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Going to Alcatraz.

We hiked over and took the 10:10 ferry into the city.   The weather has been spectacular this week and appears that it will be the same till we head out early Friday morning for the long drive to Klamath Lake.   We got off the ferry and contemplated hoping on the Muni or walking to Pier 33.  I checked it out via google maps and it was only a 20 minute walk, so we did that.   It looks like the ferry landing is Pier 0,  and a lot of piers in between 1 and 33 are missing.

We got there about an hour prior to departure, so we  purchased some snacks and had lunch on the tables they have arranged by the boarding ramp.    The boat was a bit late arriving for our boarding, but we made it to Alcatraz just a few minutes late.   They must have been using cattle prods to get the masses loaded so fast.

I had never been to Alcatraz before, even being in San Francisco many times before.   I never remembered to book a tour in advance, and when I tried they were always full.

The island looked pretty worse for wear from the 5,000 folks visiting it every day and apparently not much maintenance happening.   Lots of areas are blocked off as unsafe.   After following the people ahead of us, making a wrong turn and going up a hill and down the other side only to find a dead end, I decided to look at the map for myself.

We then proceeded to hike back down to the path that leads to the cell block.   Thankfully it wasn’t very warm as the hills are steep to get up to the top of the rock where the cell block is located.   We each received an audio machine with headphones and proceeds to walk the cells while listening to an old guard narrate what we were seeing.   The most creepy part was the solitary confinement cells.  (the hole) They were pitch black inside.

The narration went over the Battle of Alcatraz, where back in the 40’s, inmates got ahold of guns and took a bunch of guards hostage.   The warden called in the marines.   They pointed out the pock marks in the floor from exploding grenades the marines dropped in from holes in the roof.    They pointed out the cells where the escapees were housed, and also showed you the crawlspace they went up to get to the roof.   It was pretty impressive they could have done that.

Did I mention the cells were extremely small, 5′ wide and 9′ long, they looked about 7′ tall or a bit shorter.    Although the cells in the incorrigible cell block (D) were a bit larger than the others.    I really think they needed to put in a bird cage into the bird man’s cell.    Seems they need a bit of marketing help.

We went outside into the yard and they had an awesome view of the city from there.

The island has a lot of flowering plants and they were all blooming while we were there.   That was pretty nice.

 

 

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Trip to Mavericks

We wanted to drive down to Half Moon Bay to visit the Pillar Point RV Park we heard about while stopped in Bakersfield.  I google-mapped it and we took the 101 south to Hwy 1 and headed down the coast.   We found the park and drove in to check it out.   Very nice little spot on the ocean in HMB.   Turns out it was a first-come first-served kind of place.  The camp host mentioned they posted info on their website and that the best day to arrive was on Sunday mornings.

After grabbing a brochure, we headed back north a bit so I could find Mavericks Beach.  I had heard about the famous surfing spot years ago and wanted to check it out.   I was guessing we wouldn’t be able to see the surfers as the spot where they surf is over a mile off the beach.   It was not an easy place to find.   No signs, just a bunch of short little streets in what looked like an old industrial area.

We finally found the right road and drove out to the Air Force station.  Just before the signs saying we could go no further, there was a small dirt parking lot to the left.   We backed up and parked in there.

There was a wide dirt path at the back of the lot that went out between a tall bluff and an inlet.   We hiked out there and around the bluff out to the beach side.   On the way out, we spotted this really cool bench and had to snap a few pics.   It was a beautiful day,  probably 80 degrees and a nice breeze.   Snapped some pics and headed back where we got to watch a seal or otter play just a bit off shore of the inlet, within 50 feet of some boys that had no idea he was there.  They were preoccupied with a crab or something in the rocks by the shoreline.

 

 

 

We got back to the car and proceeded to head back north on Highway 1 to look for another RV campground I had seen online.   We found that one.   It was not as nice as the other park, and was high up on a cliff.   One thing that caught our attention was all the sites along the cliff were chain link fenced off.   It appears they are falling into the ocean.   The other sites at that campground were awful… scratch that place.

Once out of there I headed for Skyline Drive as it kept us by the ocean on the way north after Hwy 1 headed inland.  It skirts the beach in areas and goes by the SF zoo.   I didn’t know there was another Ocean Beach up here,  didn’t appear as cool as the one in San Diego though.   Kathy got to see the Cliff House, and we stopped at Lands End and I took a few photos of the old Sutro Baths.   And then we headed out to find the Lands End Labyrinth just past the Legion of Honor memorial park.   Gorgeous vistas abound.

