4-1 - DODGERS WIN! DODGERS WIN!! DODGERS WIN!!!

 7:13 am - Thursday - October 31st - TWW* - 26° F, humidity 41%, wind 3 mph out of the3 southeast....partially cloudy today with a forecast high of 64° F.....

26° F at 6:32 am.....FEELS like 22

....on this date in 2016 TLE and I were boondocking next to Tuttle Creek in the Alabama Hills just south of Lone Pine, CA.....

The Eastern Sierras

Tuttle Creek

Owens Valley in the distance

.....we've only camped there one time, but it is still one of our all time favorite boondock sites.

It was terribly cold Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.  Cold weather (20's and 30's) dissipates battery voltage more quickly than when it is over 40° F, and it got into the high 20's Tuesday night.  When we are truly boondocking the house batteries provide both direct current (DC) and alternating current (AC) via our 2,000 watt inverter.  In our current situation we are supplying the coach with AC power via the Bluetti power station (3 LifePo batteries with 6,200 watt hours of power) which power all of our electrical appliances, and outlets in the Newell, and providing DC power for the lights, Norcold basement fridge, our Dometic fridge, and our gas furnaces via the house batteries.  So, it is now a split system, which makes it easier on our house batteries (flooded cell) overnight.

Additionally, when it gets below freezing we need to provide heat to the water bay (fresh water, gray water, and black water tanks)  to keep the various liquid forms from freezing.  Normally, when plugged into an electrical pedestal we would just set the thermostat for the electric water bay heater to 40° F, and not worry about it again.  But our current off grid situation requires us to monitor, as well as ration the use of our available alternating current (AC) so as not to run down our Bluetti power station too far overnight.  We have three Suburban gas furnaces onboard, and one of them heats the bathroom, and the water bay.  The lowest we can set that thermostat is 50° F, so it comes on earlier than necessary.  Since those gas furnaces are powered with direct current (DC) they draw power from the Newell house batteries.

The gas furnace heating the bathroom/water bay, started cycling on and off around 2:30 am.  I wouldn't say it is loud, but it puts out enough sound to make even an unconscious person aware of its presence.  That it cycles on and runs for about 7 minutes, then cycles off for about 3 minutes can become a little irritating, but we found closing the bedroom door (which is also the shower door) cuts the noise down enough that we can sleep pretty well.  At any rate, when I got up Wednesday morning I turned on all three gas furnaces to 70° F, and then went to check the house battery monitor.  I was pleasantly surprised that the charge percentage was only down to 73%.....not bad, considering the furnace heating the water bay ran from 2:20 am until I woke up.  On the Bluetti side we were down to 52%, which is low for overnight, but we did run our electric blanket all night long, so not too bad, either.  The Bluetti power station recharges pretty quickly when being supplied by both solar and generator power. In fact, it gets back to 100% within 120 minutes, or less most days, then I turn off the generator (Honda E2000i) and let the solar keep it at 100% during the day.

I say all of that to say this.....we want to run the electric water bay heater at night and do away with the gas furnace noise, so I set the water bay electric heater thermostat at 40° F.  When I was up to go to the bathroom around 2 am the water bay temp was around 45° F, and the electric heater had not run yet, so the Bluetti power station was still at 72° F, which is good.  When I got up this morning (Thursday) it was at 42%, so the electric heater ran eventually.  I turned on the Honda around 7 am, and now, at 8:35 am the charge percentage is already back to 70%!  Once the sun hits the three solar panels (which it just did) it will go even faster.

Hmmm....I've written 5 paragraphs already, and haven't really even talked about what we did Wednesday.  Winter is coming, and we needed to begin cutting and splitting wood, so TLE and I began that task Wednesday morning.  I used Charles' chain saw to cut some more limbs off the trees around the driveway, and then cut them up to begin the drying out process before we split them in a couple of months.....

Green wood

....Charles and Phyllis bought this cool hydraulic wood splitter (no power needed except that of the human variety).  Next I began cutting up many of the dead falls, which are ready to burn now, and then split them.....

Dry wood, ready for burning

......about the time we finished splitting the above firewood the chainsaw began to act up, and then quit running....doh!  Well, at least we got a lot of wood ready for consumption now.

Next up was to install thew IBC water tote adapter so we can hook our fresh water hose directly to the valve, and now will have even better water pressure when we need to fill our fresh water tank again, or dump the black tank.  Before we had to put the hose through the fill hole on top of the tank, and that is not optimal.....

