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!
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.
I make my last on-the-grid stop count.
I spent my second night on the road at the Sam’s Town KOA Kampground in Las Vegas. This has become a bit of a tradition for me. Since this is usually the last night I have an opportunity to plug in, get water, and dump my tanks before spending two more more weeks camped out in the desert with friends, I always opt for a full hookup campsite. This particular campground is convenient and usually — but not on this trip — cheap. This time, they hit me up for a very long drive-thru campsite that was a lot bigger than I needed, claiming shorter sites weren’t available. That turned out to be bullshit so I’ll probably look for a different destination on future trips south. $60 is a bit rich for an overnight stop.
I should say up front that I hate KOA-style “camping.” It’s not camping at all. It’s parking with a connection to water, electricity, cable television, and a sewer hookup. The sites are so close together I don’t know why they even bother with the narrow island of dirt and trees between sites that face each other. People who claim to be “camping” at a KOA are deluding themselves.
Here’s my rig parked between two others at the KOA. My space was over 70 feet long; all I needed was about 40.
But my site was about what I expected and it met my needs. I arrived long before sunset and got a chance to glimpse the sky’s changing colors through the field of RVs around me.
As you can see in this photo, the weather cleared that afternoon and evening in Las Vegas. It was nice to see blue sky for the first time since my departure from home.
After taking Penny for a walk — her first since departing Glenns Ferry that morning — I hooked up power, sewer, and water and went in for the night. My nose had begun running earlier in the day and it was becoming apparent that I’d caught a cold. Although I did toy with the idea of going into Sam’s to look at their Holiday light show and maybe get some dinner, I recalled how sick I’d gotten after the last meal I had in their steakhouse. I decided to stay in for the night and was dead asleep before 8 AM.
In the morning, I felt rested but no better. I made and ate breakfast, walked Penny, took a hot shower in the otherwise empty shower building, put on clean clothes, and took my time about packing up. By 8:30 AM, with waste tanks empty and fresh water tank filled, I was ready to hit the road again for the last day of my drive.
Can’t enjoy the scenery when you can’t see it.
Although it was an outstandingly beautiful morning in Twin Falls, ID, 15 minutes south on US 93 put me in thick fog. Visibility, at times, dropped to far less than 1/4 mile as the road rose and then fell through the fog layers.
There wasn’t much to see because of the thick fog and I had to keep focused on what was in front of me anyway. Photo includes a meat and cheese snack on the dashboard, which I bought in Starbucks to eat along the way.
Miraculously, I was able to stick to the speed limit — 70 mph — for most of my drive. The road is painfully straight in most places and there was very little other traffic.
The fog came and went pretty much all day long, finally lifting as I descended on the final stretch of US 93 before it intersects with I-15. By that time, I’d driven through rain and snow and had been stuck behind a semi with broken brake lights (and apparently broken cruise control) for about 100 miles. I was a very happy camper when I finally got around him.