 

Down the hill we went to spy on China Beach.  After driving around in circles for a bit, we finally found the correct turn.   The houses over there were spectacular,  must be the really rich end of San Francisco.  Turns out it was a long way down to the beach from where we parked. We got about a third of the way down when we spotted the “No pet” signs.    Bummer.   [It was a really steep hill, so I was happy we couldn’t go down!]

We climbed back out and started looking for a way to the Golden Gate Bridge and back to the RV.    It’s just so different on the west end of SF,  you wouldn’t know you are in a city.   The whole Presidio Park area is breathtaking with all its views.

 

 

Next time we come back, we will spend a lot more time out there.

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Taking the Ferry into San Francisco on Monday night.

I think the RV park brochure said it was a two-minute walk to the ferry landing.  It was more like 15 minutes, and the first afternoon there it was about 95 degrees, so that walk seemed like an hour.  And it is right on the off ramp of the 101 freeway, which is very busy.  There is a small cement wall with a railing, but you really felt like you were on the freeway!!

We purchased our Clipper cards at the machine out front and got in line for the approaching ferry.   Once it landed and the doors opened, it took a long time for everyone to disembark.   After a while, I was thinking it was one of those clown cars that they just keep coming out of for a long time.   It was hard to imagine so many people could fit onto that boat;  but it was just after 5:30pm, so it was filled with commuters.   They must have been packed in like sardines.    We boarded with about 25 others to make the trip to San Francisco.   It was a beautiful day and the city was gleaming in the bright sun as we made our way across the bay.   Even the Golden Gate was easy to see, no fog around it like most of the other trips we made this week.

We walked over to Chris’s apartment on the 19th floor of a building just a few blocks from the ferry landing.   As we rode the elevator, Dusty started shaking due to the beeps the elevator made for each floor above the 7th.  That may have been his first ride in an elevator.

Chris has a great view of the waterfront in a very nice building.    After having a couple beers with Chris and Shelly while watching some of the Padres game, and touring the rooftop with an amazing view, we headed out for dinner at Palomino.    Dinner was very good out on their patio with a spectacular view of the Bay Bridge as the sun set and its lights came on.  They did a great job with that.

 

We headed back to the ferry landing to catch the last boat out at 9:30.    It was very dark on the water and the window by our seat was covered in so much water, I thought it was raining hard, but it wasn’t and turned out to be the spray from the bay.

The walk back to the RV park after 10pm was interesting as I hadn’t thought to bring a flashlight.   So we didn’t walk real fast and kept a keen eye out for bicyclists…   The next day my little flashlight was in my backpack!

We got back there without running into anything!

 

 

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Bakersfield and the drive to San Francisco

We got up early and readied the coach to leave.   Once it was ready to go, we headed over to the restaurant for a delightful breakfast on the patio, then headed out before 11am for the trip to just north of San Francisco.   It was an uneventful drive with a pit stop at a  rest area stop right near Los Banos.

Got back onto I-5 north till we exited to I-580 west toward SF.   About half way toward town, that freeway gets really bumpy,  seems like it will shake out the dishes from the cupboards.    After about 20 miles of that rough ride, it thankfully became much smoother.   We had our first Fastrac use on the  580 toll bridge right by San Quentin Prison.  $20 for the RV pulling a car.    We were staying very close to SQP and got off the freeway to wind around the surface streets to find an on ramp to the 101 south for one exit, then even more winding around more surface streets to find the campground.

We found the Marin RV Park, checked in and proceeded to our spot.   This place resembled an RV storage lot:  Tightly packed RV’s of all sizes.  We just barely fit, backing all the way up to the fence in spot J-7.  The campsite was wide but only about 41′ long.   I considered putting orange cones at the front but decided not to.   Our nose was maybe an inch off the pavement and the towbar maybe 5 inches from the fence.

 

But it turned out to be a great place to visit SF from as the Larkspur ferry was less than a mile walk, which we did many times.   And the Clipper card saves a bundle on the ferry cost.  It’s also useful for the muni’s and cable cars; so that worked out well once our feet were complaining a bit.

 

 

 

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On the road to the Northwest.

We got a late start on Sunday, actually hooking up the car right at noon.  We had been packing the coach back up for days as we had pulled everything out from inside and underneath for a thorough cleaning after San Eljio State Beach.