.....I ordered the adapter from Amazon on Sunday, and had it Wednesday via UPS and WPS (Wilson Parcel Service).  Along with the delivery of the IBC adapter I also received our new solar array, and our new winter generator!  Now the real work begins. I'll have to pour a concrete base for each, and then begin assembly.  Those bases will take a few days to cure before I can begin installation.

TLE and I ended our work day around 3 pm, and by 5:20 pm were enjoying another windless, sunset fire.....

.....TLE brought out the Mad Dog Salted Caramel flavored Whiskey.....what a nice way to end another day in The Wilson Wilderness....

.....Wednesday was also game 5 of the World Series.  The Dodgers tried to close out the Series Tuesday, but got clobbered by the Yankees 11-4.  I get filled with too much anxiety watching the Dodgers play, so I didn't turn on the game until the 7th inning.  They got behind 5-0 in the first three innings, but scored 5 times times in the 5th inning to tie the game.  Then gave up another run in the 6th inning to go down 6-5, but in the top of the 8th inning they scored twice to go ahead 7-6, and that is how the World Series ended.....DODGERS WIN 4 games to 1!  The Dodgers have been in the World Series 21 times in their history, and have won 8 of them, four of those over the Yankees.

On a final note, I have found a buyer for our sister 1982 Newell Classic Motorcoach, but will refrain from identifying the purchaser until a later date.  The nice thing is we know the buyer quite well, and it will be remaining the southwestern US....perfect!

Thanks for stopping by!

'From here to eternity'.....

6:43 am - Wednesday - October 31st - TWW - 28° F, humidity 86%, wind 4 mph out of the west.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 56° F.  On this date in 2015 TLE and I were in John Day, OR enjoying the beautiful Fall colors at the fairgrounds.....

We haven't been to Kingman, AZ in a long, long time, and Tuesday was the day to rectify that omission.  Considering the fact that Kingman does not have a COSTCO, or TJ's, it is actually a large town with a lot of traffic on the main drag, Stockton Hill Road.  We left TWW around 10 am after puttering around for a couple of hours.  It takes us close to 25 minutes to traverse the various dirt roads between us and US-66, which is about 7 miles.  While the the county does bring a road grader out periodically to smooth out the washboardy surface, it only stays smooth for 4, or 5 days, then it gets quite rough once again.  We can only drive the Beetle about 15 mph it is so rough, which is why it takes an eternity to get to pavement.  Once we hit pavement and can accelerate to 70 mph it takes just another hour to cover the 61 miles to Kingman.  The nice thing is, though, until you near Kingman US-66 has hardly any traffic.

Our first stop was a local laundromat where TLE put all of our dirty clothes from the past 8 days into one of their large washers, and then walked over to the Dollar Tree to pick up a few things, and see what their inventory was like.  By the time we finished there it was time to move our wet clothes to the large dryer, which would run for almost an hour, which was great because we needed to visit the local Verizon store to have TLE's iPhone checked for an issue.  The issue?  She was unable to enable her WiFi calling feature, which is needed here, because the broadband, at best, is two bars of 4G, and that comes and goes.  With our Starlink internet we can make, and receive calls via the internet.  It turned out to be a very fortuitous visit, as we found out the reason her WiFi calling was not working anymore was that our plan had been discontinued, and we were losing some of our 'perks'.  The nice gentleman got us switched to a plan that does provide WiFi calling, plus she now has her Hotspot back, and all for $14 less per month!

We arrived back at the laundromat just as our clothes were finished drying, and within 10 minutes we had folded them, and were on our way over to Home Depot where we made a number of strategic purchases, including a brand new post hole digger.  I'll need that to install the base for the dual axis solar array we have purchased, which, by the way, was delivered to Charles and Phyllis Monday, and will be delivered by them to us Wednesday, so it will be time to get to work on setting up that new solar array.

Right across the parking lot from Home Depot there is a Chili's Restaurant, which we love.  By the time we finished our Home Depot shopping it was 1:30 pm, and time for a late lunch, so we headed directly there.  I love their 'Oldtimer Burger' with cheese.....

.....I've been ordering their 'Oldtimer' since the early 90's......look at that 1/3 pound burger!  The service was lightning fast, and the food was outstanding.  They've always been a 4 star place in my book, no matter the location of the restaurant, and this visit did not move the needle either way.....I love continuity!

We needed to do some big city shopping where prices for both groceries, and gasoline are more reasonable than  where we are, so we drove a couple of blocks back to a Smith's (Kroger) to shop, then take on fuel at their fuel station.  We paid the lowest we have paid for a couple of years for premium at $3.29/gallon.

