building just behind its current location the next day.

For some reason I was shocked to see a dump truck drive by with Lodge Iron Scrap written on its door.  Makes total sense since they use iron to make those great pots and pans:)

I will be doing more with my cast iron cooking in future weeks.  Feel free to leave a comment.

CPAP & Shoe Box

CPAP & Shoe Box

There is just enough room on the floor next to my bed for my concentrator to allow 360 ventilation.  My CPAP on the other hand was a tight fit between the bed and the wall on a little ledge.  So I turned a shoe box over which just fit and now I have a perfect stand for my CPAP and clock.

On this trip I have not had to go on batteries yet for my CPAP and O2 so no more tests there.  I still feel with the two batteries and solar I have one night in the batteries.  If there is no overcast my two 100 watt panels should be able to recharge for the next night.  These two batteries are not tied into the generator they stand alone.  I also have enough O2 bottles for two more nights as additional backup.

I could hook-up a charger and run the generator or plug into shore power if I needed to but prefer to stay independent if I can.



WalMart Was Great

On our way down to Florida we ran into a lot of rain and tornado warnings.  This ended up giving us our first overnight stay in a "Walmart" and it was nice.  We pulled in to the store and say some Walmart trucks and asked if it was OK to stay their overnight.  The two drivers were very nice and one showed me an app that listed many free locations you can stay overnight called "rvovernight".  The app listed the location I was at but not one in the next town down.  I asked if I could run my generator overnight they said they run their APU's so this was great.  We then walked into the store and double checked with the on duty customer service manager she confirmed it being OK, and we reloaded the RV with goodies. Staff, Drivers and Town was great!  Thank You WalMart!

Rain Is Good and my O2 provider is happy

Rain Is Good and my O2 provider is happy!

May has been very wet.  This has been a great test for our slide-outs and for our solar panel install to see if we had any leaks.  I am happy to say no leaks. 

Since we are leaving for Florida I had my O2 equipment checked and all is a go.  My O2 provider was interested to see how I set up the motor home to use the concentrator and CPAP.  The two solar panels I have only have one job which is to keep my two dedicated batteries for my O2 equipment fully charged.

We plan to have at least electrical hook-ups every night but if that fails the solar/battery system will provide my nightly needs.  If I have to go several nights and or there is little sun I have two standard O2 tanks on board to cover a night or two as well.

By the end of the summer I hope to add a portable 100 watt solar panel to keep our house battery fully charged as well.  This should reduce our need to run the generator when camping in National Parks and Forests where plug-ins are in short supply.

As summer starts I feel set to camp off the grid for at least two nights with out using the generator and longer if the sun is fully out.  By the end of summer I hope to be able to double this time at a minimum.