Strolling Amok

Pops goes on tour.

28 Oct 2013
4 Comments

Batten the Hatches Again!

A gorgeous day...with high winds.

A gorgeous day…with high winds.

Not a fascinating post, but it’s all part of daily life in this rig. The heat wave of 90+ degrees in Quartzsite is over, and it’s expected to be a long spate of low-80’s for quite a while, which is the top of my Ultimate Comfort Zone. The new temperature front moving in is expected to produce southwest wind gusts in the  45 MPH range though. That means take all precautions, so I staked down the telescoping poles supporting the solar panels, and added the tie-down ropes, two to a panel. None of it should be needed in a wind hitting the trailer at the southwest corner (the trailer, as always, is aimed straight west) because it tends to merely drive the panels downward instead of lifting them. Since I don’t plan to move a thing for many months though, I figured now is better than later. The highest winds should arrive in a couple of hours and continue through until suppertime. That isn’t preventing the Enterprise from rocking a bit right now, however.

A larger concern has been the relatively ineffective rubber wheel chocks. They seemingly were designed for smaller-diameter tires, because they don’t allow these tires any chance to Read more…

Posted in Daily Life, Mod Squad and tagged , ,
24 Oct 2013

Dream Big

I found some iPad software called Motivational Poster that lets you roll your own graphics, so here you are:

Motivational_Poster-App

Posted in Navel Gazing and tagged | Leave a comment
23 Oct 2013
2 Comments

Motivational Quote

working iconThe gap between success and failure in a pursuit is sometimes as broad as the gap between being smart and being wise. The achievement of it is not always real success, and an unworthy goal can destroy its pursuer. Along the way, the correct discernment of when to persist and when to quit is also needed at each stepping stone, and so the journey itself is often the success, not the end attainment. Flawed by our very natures, simply learning from our mistakes and failures can become our unexpected pot of gold. Still, there are those who tend to finish what they start, and those who

Posted in Navel Gazing and tagged
23 Oct 2013
2 Comments

Oops!

MakingMistakesFor those of you foolish enough to have signed up for e-mail notification about new posts here, you’ve all gotten automatic notification about a post called Deep-Cycle Surprise, and then clicked on the link to see…nothing. My apologies. I’ve been working hard on that particular piece, but it isn’t yet ready for prime time. I simply hit the wrong button and unintentionally published it before it was done. Then I yanked it.

It has to do with the Enterprise’s solar power system, and some unexpectedly big performance differences between two of it’s different battery packs – marine hybrid flooded and AGM. Sounds like a boringly technical piece, but I’m trying to keep it from being that. It isn’t ready to post because the events feeding it are not yet over, it seems. New performance anomalies streaming in affect the reconfiguration direction to take, and there’s little point in posting a problem/solution article until the “problem” shows some consistency.

ProfHigginsNothing is malfunctioning here – it’s just the usual process of fine tuning things so that each system will let me do what I want to be able to do, without introducing too many drawbacks.  As Professor Higgins explains in My Fair Lady, “I’m an ordinary man, who desires nothing more…than just an ordinary chance to live exactly as he likes and do precisely what he wants! An average man am I, of no eccentric whim, who likes to live his life free of strife, doing whatever he thinks is best for him… Just an ordinary man!”

Posted in Daily Life
19 Oct 2013
4 Comments

Overton, NV to Quartzsite, AZ

Passing "Snowbird Mesa" just south of Overton. See the camper up there?

Passing “Snowbird Mesa” just south of Overton. See the camper up there?

I began the trip toward Quartzsite with an “oopsie!”  The GPS wanted me to continue south through some beautiful, winding terrain. I passed a mesa clogged with boondocking campers, and then came up to the Lake Mead entrance, which was blockaded due to the shutdown. The GPS showed no interest in the single road going to the right, so I doubled back and lost three gallons of fuel in getting to I-15 heading for Las Vegas. I did put Lake Mead on my list of places to camp in, however. With Overton so close, that mesa would be a fab place to boondock.

Still near Lake Mead, the landscape is right there near you.

Still near Lake Mead, the landscape is right there near you.

US 95, running along California’s border with Arizona, is a throwback to the days of what highway travel used to be like 50 years ago. Unlike more modern roadways that are carved into Read more…

Posted in Travelin' Man and tagged
19 Oct 2013

Open Fo’ Bidness

Sunrise on an F-250

“Super Duty Sunrise”

Well, the campsite host shacks reopened a couple of days ago, so Quartzsite’s LTVAs are back in full operation. The campsite I picked is at GPS coordinates 33.64567, -114.22289, which looks like this:

If you zoom in using the plus sign, you can see the elongated darker island of gravel that the Enterprise is parked on. I find it odd that I keep expecting to actually see my trailer show up in these things, as if I’m creating an overhead shot live. Mental defect, I’m sure.

Posted in Campsites | Leave a comment
18 Oct 2013
4 Comments

Wendover to Overton, NV

Heading out from Wendover along 93 Alt was the only part of the day's trip that met expectations.