The traffic in LA was slow moving in a lot of places and continued to get worse as we drove along.  It was Sunday afternoon, where the heck were all these folks going?   It’s never good to hear google nav announcing that traffic is building on your route, multiple times during your drive thru LA.

We eventually got thru and started out toward Magic Mountain and eventually the Grapevine.   I had planned a stop in Castaic at a truck stop about 2.5 hours into the trip, but with all the traffic, it was more like 3.5 hours before we arrived.   I pulled into a fuel lane and Kathy took Dusty for a walk.   When I eventually got up to the pumps and looked at them, they said it was B20 fuel.   I had never seen it so high and decided to pass on the fill.  I didn’t actually need the fuel as we were only 100 miles from home, it was just the only place to get off the freeway for a bit.

We proceeded north on I-5 and I was amazed by all the traffic once we arrived at the Grapevine.   I had never seen so many cars and trucks on that stretch of road before.   We headed down the long grade and realized it isn’t nearly as steep or long as a lot of the grades we traversed last summer.    It’s only 6% and just 5 miles long.    We saw many 10 % grades and some were 20 miles long going over the Rockies.

We arrived at the Bakersfield resort a little after 5pm and pulled into a nice wide and long pull-thru site.    Tomorrow will be a quick and easy getaway..

They have a restaurant at this RV park that is quite good!  We were able to take Dusty and eat on the patio where I ordered a beer during happy hour and got one that was almost too heavy to lift.  The weather was beautiful for June in Bakersfield, low 80s!!  We had dinner there and breakfast the next morning.  Both times met nice people who had interesting tips on places to go.

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Portable Solar Install for the RV

After our second week of dry camping, both Kathy and I are ready to have our batteries charged by sunshine instead of the generator.  It might be a quiet diesel, but it still makes noise and some vibration inside the coach.

Having installed the Bogart Trimetric Meter  prior to our first dry camping trip last winter, and now after the second dry camping trip, we know that we need to replace about 180-200 Ah of power to the batteries each day.   That means I need to try to get about 50 amps to the batteries to charge them, so I will start off with two 300 watt panels that would produce somewhere between 30 and 50 amps or hopefully 180-240 Ah a day.   Due to flat mounting them on the roof,  I might need one or possibly two more, but that will only be known after we spend some time with those panels.   Since I built a portable set, I need to make sure I can add them to the string when needed.   That will take a bit more questions as I am not an electrical engineer.  But I know one!

I really liked these mounts: AM Solar tilting Solar Panel Mount Kit, but the price is outrageous.  Each panel mounting set is as much as the 100 watt panels I bought to make the portable suitcase though.    I also like their combiner box,  AM Solar Combiner Box, and it too is very pricey,    As I am probably going to hook the panels up in series, I may just be able to use a $20 gland instead of the combiner box.

As for the future path for the  cables down to where the controller is mounted in the passenger side rear-most bay,  my best guess right now is I’ll mount the combiner/gland at the rear of the coach near where the ladder connects to the roof.   I have verified with other owners with my particular coach that there is room back there to bring the cabling straight down inside the rear cap and connect it thru the back of the inverter cabinet.  I also found out there isn’t any insulation back there,  I had assumed that after noticing how warm the rear closet gets when the sun is shining on the back of the coach.

There was an an oddly mounted add-on fan at the back of the engine compartment that was pushing air out the PS engine door louvers.   I pulled that out and the electronics that controlled it from inside the inverter cabinet.   I guess the original coach owner didn’t understand that he needed to keep the engine revs up around 2,000 RPM on long, steep grades to keep the engine running cool, so he must have had that fan installed.

As our NorthByNorthwest trip is getting closer, I decided to build a portable setup first.  I purchased two grape solar 100w panels at Home Depot for $89 each, and I finished making them into a portable suitcase with hinges on the long side.   I originally picked up one of these Victron 75/15 MPPT controller  off amazon.  It was only $118, including built-in Bluetooth, which is something I really wanted.   It was just a test setup as it will just handle the two panels rated amps based on the Victron  configuration calculator sheet on a cold and sunny day.   I am not worried I will ever get them to create the max amps.   I ended up going with the MPPT for the Bluetooth as none of the PWM controllers had a Bluetooth option that I could find.  An added benefit was the ability to set up the panel in series instead of parallel, allowing a longer run of 10 AWG wire and keep the voltage drop below 1%.

