Tag Archives: winter

Status Report: My First Winter at Home in 10+ Years

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I summarize how it started and how it’s going for my first winter at home in more than 10 years.

It’s December 18, 2024 and I’m typing this at home while sitting at my desk at a desktop computer. Outside is approximately 8 inches of snow that has fallen in the past three days. My driveway is plowed, my vehicles are tucked into the garage. My house is warm. The sun is out, trying to break through the low clouds between my perch about 800 feet above the Columbia River and city of Wenatchee. It is a gorgeous day and is likely to become even nicer as the sun continues to rise — although for me, it’ll never clear the 500+ foot ridge just south of my home.

I’m chomping at the bit, ready to turn my 2-3 week planned trip to Arizona into a 5 week camping adventure. After all, I do still have my truck camper. I may as well use it.

On Being Home

Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely love my home. I love its simple comfort, privacy, quiet, spacious garage, and, above all, its views. (I’ve always been fond of a good view and I don’t think I’ll get a better one anywhere else.) I have everything here that I want and need — or almost (more in a moment) — and after spending 17 of the past 24 months traveling, it’s great to be settled in somewhere.

At least I think it is. I’m so used to being on my boat that it actually feels weird to have luxuries like a washer/dryer, dishwasher, enormous (well, okay, just normal sized) refrigerator, and soaking tub where I can immerse 90% of my body in hot water for as long as I like.

One of the things I admit that I am struggling with is the sameness of every day. My pups and I have revised our routine for our surroundings and that’s fine, but what’s weird is that we wake up in the same place every day. When I’m traveling, every day doesn’t just have the potential to be different. It is different. Here, I have to work on adding variety to my days. And I’ll admit that sometimes I just don’t bother.

The Plan: A Winter at Home

The original plan was to spend the whole winter at home. Period.

I have lots to do. Not only did I have to clean the boat and prep it for a season as a charter boat in the San Juan Islands, but I had a lot of catching up to do on my Great Loop blog and the video channel I’m trying to build. I could spend eight hours every day working on these things and still not catch up by the end of February.

Not only that, but I’m exploring more creative options. In addition to getting back into my jewelry shop to build inventory for the upcoming season, I’ve begun dabbling in paper arts, including bookbinding and the production of decorative papers. I find these things challenging while being a good creative outlet.

So that was the plan: work on the things I need and want to get done.

But the Gray! And the Snow!

Right around the time we changed the clocks, I remembered why I go usually south every winter. It gets dark early here. When it gets dark, my brain tells my body that it’s time for bed. It’s increasingly difficult to stay up until at least 9 PM.

And then there’s the gray. The Wenatchee Valley has inversions in the winter time that fill the valley with clouds. Sometimes I’m above the clouds, sometimes I’m below the clouds, and sometimes I’m in the clouds. So I look out the windows and I see a lot of gray. I’d estimate 4-5 days out of every 7.

This is very difficult for someone who lived in Arizona for 15 years where the sun shines so often that you wish for a gray day.

Of course, on other days here you get a day like today, when the sun is shining, the sky is blue, and the world looks like a winter wonderland. On days like this, I feel like sitting in a window seat with a book and a cup of hot cocoa, glancing up at the amazing, ever-changing vista every time I turn a page.

Gorgeous Day
How’s this for a gorgeous day and amazing view? Come join me for a cup of hot cocoa looking out the windows.

Dave Shovels
With 8 inches of snow in about 48 hours, “shoveling” requires some heavy equipment. Here, my neighbor Dave is digging a pathway for my Jeep to get in and out of the garage.

And the snow is definitely a thing.

I like snow. I think it’s pretty. But the problem is that it makes it difficult to do anything or go anywhere outside. The problem is only made worse by the fact that the snow slides off my roof to block my garage doors, thus trapping my vehicles inside until I — or someone else — breaks them free.

A Year Ago Today
There’s a nice private beach a short drive from where my dad lived.

Last year on this date, I was walking on a beach near my dad’s house in Florida, feeling the sand between my toes while my pups chased each other near the surf. Only a few days later, I’d be heading south a in my boat to New Year’s Eve with a friend at Key West. The year before, I was heading east on the Gulf ICW to spend Christmas week at Orange Beach, Alabama. The year before that, I was camped out in the desert in Arizona, hiking, exploring, and enjoying star-filled skies every night. Ditto for most of the years before that.

