Solar lights

I was very impressed with this solar light that I bought at WalMart.  It has all the solar on one end and you inflate it from about 1 inch to 5.  This gives you a lamp effect as you can see here. My son ran it for 6 hours and it was still going strong.  Not a bad back up light or a simple light for camping.

Counter Space

Counter space is never enough, here are some options we use.

In our Class C built in counter space is limited so most of the time we cook outside.  We also use the table and a TV tray when we must but prefer doing all or most cooking and prep outside.

I love picnic tables and have a 10x10 awning I set up if we are staying several days over it.   I can secure the awning and leave it up.  If a wind storm comes the most I would lose is an 80 dollar awning. 

Moving Water to RV

Dry camping can have its down falls.  Driving to get water or to dump the tanks.  Here is a photo of how I bring 6 gallons at a time of drinking water to the RV.  I can fill our RV with our on board electric pump.  It can take me up to 7 trips to fill the empty tanks with my one 6 gallon can.

I had an old light weight luggage hauler that I have put to use and saves my back as well.  Comes in very handy!

light portable washer

Tried out my light portable washer at a campground.  It worked out very well.  I washed two shirts, two pair of compression socks, two pair of underwear and one gym short.  Could have done three shirts, socks and underwear and the shorts. 

The wash cycle had no vibration, for the spin cycle I put one shirt at a time in the spinner and split the rest between two additional more spin cycles for them.  All spins were three minutes each and I had to keep my hand on the machine to stop the vibrations which was not a problem for me to do.  Taking the close out and hanging them on the line reminded me of the 60's and 70's when my mom used the clothes lines.  Once dry the shirts are a little stiff till on, but other then that everything worked great.

Spring and Slides

Spring is a great time of year.  The plants are blooming and the hill sides are sliding.  The photo below shows a road right after cleanup.  As the hillside unfreezes the weight of the new moisture now in the dirt is too much weight and moves the dirt down hill.  Most of the time it is simply a mud slide however on occasion sticks and stones may be in the mix. 

Gen Vent Stack

I went a head an bought a generator exhaust stack with one extension it works great.  It clears my roof by almost three feet and my AC by over one foot.  I have ran it for hours with no CO2 alarms in our motor home with slides out or in. 

It takes me 5 minutes to set it up and 7 minutes to take it down and put it away.  With this I can boondock for up to seven nights running the generator, plus two on solar.

I need power at night for my medical equipment, so knowing I can go up to nine nights with no shore power.  If I add a third solar panel I can get even more time off the grid.

Please note that the stack must be taken down before moving.

Winter Camping with our rv

Winter camping with Our RV is almost as good as summer, but not quite.  For the winter we winterize which means all waterlines are flushed with RV Anti Freeze.  So everything works fine in the RV except for the water, thus the porta poti.  This limits us to two nights with no shower (sponge bath only).  The heater works fine but drains the battery by morning which causes us to use the generator during the day and the battery at night.  Days can be in the 50/60's but nights can be in the teen's during winter.

I have three extra batteries to run my O2 equipment over night and they are only hooked up to 200 watts of solar panels for recharge.

I just added a generator roof top exhaust pipe and will report on that soon.  My backyard tests  are promising.