It made more sense to me to put the controller inside the coach instead of where I see all the other portable panels mount it.   If you mount the controller out on the panels like every other one I have seen so far,  then the long cables from the panels are running at a lower voltage and higher amps, creating more voltage drop than you probably want; or you need to run thicker (heavier) cabling, which on a portable is probably not what you want.  I know I didn’t.   Having the long cables carrying the higher voltage and lower amps (serially connected)  seems like a much better solution to me, so that is what I did.

I mounted a  Quick Connect Plug behind the battery compartment door, where it also covers a smaller open space just aft of the battery compartment where the HWH leveling controller lives and was a perfect spot to mount the Quick Connector.   It’s hidden, but easy to get to when you open that battery bay door,  just pull the panels’ wire under the lower bar and up to the connector.

The mounted connector is wired with more 10AWG wire that enters the Inverter compartment and hooks up to these 30 AMP Circuit Breakers which will do double duty,  protecting the circuit and allowing me to turn off the panels without disconnecting the quick connect.    There is also a pair of those breakers, but at 50 amp on the output of the controller for providing the same options.

During my week of testing, the Victron controller lived up to its claims.   On the only cloudless day, my 200 watts of panels were putting out 210 watts of power, and according to the controller were pumping 15 amps into the batteries in Bulk mode.  (The Bogart meter said it was 14 amps)   The Bluetooth enabled Victron allows configuration from a Bluetooth app on my phone and has all the reporting capabilities built into it too.  No snaking more wire through the RV.  And no configuring it on a 1/2″ led screen while kneeling in the dirt or gravel in front of the cabinet.

On May 18th,  I hooked everything up for a test run to make sure the panels and controller were working.    I hooked up the Victron to my truck’s battery with some alligator clips, and that allowed me to set up the Bluetooth.  Once I figured out that the pin was six zero’s and not four like most Bluetooth devices,  it automatically downloaded and updated the software a few versions, then it downloaded and updated the controller firmware.   That all finished in a few minutes.

Afterward I configured the controller with my coach’s battery parameters, which are the same as the Magnum Charger set up for Absorb, Float and Equalize.   Once that was  done, I brought out the panels and leaned them against the side of my truck, pointing them toward the sun.  (There really wasn’t any sun, total cloud cover at 4pm, guess I should have hurried more as there was plenty of sun 30 minutes before)   I proceeded to cover them with cardboard so I could hook up the cabling.   Once all the cables were tight, I removed the cardboard, and to my surprise, I was  getting 24 watts at close to 40 volts from the two panels that were rated at 18 volts each or 36 volts max.   What was being produced translated to 1.8 Amps going to the batteries in Bulk mode.   The voltage seems a bit low on the battery side, so I better check that out tomorrow when there is sun!

I finished the legs built from 3/4 aluminum angle, and installed the hinges and handles for carrying it.   I made a special shelf in the coach basement to hold the portable suitcase.

After the initial test, I returned the smaller controller and used that credit to buy the controller sized for what I think will be needed.  Once the new controller arrived, I wired it up in the inverter bay in the same place I had installed the smaller test one.   The new controller allowed me to use 6 AWG wire from the controller to the 4/0 battery cables coming from the inverter/charger.  Installed circuit breakers on both sides,  PV and battery side.   I also ran PV wiring over to right behind the battery bay door as previously mentioned.     I affixed an Anderson type connector in there.   That way I just open that door, pull the cable over from the panels up under the bottom rail and up to the connector.  Then I can close the bay door and we are hooked up, throw both battery breakers on, give the controller a minute to wake up and sense the battery voltage, and then throw the solar panel side breakers on and watch the batteries get charged!!

I ended up mounting the Victron 100/50 solar controller right above the Magnum 2800 watt inverter, allowing me to tap into the 4/0 battery cables from the inverter that charges the batteries.   I have the new 50 amp circuit breakers so when I get some time they will replace the 30 amp ones pictured.

Can’t wait to boondock again so I can test out their full capabilities and look forward to getting the bigger panels on the roof!  🙂

 

 

 

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Upgrading the living room TV stand with a lift mechanism

Ever since designing the TV stand for the RV, I wanted to put a lift mechanism on it.   This week I have finally found the right parts and am assembling it.    The problem with buying one was they are too deep for the area I have.  I mounted it behind the couch and needed something 5″ or less in depth so the couch wouldn’t need to move so far away from the wall and window that it impeded walking past it when the slides were in for travel.