Lately, I’m constantly trying to remind myself why I’m here this year.

The New Plan

The new plan is to load up my truck camper and head south sometime around Christmas Day. I’m going to visit a bunch of friends in Wickenburg, Quartzsite, Phoenix, Tucson, and Sierra Vista. I’ll hit the big Pow Wow rock show to replenish my supply of certain stones I use in jewelry making. And I’m going to start my search for a new winter home in the Tucson area. — more on that in another post.

My usual winter house-sitter, John, is thrilled. He loves it here in the winter. He thought he’d be stuck spending more time with family, but is already packing his truck in preparation for coming back here. I’m sure my barn cat, Rover, will be thrilled, too. I know John spoils the hell out of him when I’m gone. (Maybe this time he’ll take Rover with him when he leaves.)

But John won’t have too much time here. My goal is to be back by the end of January. I want to go to the Seattle Boat Show at month-end and I need to get my boat to the other side of the mountains for some maintenance work before it’s launched in March. There’s a lot to do.

There’s always a lot to do. And I like it that way.

End of May Already?

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Time flies when you’re busy, whether you’re having fun or not.

My last two posts were more than a month ago, in April. I haven’t written a single word — in any of my blogs — since then. I’ve just been too damn busy.

Or tired. Or unmotivated.

The Trip Home

I’m home now from my winter travels. Unlike previous years when I took my RV — most recently, a Lance truck camper — down into Arizona and California for December through March — this year I was on my boat traveling along the Great Loop. I’ve done a total of just over 3000 miles in the boat since I launched it in Chicago in October 2022. Most of that has been solo — just me and my pups. Turns out that my guest accommodations are not satisfactory for friends who have joined me. (Who knew?) Also, I don’t think they got the trip they were expecting. So solo is probably better, at least for now, until I can find a companion who has the right expectations and doesn’t mind sleeping in a cozy cubbyhole.

I’ve been trying to detail my trip in my Great Loop blog, My Great Loop Adventure. Unfortunately, I got behind in my posts and then I got really behind in my posts. As I type this, my most recent post covers my stay in Clearwater Beach, FL in January. It’s now the end of May. I have to hope I can reconstruct the following three months from my notes, travel logs, and photos. That’s one of my main tasks for June. You can help motivate me by reading and commenting on the posts there. That blog will eventually become a book — if I can ever catch up and finish it.

I had the boat hauled out of the water in late April and put “on the hard” at a marina in Chester, MD. The boat’s bottom looked great — no damage at all and very clean after a quick power-washing. It won’t need painting before I launch it again, so that’ll save some money. On the other hand, it appears that a shallow water incident on my first Loop day did indeed do some minor damage to the prop. (That is the only shallow water incident I had where the prop was involved, so it must have been that.) Obviously not enough to affect operation — after all, I did drive it 3000 nautical miles after that — but enough to have the prop pulled and the two tiny blade bends fixed. That might reduce the vibration I feel at certain speeds and, according to the yard owner, it might even help me get an extra knot of speed. I was also very pleased to see that I didn’t have any crap trap line wrapped around my prop; I know I cut one line with the prop on Florida’s west coast but never had any symptoms of a problem.

After cleaning the inside of the boat and packing up, my pups and I headed for Dulles Airport early in the morning of April 27. At 2:30 local time, we were back in Wenatchee, where my friend Bob picked me up and took me home. My house-sitters had vacated just a few days before, leaving the place neat and clean, with clean sheets on the bed. (Thank you John and Allie!) I’m not sure if the cats were glad to see me, but I know the chickens weren’t. I’d been gone so long, they surely had no memory of me.

Good to Be Home?

For the next few weeks, I felt conflicted about being home.

First of all, it was nice to sleep in my big, comfy bed that, amazingly, didn’t rock at all at night, no matter how windy it was outside. It was nice to be able to use a toilet without worrying about how many times I’d flushed, what color the tank light was, and where/when I’d have to dump waste. It was also nice to take a shower with as much hot water and space as I needed without having to walk to a separate building on shore. And I really do appreciate my dishwasher, washer, dryer, and giant refrigerator.

