Well it’s Friday the thirteenth, and nothing really major happening today…I received our new 3000 watt pure sine wave inverter and controller last evening, haven’t even checked it out yet. This inverter is a hybrid type of inverter, so as well as being pure sine wave it allows us to control our draw on our power source. In simpler terms it allows us to use our batteries and solar when plugged in, our old inverter would shut down and turn into just a battery charger, when ever we had shore power, while this one does not. The best example is when we are drive way surfing at a friends and they let us plug into a 15 amp circuit, the reality is we can really draw 12 amps with out a risk of tripping the circuit, we are limited to a total load of only 12 amps period…this new inverter allows us to program it that we only have 12 amps of shore power so if we tried to use an electric heater at 9 amps and Miss Laurie’s hair drier at 8 amps the inverter would draw battery power to cover all the load (5 amps) over the 12 amps of shore power. The second advantage is when we are on full hookups but we are being charged for our electricity usage, we can reduce our draw by using our battery power, and using the solar, reducing our electric cost, how much saving that provides will remain to be seen.

I’m hopping to finish some rework on the battery tray as we still haven’t totalling succeeded on that front yet, so I will need to cut some material from the back of the battery tray to accommodate our new batteries. I hope to get the engine air filter changed on Thunder today, possibly service the generator, and I’m going to have to make a dump run soon to get rid of some packing materials.

This is also pot luck Friday, Miss Laurie is making her chicken taco soup, while preparing for our off grid trial tonight. Happy hour has been none existent this week as I have had to wait for UPS every afternoon right at happy hour…but that will change now, most of our purchases has landed, so happy hour is back on the schedule.

So I spent a few hours today starting to set the program on our new Victron inverter, and hope to finish it off on Saturday. I have been planning the install and while it will be a lot of work to install and program initially, it will make it much easier to live the life style that we have chosen.

Can you say hot topic? I’m going to start by saying the wall will change some parts of America for ever…I’m not talking about the political fight that has been brewing for almost three years, I’m referring to the changes that are scaring the country side forever, I’m talking about the lives of the men that have came from all parts of this great country to work long hard days. I’m talking about the temporary economies that is being created around the wall that will totally collapse after the work is done, or moves to a different section, so each little town booms and crashes as the wall builders come and go.

Some wall facts:

• There is 1933 miles of border between Mexico and the US
• 1279 miles have no pedestrian barrier at all

• Estimated cost of $20,000,000 per mile that’s $45 billion total
• The wall is 30 feet high and fabricated in 8 foot sections of steel

In the photo above you can see the Mex-2 highway just over the border, this is obviously just a vehicle barrier as any one can just step over or crawl under the barrier. It also allows the native wildlife to freely pass by, this is one of the overlooked fatalities caused by the new wall, there will be many larger animals that will no longer move freely to and from some of their natural habitats. It has been said that some species will not survive the wall, true or false I don’t know but food for thought. Through the National Monument all the cactus that were in the way were to be relocated, I understand that this is not happening, not my personal knowledge but my research has indicated it more than once, that these majestic, century old cactus are just being destroyed. There are also native burial grounds that on the border as the wall will divide some of the native tribes that share land on both sides of the border for decades.

I do not have personal knowledge (although actually I just watched a YouTube video of people scaling the new wall, using a rope ladder with a couple of hooks that attach to the top), but have spoken to some of the people building the wall, and while it is thirty feet high and is set in an excavated trench that is approximately four feet deep and is filled with concrete. The determination of people has always amazed me, wether it is scaling the new wall and or tunnelling under it as they are doing at the old fencing already, as a number of articles point out if these people are willing to endure the scaling of mountains and summer desert temperatures exceeding 100 degrees that are the natural separation of the countries, this wall will be little more than just one more obstacle on their way to the promised land.

Now for my opinion of the wall and keep in mind I don’t have a horse in this race…first of all I do not believe that any person should be able to just walk across any international border without some form of consequence, that having been said I just see this thirty foot wall as a very tall and expensive line in the sand. It is my understanding that there will still need to be some kind of electronic monitoring device even with the wall, so why not just work on a totally electronic solution. I just keep thinking how many people and veterans could be helped with 45 billion dollars, with so many great causes that are being under funded, is this really the best use of the taxpayers dollars? This will be a debated topic for years to come, and it is a topic that has divided friends and families, so I don’t have any a side to pick, as I truly am neutral on this one, wall or no wall, I don’t see this problem going away any time soon…the way I see it…just saying