I didn’t want to be able to see the TV when it’s in travel mode, and I also wanted it as low as possible for any driving events, like stopping quickly or large bumps.   I made the stand using cherry wood and three sets of Accuride slides.  I would manually pull it up from behind the couch and insert a couple of wooden poles to keep it up at viewing level.

I tried a linear actuator but couldn’t find one the right length and finally settled on a gas lift strut.   Those were a bit too short for the full height it needed to be, but after searching the web for many weeks, I found a place that had some that had over 22″ of travel and came in 20, 40, 60 and 80 lbs. of force.   I first tried the 60 lbs. one and I could barely compress it.  Realizing that would be way too much force, I traded the two 60 pounders for a 20 and 40 lbs. unit of the same length.   The 40 is still too strong, and the 20 is a bit weak.  If only they made a 30 lbs. unit…

I had to beef up the unit and make a special holder for the top of the gas strut so I could still lift the TV the few inches higher it needs to be once the struts are fully extended.  I bought some 1″ inside diameter steel pipe about 6″ long and modified the top with a couple hacksaw cuts and ball peen hammer to bend over the top end like a cap that will stop the strut from going any further and allowing it to lift the TV!

I also created a mechanism to keep the TV in the down position as the gas struts are a constant push up.   I used parts from a fence gate latch, builders simpson straps and threaded rod with some eye hooks.

 

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FCOC Rally

Sorry for this late post, and its out-of-order status..

This year we are trying a few different RV club rallys,  Freightliner, FMCA and Escapee’s.   This event was put on by the Freightliner Custom Chassis Club.  There were lots of seminars on chassis information but fewer vendors than I expected.   We were all parked together in a large hard-packed gravel lot with full hookups at the Pima County Fairgrounds.   The weather was nice, not too warm and even a couple of cooler days mixed in.  There was even a horse show going on over the weekend we were there.  I especially liked the jumping ring,  Dusty liked all of it.  He got to growl and bark at the horses, especially when they were coming directly at him.

Each night there was a dinner and each morning a breakfast provided by the rally.   There were 50/50 raffles, where half went to the local Ronald McDonald House.   Hopefully Kathy remembers to write up those donations for a tax break next year.

There were vendors hawking all sorts of goods for our RVs and a group touring company that explained their RV tours to Alaska.   We have our sights set on Alaska for next summer (2019) and we  just found out a lot about travel up there from the tour folks.  Even heard about a mod to keep rocks from making holes in the radiator.

But the real reason I decided to go to Tucson was to take a two-day Camp Freightliner class that goes into detail on how to maintain my chassis.  It was held the week prior to the rally.   It wasn’t as detailed as I wanted/expected, but I learned a lot.

We met a lot of new friends while there from around the US.   Hopefully we will get to see them again on our travels.  It’s a really big country, so that may be more difficult than we know.

While we were there, we had our coach weighed on the 4 corners.  To my surprise, we were heavy on the right rear by about 1,000 lbs. compared to the left rear.  I spent the next evening moving about 500 lbs. from the right rear to the left rear and offloaded all the extra clean water I loaded for the weighing.  (they suggested having a full tank of water)  Now we should be very close to even on the rear.

I did purchase a battery watering system that is very nice.  What sets it apart from the others I have seen is little white floats built into each cap.   Now I only have to open the battery door and I can see the water level for each cell in a few seconds, and the best part, without crawling on the ground and opening each cap and peering around with a flashlight.

All in all it was a very good trip!

 

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Where’s Cousin Eddy?

Tony,  you helped me get in the gate at the Paradise Point RV park  in DeTour Village last summer during a torrential rainstorm..   I finally watched the Movie..

Send me an email… bill at cowlesmountain dot com

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Camping at San Elijo State Beach

We are back from a wonderful week at the beach here in San Diego.  (Actually Cardiff by the Sea)  Just south of Encinitas.    We were dry camping, which means there are no hookups for power, water or sewer.   Since this would be our second adventure without hookups, we were ready and I knew what to expect.

We arrived around 3pm on Sunday (15th) and chose the wrong side of the kiosk to go thru towing the car.  Next time we will stay left of the kiosk, not attempt the right side.    I had called earlier in the week to find out if we should tow the car in or let Kathy drive it in.   Turns out if we didn’t tow it, there is an extra $15 a day for the car.   We towed it in.