I was home with all the comforts of home. My boat is comfortable, but its space is limited and, like living in an RV, there are special concerns that you just don’t have at home.


Here’s the view from my deck one day not long after my return. How can a person not love looking at this every day?


I changed the Lock Screen on my phone to a shot taken by my Looper friend Kim on her boat Pony as we headed down the Chicago River in October 2022. Now I’m reminded every day where I want to be.

But I did miss being on the boat. Traveling from place to place, meeting new people every day, seeing new things every day. Facing and overcoming challenges. Enjoying the simple joy of a sunrise from up on the command bridge, with a gentle breeze in my hair and waking birds flying about. Motoring to a new destination with very little idea of what I’d find along the way or when I arrived. I’m a traveler — like my grandfather was — I’m happiest when I’m on the road — or water — exploring new places or revisiting favorite old ones.

So the first few weeks home were a bit of a mental challenge, with an internal argument telling me I should be happy to enjoy the comforts of home while also telling me that home was boring and predictable and I needed to get back out on the boat as soon as I could.

The Art Shows

Of course, I had to hit the ground running when I got home. (Or I thought I did.) I had four weekends in a row with art shows and I seriously doubted I’d have enough inventory to do them.

It started a week after my return, with my second appearance at Wenatchee’s annual Apple Blossom Festival. There’s an Arts and Crafts show the second weekend of that event with strict setup rules. That had me setting up my booth on the Thursday before the event. That day, I also (finally) got a haircut and made myself presentable to the world. I spent the next three days in my booth, suffering through the dust or pollen or whatever that stuff was that got on everything. The event was extremely disappointing; I suspect my work was too high-end for the audience. I tried not to be insulted when two different people — guys, of course — came into the booth to ask if I had anything around $10. I don’t.

What followed that were three consecutive weekends at Leavenworth Village Art in the Park. This is a juried show that I’ve been part of for the past three years. It’s held every weekend from May into October and artists are able to choose the weekends they want. Management then picks the artists and tells them which dates they can have. I picked five weekends in May, August, and September, and got four. I always want Mother’s Day weekend — I’m selling jewelry, right? — but this year I didn’t get it. Until about two weeks before I got home. Another jeweler had backed out on that weekend and I was asked if I wanted to take her place. Hell yes. So that’s how I wound up with three weekends in May.


Here’s the current incarnation of my art show booth, set up for Mother’s Day weekend in Leavenworth, WA.

(I should mention here that I don’t do weekends during the summer because that’s cherry season and I’m on standby. I can’t answer calls promptly if I’m sitting in a tent a hour’s drive away. More on that in a moment.)

So I set up for Mother’s Day weekend — three days. Unfortunately since I thought I wasn’t going to do Mother’s Day weekend, I booked a class in Ellensburg — two hours from home — to teach silversmithing on Saturday. I thought that class might get cancelled; it was a relatively expensive four-hour class. But it wasn’t so I had to get a friend to sit in my booth on Saturday while I went to Ellensburg to do that.

Mother’s Day weekend sales were very disappointing.

So was the next weekend. That made three weekends in the row with disappointing sales.

I was beginning to think that it was either the economy or the venue that was bringing my sales numbers down. People are definitely not spending like they were back in 2021. And, at the same time, some of my work was becoming more refined and, yes, more expensive. Was I making a product that wasn’t a good match for the “tourist shows” I was showing at? My friend Janet, who has been doing art shows for about 40 years now, thinks so. I think I’m on a sort of knife’s edge where I could go either way. I can make the lower-end items people seem to be ready to buy but I want to make the higher end items that are more creative and challenging and help develop my skills as a silversmith.

The good part of all this is that although I thought I’d have to spend the month making jewelry to keep my inventory up for shows, I didn’t. I made a handful of new items and then, after that third bad show, took the week off to tend to other things.

I went into the four-day Memorial Day weekend with very low expectations.


This was the first of two “next level” pieces I made during the month of May. Hubei Turquoise in sterling silver.

