Well yesterday was a busy day, at least in my little world, as I started into installing our new lithium batteries. Now I knew this was going to be a major undertaking, after all I was removing four six volt golf cart AGM lead batteries so a series / parallel configuration , and installing the four twelve volt golf cart sized lithium batteries in a parallel only configuration.

Now add to that that they are located on a slide tray in an open compartment at the rear of the coach, so a bit of a dirty location, and the connections were a little suspect before, notice the temporary installation of a shunt to let us monitor our battery condition. That has been moved and properly mounted.

To add to the challenge the fact that the tray was custom made for the present batteries and the new batteries don’t quite fit, so yesterday was a long day of deciding how to overcome these little obstacles. I was able to cut most of the cables and shorten them to work for now, I had previously purchased the lugs and the hydraulic crimper, I should have upgraded my cutters as 2/0 cable was almost too much for my old side cutters.

Today has me finishing the temporary install of only four of the batteries, but this will actually give us over a one hundred amp hours more that the previous battery bank. Hoping to run a test tomorrow, by unhooking from shore power and enjoying a normal night, I will fire the boiler to simulate a cold evening of boondocking, and checking the battery condition in the morning.

So I have connected the new battery bank to the coach system and have the solar connected to top the batteries up, so that I can reset the shunt to zero to give me a true status of the battery condition, and the true SOC (state of charge).

Day 800

Nature at its best, this is one of the most amazing places, no there are no flashing neon lights, no big crowds, but this is one one of the places that we all should visit at least once. It is the only location in America that the Organ Pipe cactus grow wild, it covers 517 square miles, is just south of Why Arizona and runs to the Mexican border, it is bordered on the east by the Tohono Oʼodham Indian Reservation and on the west by Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge.

It is an area that has seen more than a few border jumpers, and they can only hope that the border patrol finds them, as many parish in this piece of the desert where summer temperatures exceed 120 or 44 degrees, while hiking in areas we have seen the barrels of water scattered throughout the area, as a life line to survival on the trek from the border as it is very unforgiving. We have hiked many of the trails and find most to have loose terrain creating difficult footing, and everything here wants to stab or bite you, the cactus alone are just plain mean, and in the summer, snakes, scorpions, and then there is the whole Gila monster a venomous lizard, you get the idea. We visit in the winter and most creatures are hibernating, we have not seen any of these creatures and really don’t think we are missing anything…just saying

One of the meanest cactus have to be the jumping chola, ok it don’t really jump but their tips are so weakly attached that any contact they just break off and stick to anyone or thing that is close. They are a nice looking cactus they almost look bright and inviting, and don’t be fooled by a name as the teddy bear chola has a brown fuzzy appearance but appearances can be deceiving and in this case very deceiving because that fuzzy is all spines. Ouch!

And of course there are thousands of Organ Pipe Cactus, saguaro cactus, prickly pear cactus, and the list goes on. As you drive the loops there are points of interest, that are numbered and correspond to the guide, there will be a number of visits for us during or stay, every time is a learning experience, and did I mention the beauty of the landscape as well.