Heading out from Wendover along 93 Alt was the only part of the day’s trip that met expectations. After some 30 miles, it was all new territory in some way or other.

It was starting to get a little nippily at the Bonneville Salt Flats, so to avoid burning through a lot more propane, I decided to head southward. It was rain off and on all day. Turns out that the day’s climb in altitude put me up into the snowline! The rain turned to snow, and it stuck on everything but the pavement. I haven’t driven this rig on ice to this point, and there were small patches of it here and there. Now I’ve certainly driven on ice  in my lifetime, and plenty of it. In a car, it can be fun. A loaded 3/4-ton truck has great stability, but can be clumsy and hard to predict on slippery surfaces once its limit is reached. Add a heavy trailer with a weight distributing hitch, and ice is no longer your plaything. Everything went okay, though I was eager to get through Ely and get to lower elevations and higher temps. Ely’s forecast for the day was snow with a current temp of 33, then a high of 50 before it hit the low 20’s that night. Unappealing. My 8,000 BTU Mr. Heater will handle the trailer down to about 30, and that’s it. Without heat, the trailer will settle in at 5-10 degrees over whatever is going on outside, making for an interesting early morning routine.

Alone in the paved universe, I am master of all I survey.

Alone in the paved universe, I am master of all I survey.

Despite many hills, the combination of overall descent and a brisk tailwind pumped fuel mileage up to a solid 14 MPG, something I may not see again in my lifetime with this rig. I did have to climb from Wendover’s 4,200′ to Ely’s 6,400′, but from there on in, Read more…

Posted in Travelin' Man and tagged
17 Oct 2013
6 Comments

Starting Out With a Whimper

My nondescript but level campsite at Hi Jolly in Quartzsite, AZ.

My nondescript but level campsite at Hi Jolly in Quartzsite, AZ.

Before posting about the trip down here (which was notable), I’ll bring you up to speed on current info, which I’m sure you will find riveting. Sure. After running by the Lifestyle RV dealership in Quartzsite and making an appointment for the next day, I rolled into a nearby 14-day site for the overnight. BLM sites within Quartzsite are unusual in that they require sign-ins with volunteer camp hosts. That’s because they want to keep tabs on the crush of visitors that come in for the Winter gatherings. With the government out of action, the camp host was present but not authorized to do anything, so one can wander in and out as one pleases – for now.

The next day, Tuesday, I hauled the Enterprise in for repairs to the refrigerator. The fridge thought it was fine, but actually refused to cool, and left propane flowing even though the electronic pilot ignitor never sparked to fire things up. Fortunately for me, the issues turned out to be Read more…

Posted in Daily Life, Travelin' Man and tagged , , , ,
14 Oct 2013
4 Comments

Zoom!

Due to the fridge being out of action, I got antsy on the way south from Wendover, Utah and made the four-day schedule turn onto just two. I just dropped by and made an appointment for tomorrow morning at the RV repair place in Quartzsite, AZ. They’ll determine just how deep the bad news goes. Shouldn’t be too bad…

Sorry there are no pics on this post. I took them with the “wrong” camera for transfer to the iPad and I will put up a couple of posts about the trip down. It was notable for the scenery and the weather at altitude. The big desktop will come into play once I am able to settle in for awhile at one location and deploy the solar panels, and that’s what I’ll use to post them.

The only other notable thing is that the LTVA area I stayed in last year here is probably closed and gated due to the government shutdown. That’s no biggie, I can get around that, but access to their dump station will also be blocked. I may need to hit a commercial dump station if the shutdown persists, and I’m sure there’s some humorous irony in there somewhere about that. There are some 14-day areas surrounding Quartzsite that I can stay at if the repair runs on for a few days. In fact, I’m at one just two miles north of town. We’ll see if parts must be shipped in, and that will determine where I stay and for how long before I can comfortably deploy the panels and set up camp somewhere. Adventure!

Posted in Travelin' Man
12 Oct 2013
2 Comments

Nope. No Soap.

DSCN0167wtmk

Hanging out on the salt, since there’s nothing better to do.

Well, it went down to the wire. The hope was that today’s spectacular sun and breeze would dry out mile 7, which is about where the two-wheelers would pop their chutes at max speed. It just refused to dry out, though. Mike Cook, the organizer of the event, was forced to cancel it for good for 2013.  If it won’t be safe, it can’t happen. How safe one can be while approaching 400 MPH is debatable, but there’s just no point shoveling in more risk.

So, I wandered around and saw a lowered and huffed (turbocharged) VW New Beetle and wandered over to find its crew in good spirits despite the cancellation. Racers are a tenacious bunch, and seem to roll with the punches more easily than many. As a rule, they’re also welcoming by nature – you can just barge in and join them without the usual “who’s this guy?” looks. There was a bright young lady among them who definitely sounded like Read more…

Posted in Campsites and tagged , , ,

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