Once inside the campground, there was a bit of a traffic jam just before our site.   A guy with a trailer was heading the wrong way on the little campground roadway,  I hadn’t been able tell what he was doing.   It appeared to me he was leaving in the wrong direction.  So we were going to need to back up,  which requires detaching the car.   By the time I got the car free of the coach, the guy had got his trailer backed into his site.  Who knew..

I was now ready to pull the RV into the site so the front was facing the beach at maybe a 45 degree angle, giving a nice view out the windshield and also out the passenger side windows and door.   Also a beautiful sea breeze in the windows!

 

The site was up on a tall bluff as we were at the north end of the campground.   We deployed the slides, put down the outdoor carpet we purchased in Quartzite with the sweet hold-down method I learned while at a rally in Tucson last month.   The new carpet gives us a 9′ by 24′ space to put out the lounge chairs, and they are so incredibly light, packing them away later is a breeze!

After we got everything inside and outside situated and ready to relax, I did a quick walk around the coach and realized the small 14″x 14″ panel that covers the water heater was missing.  Ouch!  I immediately realized that while at home last week, I had removed the anode rod to get a replacement and clean out the hot water tank.  Turns out the rod was still about 98% good, so after cleaning it, I put it back in.   Unfortunately it appears I did not turn the panel’s little keeper thingamajig enough to secure it fully and the panel popped off in transit from home to San Elijo Beach.   So instead of relaxing with a cool one, I had to get in the car and retraced my drive to see if I could spot it.

Drove the 27 miles back home and then 27 miles back to the campground without seeing it.   Once I got back, I asked Kathy to drive it again with me in the passenger seat this time.  We got all the way back home and started heading back. As we approached the freeway on-ramp, I thought I spotted something on the side of the road in the bushes.   Since we were going a bit fast and already on the freeway on-ramp, we had to drive to the next exit and circle back.   On the second much slower drive toward the ramp, Kathy saw the panel to her left!   I jumped out and grabbed the flattened panel.  Sigh!  But at least I found it so I could match the paint pattern on a new panel.

 

Once back to the campground after driving the 27 miles 4 times (108 miles) in the car, I was happy to have found the panel and celebrated with a few cold ones that evening.

That evening I did some research to find a tool to bend the flattened edges back so the panel would fit back into the side of the coach.   Turns out what I needed was a Hand Seamer and found a couple listed in stock at the closest Home Depot.

Monday   I drove there the next morning and couldn’t find it anywhere in the store.  I asked three workers and they all pointed me in different directions, one explaining that he gets asked for them all the time and he says they don’t stock them.  UGH.   Anyway,  I go find a fourth employee and show her the picture on my phone, and she doesn’t hesitate to look it up on her phone.  Boom, she walks me over to a $60 one.  I then ask if she has the $26 dollar one.  She looks that up and leads me to a different part of the store where that model is hanging.  (Why hand seamers would be in two different places is strange merchandising to me).

 

I get back to the beach, the glorious beach, and proceed to test out my new tool.  It works and within an hour the panel is back in its place,  a little worse for wear but covering the big white hole that had been there.  [Thank goodness because there is a blazing flame in that compartment when the water heater is on!]   From more than a few feet away, you cannot see all the dings and dents from being run over many times.  Most of the paint is still there, mainly only came off on the edges that I needed to bend back to 90 degrees.

Kathy is saying I don’t need to replace it.  That’s not going to happen.   Those panels are only $50, so the paint will be the difficult part.  I called Tiffin to get the paint colors and they gave me all 4 Napa paint codes.   It appears Napa also will mix it and put it into a spray can.   I will be trying to buy that next week.

Luckily a buddy I had invited to come down for pizza and beer Sunday afternoon didn’t see that text until late in the afternoon.   We weren’t there much due to driving around looking for the lost panel.    And we didn’t get pizza that night either.  But we did Monday night.   Ordered pies from Pizza Port in Solana Beach and picked them up.   All in all a good day.   And to make it better, the sunset was spectacular!  Perfect ending to the day.

It turns out that SESB only allows running generators between 10am and 8pm.   On Sunday afternoon I hadn’t realized that as I only read the part about 6am to 10pm as quiet time.   So Sunday night I only remembered to turn on the genny at about 7:30pm and had to turn it off a half hour later, meaning we weren’t even close to fully charged for the night, and pretty far from it.   So Monday morning we had a fairly low state of charge (SOC)  to run the coffee maker, toaster, heater and microwave.  Kathy tried to cook bacon in the micro and the inverter faulted and wouldn’t go back on.

