Category: Uncategorized

January 26th 2020

La Posa West LTVA

It’s Sunday morning and we will be on the move again today, only 5 miles (8 kilometres), but every move takes the same amount of planning. Wow yesterday was a great day for solar 320.5 amp hours, our biggest day ever. Now you might ask how a winter day in the desert is our biggest day ever…it’s actually easy to explain, while our solar array has always had the capability to bring in this amount of power we just didn’t have anyplace to put it. Remember our old batteries only gave us 224 amp hours at 50% and we tried not to take them much below 70% so we were replenishing the battery’s daily, now we are averaging around 250 amp hours of usage each day, and that is mainly because we can do more without fear of damaging the batteries, or setting off alarms because of low voltage. So now our battery bucket has more room for the solar to dump in power, and now we need a little more solar to fill that battery bucket every day.

This view every sunrise, has been pretty tough to take…just saying

A check of today’s forecast shows a high of 74 or 23 degrees today, in fact warmer than our friends in LaBelle Florida by a couple of degrees, were we make the biggest difference is on the humidity, we are thirty percent lower and will be closer to seventy percent when the sun gets up. Generally this time of year southern Arizona runs about ten Fahrenheit degrees cooler that Florida but we also run 50 to 70% lower humidity. And the only insects are common house flies and of course some ground ants. So sitting out in the evening there are no mosquitos but when the sunsets the temperature drops off sharply, like I’m talking sweatshirt required in minutes, but that’s the desert.

I got most things packed away yesterday evening, this morning only the barbecue, propane fire pit, the propane tank, and our rug are left, Then once we move I can get our flag base, most of what is left fits into the truck box, so less than half an hour will have us ready for the road, the packing is the same for 5 miles is the same as it is for 50, and in reality there will be more bouncing out of the BLM and into the LTVA than most hundred mile moves…just saying.

Well it’s 10:30 and we are settled into our new old spot, you see we are settled back into a spot that we were in two years ago, (yea garbage bins turn right) that spot. But it is close to the big tent, and we are positioned to protect the refrigerator from the sun and get the best harvest possible, the crowd is starting to thin, lots of rigs heading out, that’s why we decided not to dump for a few days, because pretty much everyone leaving will be going to dump.

I have picked up our new solar panels, another 420 watts, so tomorrow will be install day, I have the kits, the glue and a fresh tube of Dicor. So I will mount them in the morning, then I can go pick up the correct length cables to hook them up to the Blue Sky controllers.

January 25th 2020

Only 11 months till Christmas!

Saturday morning @ 6:30, clear skies, lots of stars, and a cool 7 or 44 degrees and the forecast is for nothing but sun and a high of 22 or 71, sun rise is 7:37, sun set is 6:01. The days are actually starting to stretch out a few minutes every day, enough that we can notice it with no generator time yesterday and a partial cloudy day the solar harvest was near 282 amp hours, which got us back to 89%, we are going to pack today for a move early tomorrow, but will check our solar harvest today, I have already moved our suitcase panels to get the early morning sun so with no clouds we should be able to achieve 300+ amp hours today. So there will be no generator time today either, we have picked a spot at La Possa West, very close to our spot two years ago. The advantage of this spot is its proximity to the big tent and the tented village around it, we can easily walk to number of shops as I install our new solar panels for additional supplies.

This fourteen day stay at LTVA (Long Term Visitor Area) will carry us through our time before heading north to Nevada in February. The cost is $40 or around $54 Canadian but provides, dump station, water, and garbage. This will bring our cost of camping in January to 337.50 Cdn or $10.89 per day down from December’s $15.24/day (with full hookups), but up from November’s $7.29/day. The January cost was driven up by the ballon festival at Lake Havasu which after backing out the festival passes ended up at $229.50 Canadian for a week in a parking lot. I did not include the $65.00 cost of the Beaver Rally, as it included four breakfasts and four dinners, as well as a number of seminars and beaver game events.

Our number of stragglers from the rally is only six including our coach, everyone will have to be out tomorrow, and I suspect many will be required to move today as we are the last coach in of the six left. The BLM rangers are a great bunch, but we have been told that the fine for staying beyond the allowed fourteen days is quite harsh and we have no interest in finding out just how harsh. It is now 8:00 and the first of the six left is heading out, and then there were five…

Today will be a packing day, oh not a difficult day, as I need the suitcase out as long as possible for the solar harvest. But we need to move early tomorrow as I need some time to pick up items from the tent before it shuts down at 3pm on Sunday. We will not hook up the toad tomorrow to move the five miles north, the spot we have picked will most likely require me backing Thunder into the spot. The key issue is getting the best angle for the highest solar harvest.

This is just a snapshot of 27 minutes of actual solar harvest.

The blue line is the amperage from the panels and the brown line shows the how many amp hours the battery bank is from full.

The amperage deviation marked in red was our fresh water pump running and the deviation marked in green was the circulation pump from the boiler, after it was shut off. The other little spikes are lamps being turned on and off.

The upward trend of the blue line is as the solar harvest becomes stronger because of a improving angles to the sun.

With no clouds forecast for today, and if I keep the suitcase properly angled we are hoping for one our best solar harvest, I do not expect to get to 100% of capacity but I’m hoping to get close to the 90% level. Living off the grid is so much better when you can replenish the energy you use everyday without running the generator, and not living in fear of alarms going off because of low battery voltage…yea this is pretty great, if I say so myself.