The drive home took us 1.5 hour, and was completely uneventful....

.....once again we find ourselves in a very rural place with long, long views.

Around 5:40 pm I looked out my salon window see an amazing sunset taking place, so I got outside right away and memorialized it....

....thanks for stopping by!

3-0

 7:12 am - Tuesday - October 29th - TWW - 38° F, humidity 60%, wind 9 mph out of the west by southwest.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 54° F.  On this date in 2012 TLE and I had the pleasure of meeting Jack McAuliffe, the father of modern day micro brewing, in Arkansas.....

 

.....the name of his brewing company was New Albion Brewing.

Monday was quite a cloudy day, which meant solar energy was in short supply.  Each morning I start up our Honda EU2000i generator to begin recharging our Bluetti solar charger bank.  The sun does not hit the Bluetti solar panels until around 9 am when there is sun.  I can usually get them back to 100% within 2 hours with the Honda, then I turn it off and let the sun keep them going all day long.  We've been connected to power thru the Bluetti solar bank for 6 consecutive days without an interruption.  We just live as if were were plugged into an electrical pedestal.  We have continuous 30 amp service, which allows us to use most of our appliances, except for the A/C.  We could use the electric heaters, but that would dissipate our power too quickly, so we use our 3 gas furnaces when we need them.  Otherwise, life is normal electrically speaking.

We got a little rain early Monday morning, but never more than a sprinkle, which got me to thinking....I need to get those Bluetti solar panels off the ground when the rain does come, so I gathered up three tables from around the property, including one of mine, and set one on each table.....

....so now they will not end up in the mud after it rains.  Speaking of rain, we'll probably get some rain here Saturday and Sunday, and possibly snow on Monday.  

The house on the property has a solar system with two (right now) 150 amp/hour lithium batteries, and a 12,000 watt inverter.....

....until a few days ago they would lose all power between 2 and 6 am every morning, so the batteries were obviously not getting fully charged.  The question was 'Why?'.  The only appliance drawing any power was the refrigerator, so I focused on that.  I plugged the fridge into one of my Bluetti solar chargers and found it was drawing 145 watts, and rarely ever shut off.  Since there was nothing in it I left it unplugged. What do you know?  By the end of the day the batteries were up to 30%, and by Monday afternoon they hit 82%.....

.....by Tuesday they'll hit 100%.  We are planning to add more solar panels to the existing bank of 12, or 14 on the roof already, as well as one, or two more 150 amp/hour batteries, so eventually they will get recharged within a day, not three days.  Needless to say, the old refrigerator has been removed from the house, and a new one will be here, hopefully, this weekend.

Speaking of solar I recently ordered a Dual Axis Solar tracking system from Eco-Worthy to supplement our own solar, as well as a wind generator.  I should have them by this weekend, so we're excited to set them up, and become less reliant on the Honda.  The Dual Axis system will have six 100 watt solar panels, which is twice as much solar as we have now....

.....once we can get those systems online electricity will become less of an issue.

Since we will be having overnight lows in the high 20's beginning Tuesday night/morning we needed to be sure the water tower plumbing is properly insulated.  I had two lengths of 'heat tape' left from our Grand Canyon adventure back in 2017, and there were two other longer lengths already in the pump house, plus I had some insulation left over from another project so, I employed all of those things to make sure nothing freezes for the next week....

.....to cap off the day I finally installed all six wheel covers for the trailer and Newell, and setup the steel piers under the trailer to stabilize it.  Since the suspension is leaf springs the trailer tends to bounce around when adults are walking around inside.  Once that was done it was after 3:30 pm, and I was ready for a hot shower, and some recliner time.

Charles and Phyllis left to head back to Phoenix around 1 pm, and will be back on Friday, so we are once again left to our own devices...lol.  By the way, Charles and Phyllis were quite busy both days they were here working on house projects, so I don't want to leave the impression that I'm doing all the work.  They have both outworked me during the time they were here. 

I watched part of game three of the World Series in which my Dodgers once again emerged victorious over the New York Yankees, 4-2.  They now lead the best of 7 series three games to none.....is it possible they might 'sweep' the Yankees?  Wouldn't that be glorious!

Thanks for stopping by!

Whittling....

7:53 am - Monday - October 28th - TWW - 55° F, humidity 24%, wind 6 mph out of the south.....cloudy today with a forecast high of 68° F.  On this date in 2017 TLE and I were taking our daily 3 mile walk at Lone Rock Beach on shores of Lake Powell.....