And I kicked butt. Seriously: I had my second best ever show. (The best was Mother’s Day weekend in Leavenworth back in 2021.) Although I’d told myself I’d stop making the wire-framed pendants that had gotten me started back in 2018, I had to make them while I was at my booth just to keep my displays filled. And beaded earrings and bracelets and necklaces. And I sold them. But best of all, I also sold one of the high-end pieces I’d made earlier in the month — a piece I considered “next level” for me. While I was sad to see it go — sometimes I get a real attachment for my work — I was also thrilled that someone was willing to pay that much money for something I’d made.

So now I’m done with shows for a while, coming down off a high from this past weekend. My next show is at Lake Chelan — yes, another tourist show — but I suspect I’ll do well if the weather is good and folks come out. I have three weeks to stock up and I have some ideas for the kind of next level pieces I want to make.

The Diet

Well, it took about 10 years, but I managed to gain back all of the weight I lost back in 2012, the year I also shed a husband and gained full control of my life. If you’re a regular reader, you may recall that I’d gone on a Medifast diet along with a friend and we both lost about 45 pounds in four months. (I basically followed him down the scale; he was a week ahead of me and we’d started at the same weight. He’s shorter than I am.) I kept most of the weight off for a few years, but little by little my overeating habit returned and the weight came back. For the most part, I eat very well — very little junk food and hardly any fast food — but I tend to like what I eat and eat more than I should. That’s what got me back to where I started in early 2012.

I’d tried cutting back on my eating but was unsuccessful. I needed a program that was easy to stick to, one I knew would work. So I went back on the new version of Medifast, which is called Optavia. Mostly the same food — although definitely sweeter sweets and saltier savories (what’s up with that?) — and the same plan. I started on May 1 and 30 days later, I’m weighing in at about 16 pounds less than I started. I’ll stick with it throughout the summer and have no doubt that I’ll reach my goal weight (again) before I go back to the boat in September.

And this time I’ll keep it off. It’s mostly for my health, but I can’t deny the emotional kick I feel when I look in the mirror and see someone who looks as good as I should.

Cherry Drying

I start my last season drying cherries on June 10. This is a mellower than usual season with less acreage and fewer pilots. It’s also not clear how much flying I’ll do — if you recall, I sold the helicopter to buy my boat last year. Last year, I leased a helicopter for the season, but that ended with problems I didn’t want to blog about — and won’t unless they rear their ugly head again. (Contrary to popular opinion, I don’t blog about everything in my life.) This year, I might be flying one of the helicopters my pilots are bringing up from Texas. Or I might not. It depends on whether it rains. (If my pilots have everything under control and can dispatch themselves, I’ll tell the Leavenworth Village Art in the Park folks to put me on their wait list for other summer weekends.)

This will be my fifteenth season drying cherries. Since I started way back in 2008, I’ve built my business up to the point where, at its peak, I had six guys on my team every summer and was bringing in more revenue than I did during the heydays of my writing career. Things are slowing down now and that’s fine with me. The stress of worrying about a crew of mostly unknown pilots and literally hundreds of acres of client orchards has really taken a toll on me. This is the last season I’ll be involved and I’ve already let most of my clients know.

When I look back at my freelance career, I’ve come to realize that I’ve been working every single summer since 1998. If it wasn’t a Quicken book, it was cherry drying. I’m really looking forward to having a whole summer off for the first time in 25 years and I’ve already made plans for it.

As for the business, I’m hoping this season’s pilots will consider taking over my contracts and giving my current client base the good service they deserve.

Will I miss flying? I already do, a little. But honestly, I’m enjoying the boat so much that I think I can get over it.

Remember: you can’t move forward if you’re looking behind you. Being a helicopter owner/operator is in my rear view mirror and I’m not turning around.

Other Stuff to Keep Me Busy This Summer

My list of Things to Do gets bigger every day.

Gardening
I didn’t properly put my garden to bed last autumn so that meant more work this spring. I finally have most of my 12 beds planted. I still need to weed around them and get things neatened up.

Selling Stuff
My biggest problem at home? I have too much stuff. I’m in the process of selling off a bunch of it. I’ve already sold my helicopter landing platform and tow bar; one of my summer pilots might be buying other helicopter gear I still have. I also need to sell my truck camper and my little boat — yes, I still have that! Future items for sale: my telescope, my cheesemaking gear, a bunch of circa 2000 Apple swag from Macworld Expo shows, my beekeeping equipment, and so much more. Craig’s List has been an absolute gem at moving this stuff out without costing me an arm and a leg.

