Looking down at our spot at Craggy, as you can see we are tucked into a bowl with a few others, the wind seems to come from multiple directions, and the mountains do reduce our sunshine in the morning and afternoons, the afternoons are very warm, but when the sun dives behind the hills the temperature starts to drop off which makes sleeping much nicer. Today the wind is justing enough to keep bringing in the awning, I think I will adjust our positioning next time to keep the fridge on the shaded side, this means changing the way the solar panels tip, not a big change and should help the fridge keep up on these sunny 80+ degree days.

As I sit writing today on the shady side of the coach at 11:30 it is 24 or 80 degrees, the sky is crystal clear and there seems to be a light breeze from the west, Mr. Sam is in his tent watching the local geckos scurry back and forth, Miss Laurie has mixed herself a cocktail just to keep hydrated. We had a big shopping trip to Walmart about three miles away, to pick up supplies and get some good signal to make some phone calls and catch up on some banking, the ability to deposit cheque’s with your phone, that allows us to pay almost every bill, transfer money by e-transfer, they have made this life style quite easy, in a matter of minutes, I deposited four cheque’s into three different banks, paid three credit cards from three different banks and accepted an e-transfer, plus downloaded a number of statements. Things have become much smoother now than there were even just two years ago, our US Verizon hot spot, out Roam Mobility phones, and my Canadian cell phone as a backup, while not cheap it seems to be working. We do sometimes go to spots that do not have the best reception, but it can change just moving a few hundred feet in any direction, and the terrain is the main cause as much as it is the main draw to these areas.

We are being very hard on our batteries, as much as we are getting them to 100% by early afternoon we are also dragging them down below 70% overnight before the sun rises, we have not ran the generator since getting here and will not until the solar fails to top the bank off. Which could be happening next week, as the news stations build up the rain storm the same way they did at home with snow storms, but down here clouds and rain are not commonplace, so there could be some generator time next week.

It is Sunday, which is football day, in fact the first games are already underway, here the one o’clock games start at 11 so it takes some getting use to. But I’m struggling through. Watched a bunch of college ball yesterday, Ohio State is 10-0, there must be much jubilation in the Ward household, even got a chance to watch a little golf from Mexico, I seem to be settling into the laid back feet up role with out much struggle, and now instead of reading a book, I’m writing a blog and for some reason people are reading it…who’d thunk.

Saturday morning at 7 o’clock and the temperature in the desert is 53 or 10 degrees, no need for furnace here…forecast is sunny and 81 or 25 degrees, in fact that is the forecast for the next few days, they are hoping for a rain event here mid week and that will push the temperatures down into the low sixties, it is like watching our weather people preparing for a snow event, the best chance for rain is on Thursday and it has a 70% chance, what will happen is this low pressure will bring in some cooler temperatures for a few days and some cloud cover which while not good for solar will be a little better for doing things.

I have been trying to support small breweries, I have become very complacent with the big brewers, and enjoy the tastes and inventive nature of small batch brews. So there are a couple in the area, so I thought I would go to the brewery and learn about the brews, the profile of the beer, so when I arrived in most cases the brewery will give a description of the flavour profile of the different products, I seen nothing anywhere so I asked the server behind the bar, and quite seriously she had no idea what I was asking for, so I just took a variety six pack paid almost double what I could have purchased six of their beers in the grocery store. Maybe it was her first day, or maybe she just didn’t give a hoot, but seriously not a very good representation or introduction to your brewery. I have six different beers in the cooler and plan on sampling some later today.

Ok let’s just touch on the solar thing quickly, yesterdays report may have got a little wordy, we brought in over 240 amp/hours from all panels, we reached 100% batteries by mid day, which is all I can hope for, we have not added any power from the generator, but if we were going to need any furnace time we would have to as this morning our bank is at 75% and 12.2 volts and 110 amp/hours from full. With the short days, and with our power load for five plus hours at night, we just need more batteries to allow the life style we want to live, come on Black Friday! We know what we want, just need to have them sent to a spot we are going settle in for a few weeks, the debate is how many?

We had the Host stop by yesterday to register us into the BLM area and give us our departure date, according to Host Dan we need to vacate by the 29th of November, that works out fine as we have a booked site for the 24th near Phoenix with full hook ups for a week before we head to Why for the month of December. That is where I will install the new battery bank so we are better equipped for our January which has us boondocking for at least a month, may also purchase a new inverter to improve our power level.