Another gorgeous sunset as seen from our campsite.
I’m going to try very hard not to share photos of every single beautiful sunset we’re seeing from our Colorado River campsite, but this one was too good not to share. With just enough clouds and smooth water to reflect them, Thursday’s sunset was the best I’d watched in a very long time.
What a light show!
A closer look at a nearby cotton field.
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus Gossypium in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. Under natural conditions, the cotton bolls will increase the dispersal of the seeds.
We’re camped in BLM land a few miles south of I-10 in western Arizona. On our way to or from the campsite, we pass a cotton field (and an alfalfa field) that’s ready for harvest when we arrive. This year, for the first time ever, I stopped alongside it for a closer look before harvest.
It looks to me as if they either cut the water supply or apply a herbicide (as they do to potatoes) after the cotton bolls have formed. As you can see in the first photo, the plants are pretty much dead, although there was some green at the bases of some plants.
A close view of a cotton field.
I stepped into the field and grabbed a cotton boll for a closer look and to share online. I remember seeing cotton bolls like this packaged as souvenirs in tourist shops in the southeast. The cotton felt soft, like a cotton ball. (I don’t know why I found that surprising, but I did.) I knew that deep inside the boll were seeds that had to be removed to use the cotton, but I didn’t tear it apart to find them. I liked its natural look.
A closer look at a cotton boll. I found a tiny yellow spider in the middle of the boll.
I’ll try to get photos of the harvest, but it all depends on if I happen to be driving by when they’re working. I know this field is completely cleared by Christmas every year.
You can learn more about cotton production in the United States, which has a history closely tied with slavery, on Wikipedia.
Adding more solar power to my camping setup.
A lot of people ask me why I don’t have solar panels on my enormous roof — it’s about 3000 square feet — at home. After all, central Washington state is dry and desert-like, with sunshine at least 300 days a year.
What a lot of people don’t know, however, is that Chelan County, where I live, is completely dialed in with renewable energy from wind and hydroelectric power. We have extremely cheap power — 3.22¢/kWh, which is 72.9% less than the national average rate of 11.88¢/kWh (per ElectricityLocal.com) — and my monthly electric bills seldom rise above $50 in any month, no matter how much heating or cooling I use in my all-electric home. It would take decades for me to recoup the cost of any solar setup at home. And, because the power I get is mostly from renewable sources, it’s pretty much guilt free.
I have always been a huge proponent of solar power for off-the-grid camping (and life in general). To that end, I’ve invested in solar panels for most of the RV’s I’ve owned, including my current truck camper, “T2.”
When I had my previous truck camper, “the Turtleback”, I thought a portable panel was the way to go. Zamp made foldable panels with a tightly fitting semi-hard case for safe transit and, back in 2016 (I think), I bought a 160 watt setup and had a simple plug socket installed on the outside of the Turtleback’s battery compartment for easy hookup. It worked like a charm.
What I wasn’t thinking about was the fact that the panels were large and heavy and had to be stowed someplace in transit. After I downsized from the Turtleback to T2 (which I also had that handy plug socket installed on), I decided to install 200 watts of solar on T2’s roof. No more dragging around those big panels.
Of course, I didn’t sell them. I keep everything. 🙄
I should make it clear here that my solar setup has always been solely to keep my camper’s batteries fully charged when I’m not hooked up to a power source. I do a lot of off-the-grid “dry camping” and if I don’t charge the batteries I will eventually run out of power. (Duh.) I don’t have an inverter to provide alternating current (AC) power for device like my camper’s microwave or even my laptop charger. Everything runs off direct current (DC) power or propane.
I should also mention that I’m not a complete idiot and I also travel with a 2KW generator that does provide AC power. Unlike a lot of other off-the-grid campers, however, I don’t like to run it because I don’t like to listen to it. It’s a Honda and it’s quiet, but it’s a lot more quiet when it’s turned off. I wish other RVers would turn off their f*cking televisions (and generators) and enjoy the outdoors. If they want to spend their time watching television, they could stay home or park in a KOA.
Don’t get me started.
Time went on. My needs changed. This year, I’m traveling with a cargo trailer — “Lily Rose” (long story) — that I’ve got set up as a mobile jewelry shop. The trailer has a lockable toolbox on the front near the hitch and I thought that would be perfect for installing a few batteries, keeping them charged with the Zamp panels, and connecting them to an inverter I could use to get AC power into the trailer or for use with T2. So when I packed Lily Rose for my trip south, I packed the Zamp panels. I figured I’d get price quotes at the two Quartzsite solar dealers when I got there.