 As of Sunday we've been here at TWW for a week, although it has not felt like that long.  We've been getting a lot done, and with Charles and Phyllis here the past two days a lot more has been accomplished.  My goal for Sunday was to organize the trailer, and by noon time I had succeeded....

.....I'm not sure I remember when the trailer was that empty....lol...I think we've removed about 1,000 pounds of stuff from the trailer!  While I was thusly engaged, Phyllis was tackling the CONEX, which I had begun to work on a couple of days ago, but never finished.....when she was done she asked me to come and see, and I was stunned at what she had accomplished in such a short period of time....an organizational woman after my own heart.....now the workbench is cleared, and can be used for its intended purpose, and all the tools and supplies can now be found, and used.  The prior owner left a nice band saw for us, so we've got that going for us, too.....

.....you could not see the back of the CONEX, let alone walk to the back, when she began organizing.....what a transformation!

Once the trailer was at last useable TLE and I turned our attention to completing the first dump of our black tank since we arrived utilizing our SEAFLO Macerator Pump to move the effluent from the black tank to a 'cleanout' about 70' away....

The SeaFlo Macerator moving effluent efficiently

TLE standing guard at the 'cleanout' to be sure the hose did not pop out...notice how far away she is standing?

.....in all it took about 40 minutes as this was our first time using the macerator in a few years.  Now that everything is setup it will go much faster next time.  To flush the black tank we hooked up the water hose to the IBC water tote and pumped water into the black tank.  It worked well, and this time I powered the SEAFLO Water Pump using one of the Bluetti solar charger batteries.

Once that was done I was done for the day.  I changed out of my work clothes, poured myself a cold glass of ice tea, sat in my recliner, and put my feet up for the rest of the day.  There is so much to do here, but everyday we whittle down that long list, and we can begin to see the results around the property.

We had another early dinner around 3 pm in the house with Charles and Phyllis (Taco Salad), a little vino, and a lot of great conversation.  Charles and Phyllis will be returning to Phoenix on Monday, so TLE and I will be left to our own devices until they return later in the week.  We did have another sunset fire, but the heavy cloud cover to the west mostly obscured our view of the sun.

Thanks for stopping by!

2-0

6:39 am - Sunday - October 27th - TWW - 44° F, humidity 40%, wind 4 mph out of the southeast.....partially cloudy skies today with a forecast high of 79° F.    On this date in 2013 TLE and I were having coffee and pastries at Grounds For Coffee in Ogden, UT.....

....the sunrise this morning....

Saturday was the day I would finally, finally get to drive my recently purchased 1969 Jeep CJ5.  Charles and Phyllis would be arriving mid morning with the keys, and some Amazon/eBay purchases.  In the interim TLE and I got out our popup canopy to install it over the Bluetti battery station to better protect it against the elements, such as rain, and sun.  We'll be acquiring a storage shed in the near future where the Bluetti battery station will be installed, but for now the canopy will suffice.

We also moved the IBC water tote closer to the Newell in preparation for the transfer of water from the 5,000 gallon water tower, which is about 30' away.  Shortly after Charles and Phyllis arrived we hooked up the large transfer hoses, and used gravity to fill the tote with 275 gallons of potable water.  Our onboard fresh water tank (160 gallons) was down to about 70 gallons, so it was time to refill it....

The IBC water tote is full

Pumping water

.....I used a SeaFlo 12 volt water pump I've been carrying around for years as a backup to our house water pump....it really came in handy.  I wired it up to one of the Newell chassis batteries, and within 15 minutes we had added 90 gallons of fresh water to our tank.

Next up was some Jeep time for moi....

At the southwest corner of the property....look at that view!

....it took a bit to get her started as she's been sitting for over 3 weeks, but she finally fired, and does she ever sound sweet with those headers.  I'll take a video today (Sunday) of her running so you can hear that deep resonating rumble.  I took Charles for a ride around the property so he could find each corner of the 40 acre property.  I just locked the front wheels, put her in low range 4 wheel drive and let her idle from corner to corner.

We had an early dinner around 3 pm, and around 5 pm headed out for our first sunset fire with Charles and Phyllis......

......Saturday was also the second game of the 2024 World Series pitting my  Dodgers against the New York Yankees.  When I turned on the game it was in the 5th inning with the Dodgers leading the Yankees 4-1.  Through 8 innings the Dodgers had a 1 hitter going against the Yankees, and ultimately prevailed 4-2 giving them a 2-0 lead in this best 4 out of 7 series.  The team that wins the first two games goes on to win the World Series 80% of the time.....lets hope the Dodgers don't fall into the 20% category.....lol.....

.....thanks for stopping by!