As we are on the last few days of our trek north, we are greeted by 34 (1c) and snow flurries…yesterday was a mixed bag of weather, the solar system only brought in 88 amp/hrs and with the temperature dropping to just above freezing I started the heater to maintain temperature in the basement and to heat the coach as we got down to 55 (11c) which seems a little cool, with no sun in the forecast until this afternoon some generator time will be in the near future. And to add to the aggravation the refrigerator faulted again about 10:30 last night, why would run for six hours than throw the code again?

No one ever said full timing is not without its challenges, with a high for the day to be in the low 40’s the heat will be on for a day or two, and with little or no sun the batteries are in for a serious test. With high winds forecast for most of the day, we may just stay put. We have a couple of stops to make in the Lewiston before crossing the boarder and while only a couple of hours, it looks like it will be easier tomorrow with less wind and no snow. We have a number of items to take care of in the Niagara area before the Easter weekend as we need to be Lake Huron for the 23rd.

So it’s about 3 o’clock and the sun has made an appearance, the solar is gaining a little but the battery bank is still in the 70% range so even after 3 hrs of generator this morning we will probably need another couple of hours this evening, the low is forecast for 36 so heating will be required. Redid the cleaning of the orifice on the refrigerator and have restarted the unit on propane, fingers crossed.

Our plan is to hunker down for another night here in Erie PA, and make a run for the boarder tomorrow. We will fill with fuel on the reservation as the price is very attractive compared to our Canadian fuel pricing which will be a whole new rant…lol.

Ok I’m not going to go off on a golf rant today….well maybe just a little. I think it’s great that that Mr. Woods is playing golf better, after all it means less club slamming and over reacting to everything, I understand that he still has a big following, and that means revenue, but seriously the golf announcers (Nick Faldo) needs to quit focusing just on one player who is not even leading the tournament and cover all the contenders, I’m back to ESPN and CBS coverage is just a small step over Fox when it comes to golf…..ok that’s over…..what do you mean coverage starts at 9 o’clock Sunday morning!

I know two rants in a row…let’s talk solar, 181 amp/hrs produced from the four panels on the roof, why so high you might be wondering, a short driving day, and getting parked correctly to maximize the intake of sunshine….the second part of that equation is that we used more electric power yesterday so the panels were able to produce more, charging of laptops and other electronic devices and almost nine hours of television. And we again hit full charging of the battery bank, that is the most important part of your solar system is the ability to fully charge everyday. Lead acid or AGM need to be fully charged to obtain maximum amount of cycles.

So because I’m such a golf nut and the Masters is like most prestigious tournament of the year we will be up and on the road early today, it’s about 5 o’clock now which is a normal time for me to be up and about, and we are not heading down the road yet but we will probably pull out of our Walmart spot by 7 o’clock, with being Sunday we will have light traffic, and we have picked a rest stop just past Pittsburg that we will stop at, so I can watch the golf and that is where we will have breakfast. Last night it was quieter than most campgrounds, we like our nights at Walmart, Laurie always does a little shopping and if there is a trucker with a rig running it is only one or two not a continuous changing like rest areas.

So we travelled two and a half hours to a rest stop on I-79, set up and watched the Masters, then drove another hour and a half to settle into a Casino parking lot at Erie PA. So the weather started with a beautiful sun rise, into light rain, to heavy rain, sunshine again, tornado watch with severe thunderstorms, tornado warning with severe thunderstorms, and from a high of mid seventies to a projection of low thirties over night and just to top it of snow tomorrow morning…

While we were stopped watching the Masters the refrigerator set a failure code = no propane flame, so because it was raining I started the generator to run it on 120 volts until we got settled and out of the rain. I suspected the issue to be a piece of debris shook up by the smooth interstate highways, I removed the burner from the chamber and removed the metering jet and cleaned it, then reassembled and reinstalled and restarted the refrigerator with success.

Well this is getting a little long so we will call it a day….