I wound up visiting just one of the two dealers. His price quote was enough to convince me that my setup was wishful thinking. Sure, they could build me a system with 4 6-volt lithium batteries, a 2kw pure sine wave inverter, and the receptacle for my existing Zamp solar panels. All it would cost would be about $4,500.
Ouch! That’s more than I spent to buy Lily Rose! My budget was about 1/4 of that so it just wasn’t going to happen. No sense in getting another quote; it probably wouldn’t be much less — if it was less.
So there I was in Arizona with an extra solar panel setup. What was I to do?
Use it, of course. I’m at my campsite for more than two weeks. I found a mostly sunny spot and hooked up the Zamp to T2. Despite the short winter days and increased shade in our tight campsite, I’m keeping my batteries fully charged every day.
My Zamp solar panels. They fold in half; the solar controller is built into a panel that hangs behind it. The legs to angle it toward the sun are attached. It’s a nice setup. Also in the photo: my electric assist bike and a 2 gallon fuel container for my generator. Our site is surrounded by 15+ foot tall bamboo which limits the amount of direct sunlight we get; you can see the shadows, too.
No sense in not taking advantage of every resource I have to collect power.
A late afternoon photo from this year’s campsite.
I managed to get an excellent campsite right along the Colorado River backwaters for this year’s December vacation with a friend. I must have arrived within a short while of the previous occupants’ departure — the tire tracks leading out were still fresh when I arrived. This is the site I’d been hoping to get; I can launch my kayak right from the site.
This is what Sunday’s sunset looked like from our campsite. The body of water is one of the longer backwater channels along the Colorado River; the water level rises and falls with water releases from the Parker Dam 50+ miles upriver.
Not quite what I was hoping for, but I can’t complain.
I did my first show of the season this weekend. It was a Friday through Saturday show in Wickenburg, AZ and I signed up for a few reasons:
The event was the first “Cowboy Christmas” fair at Flying E Ranch, one of the few surviving “dude ranches” in Wickenburg. It was thrown together by a crew that had little show experience but tried very hard to bring it all together. In general, I think they did a good job, especially as a first effort. They managed to bring together at least 50 vendors so there was an actual reason for people to come.
I know Janet and our other friends (Steve and Karen) who showed their work were disappointed in the collection of vendors, though. They produce fine art paintings that sell for hundreds or even thousands of dollars and they were side by side with some booths that looked like they’d be better suited at a swap meet. My work isn’t quite as “fine arty” as theirs and there were enough vendors at my level or above to satisfy me.
Here’s my booth for the show. I had to put down my camper patio mat to provide a decent floor; the surface was well worn desert earth with just enough decomposed horse manure to give it character. What do you think of my new banner in back?
The bigger problem was the attendees. Friday was an absolute bust for me — I didn’t sell a single thing. Janet sold a few note cards. I think Steve and Karen might have sold a painting. (Their work is definitely western with lots of realistically painted horses.) There was some horsey event going on after we all closed; I didn’t know much about it and didn’t really care given that I was dealing with a cold and just wanted to rest.
Saturday was a little better. There was the annual Las Damas ride that day so there were plenty of women around — perfect audience for my work, you’d think. But although folks were looking, they weren’t really buying. I sold a silver ring early in the day and then nothing for a while. What saved me was a woman who came by wanting a pendant that matched a ring she wore. We found a stone in my collection that she liked and I made her a pendant while she walked around. Because they stone she picked was costly — $35! — the sale came to $74, bringing my daily (and show) total to a whopping $100.
As amazing as this might sound, I actually did better than Janet. I suspect that’s the only time that’ll ever happen.
Steve and Karen would up delivering a painting to some customers who had put a deposit down at an earlier show in Arizona. They were happy; they’d made some money and had two fewer paintings to pack up at the end of the show.
Of course, the show was free and they did feed us lunch every day. (I won’t go into detail on that.) And we were able to camp at the ranch walking distance from our booths for free. So I’d consider this first show a win — although a tiny one — with some revenue, free food, free camping, and no costs.
Would I do it again? It really depends on whether I have something better to do. The folks who set this up need to work on marketing if they want to do this again. A show with vendors is great, but not if you can’t get shoppers. Even though I had no costs to do this show, it’s a lot of effort to set up a booth and sit in it all day; I like to bring in an average of $250 or more per day (over show costs) on a show. And I really do think they need to be a bit pickier about what they allow to be sold. I can think of at least five booths that had no place being at a “Cowboy Christmas” event — folks setting up what looked like a garage sale. They really brought the overall quality of the show down to a level even I don’t want to be associated with.
My next show is in Phoenix and should be an entirely different kind of event. I’ll report back on that when it’s over.