 

Turns out I had modified the cutoff voltage from the default and moved it up too high.   As we were at a fairly low SOC, the batteries went below the setting I set, causing the fault.  After a bit, I figured out how to do a hard reset of the inverter and it powered back up.  I called the manufacturer to see if my setup parameters were the issue,  they were.  They suggested I put the cutoff voltage back to the default of 10 volts, explaining that the batteries can easily drop to that during a high current draw (like the micro)  then rebound back to 11 or 12 volts a second or two after the load stops.    I turned it back,  now knowing why it should be set that low.  Everything I had ever read about lead acid batteries was 10 volts was a dead battery.   But there is a difference if its under load,  What they are talking about is a battery in a static state.   Live and learn.

Monday night around 7pm I realized I needed to set an alarm to remind me to start the generator earlier, as they weren’t going to get fully charged again on Monday, but at least they would be around 95% charged instead of 80% SOC like the night before.   I figured I need to start it around 6pm to get a full charge prior to the 8pm cutoff time.

Tuesday we finally got to tour the campground.  I hadn’t realized it was so large, over 160 sites.   We were almost to the north end and didn’t know the south end was at least twice the size.  The furthest sites south are at beach level.  And we found beachfront sites down there, some with full hookups.   We talked to one of the camp hosts as I wanted to understand the length policy and FHU info.  He stated it was a recommendation.  You could bring in any length vehicle, but if it didn’t fit in your site, you were “SOL”, basically out of luck and couldn’t stay.   Some of the sites could fit a 45′ coach and most could fit a 40′ one.

There is a nice little campground store just across from the entrance with quite a bit of stuff crammed in there.  I was surprised they sold beer and wine in there.  Kathy spied the ice cream, so I knew we’d be back soon.    That evening my alarm worked perfectly, alerting me to run the genny around 6pm so we could full charge on the house batteries.  They were almost to 98% when I had to shut it down.   So by Wednesday morning, we had the routine working well.   No issues running all the electric appliances in the morning.   Our only other dry camping trip was in the desert north of Quartzite, where there are no generator run time restrictions, so we could run it whenever we needed it, like when all the appliances were running while making breakfast.

At night we headed back into the coach as the temps dropped into the low 60’s as soon as the sun went down and the wind made it feel much cooler.   I had brought the new season of Bosch to watch, giving us a couple hours of watching after dinner each night in the warmth of the coach.  There were a few hearty souls at other campsites (probably) shivering around pretty large campfires.   Much larger than I would have expected the rangers to allow here.

 

On Thursday after lunch at The Taco Shop we decided to create a list of campsites we could fit into along the beachfront for making reservations for next year, taking into account a few very non-level sites not usable for our RV,  or next to the dumpsters, restrooms or dump station, etc.   I ranked them 1st, 2nd and 3rd choices so when we start trying to make reservations for next spring and summer, we can try to get the best sites.

While we were scoping out the sites, another camp host came over and started telling us which are the best sites and also about the FHU sites that are fair game for our rig too.  Dick was his name, and he is a camp host this summer for 4 months and lives in Palm Desert most of the winter.   He was telling us about his Alaska trip last summer and I am ready to start planning a four month trip starting June 2019 if anyone wants to caravan till sometime in September.    He mentioned it was their second trip to Alaska.   Prior to last summer they went there in 2007 with their previous coach.  It sounded great,  except the part about the big rock getting thrown up from a truck going the other direction in a small town that went right thru his windshield, a couple feet above his head.  Seems like I might want to erect one of those Blues Brother fences… Rawhide!

We were leaving Friday, so we performed out last day ritual,  thoroughly cleaning the coach.  I really love the new Dirt Devil central vac I installed last summer.  That thing could suck the hair off my head if it got too close.

One of my new favorite things is to put out and pull up the outside carpets.   The lag screw and washer holding down for the carpet has made that job almost enjoyable with my little 12v impact driver.   San Elijo dirt is almost as hard as that Tucson gravel we camped at a few weeks back, but the new hold-downs made short work of it.

 

Once we were ready to leave, Kathy drove the car home and I headed over to the dump station.  It was easy in and easy out.   I was impressed how clean the bathrooms and dump station were.   Although, I didn’t camp over the weekend, so your mileage may vary.