Garage Bathroom
I still need to finish the bathroom in the garage. That’ll require some assistance on the plumbing from a builder neighbor who I hope to get in here soon. The goal is to have it done — or at least the toilet functioning — by the end of June.

Garage Reorganization
What a mess my garage is! I’m reorganizing it to move all my woodworking and tools out of my jewelry shop area and into the adjacent space. My workbench will become a miter saw bench. Then I’ll expand the jewelry shop to include space for two students, as well as my futon and some other furniture to make it a more comfortable, useful space.

Spring Cleaning in the House
I’ve already done the cleaning part of this. Now I just need to offload a lot of clothes and other household items I simply don’t need in the house. Yes, I’m downsizing! There are a lot of reasons for this, but the main one is that less stuff means less clutter.

Blogging
I really do need to catch up on my Great Loop blog. And not neglect this blog so much.

Working the Jewelry Biz
I need to keep making new jewelry, selling it at shows, and bringing it to established consignment and wholesale accounts. Others are selling my jewelry for me and although they take a hefty fee — as much as 40% — it’s a lot more efficient to let them sell it than to go to shows, especially since I can’t do shows when I’m on the boat. I also want to start teaching small classes out of my shop, using days when I need to make a specific product to teach others to make the same thing. That’s something I need to set up soon since my time home is so limited.

Those are the main things that will keep me busy this summer. I guess I’d better get to it.

Clouds and Shadows Time-Lapse

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A time-lapse movie from a late autumn day.

I’m a huge fan of time-lapse movies. To me, there’s nothing that does a better job bringing what looks like a motionless scene to life.

So I make a lot of time-lapse movies. You can find a bunch here in the Time-Lapse playlist on my personal YouTube channel.

The one here was shot a few days ago on December 1. I used one of my GoPro Hero 8 cameras in time-lapse mode, set to take a shot every 10 seconds. When you do the math, this means each second of video is 5 minutes of real time. The video here covers from just before dawn to just after sunset.

What’s most interesting about this video — honestly, there wasn’t much cloud activity — is the way you can see the shadow of the cliffs south of my home move across the landscape. The sun rises beyond those cliffs and this time of year I don’t see it on my home at all. I blogged about this phenomena, which I call the Shadow Time; this is a chance to see it in action.

I hope you enjoy this quick video. I’m hoping to share a lot more videos over the coming months as I travel south in Arizona and California. If you haven’t subscribed to my personal YouTube channel, please do. Once I get 1,000 subscribers, I can do livestreams from my cellphone and I’d really like to do live presentations at some of the places I visit. I’m only 18 subscribers short of this goal!

Flying M Air Extra: About Maria’s Obsession with Fire Towers

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A video from the Flying M Air YouTube channel.

I flew from Wenatchee, WA to McMinnville, OR on March 15, 2021 and, along the way, made a tiny detour to check out a fire tower on a little mountain. In this video, I show you the fire tower and explain my weird obsession with fire towers on aeronautical charts.

Adding Power to My Utility Trailer

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I splurge on batteries and an inverter for my utility trailer/mobile jewelry shop.

For the past five winters, I’ve been traveling south in my truck with a slide in truck camper on the back. It started with “the Turtleback” in 2016/17. That was a very large and rather deluxe Lance model with all the bells and whistles, including an onboard generator and a slide-out to expand living space when parked. Then I downgraded to a smaller, newer rig, “T2,” which was roughly the same length, not quite as deluxe, and lacked both the slide and generator. What I gained in the swap was a 400-pound weight loss and a lot more inside storage space.

Why a Utility Trailer?

Over time, however, I started bringing more additional items south than I could fit inside the camper or truck. Normally, I’d have my portable Honda generator in the truck, along with my bicycle and wrangle my plastic kayak onto the roof of the camper. In 2017, I brought my little jet boat south with me and loaded it up with extras, including that kayak, for the trip south. It was nice to be able to store extra stuff in a trailer.

In 2018, on my way to my first camp, I stopped in Lake Havasu and bought an inflatable Hobie pedal/paddle kayak. Sure, the 11-foot boat deflated and fit into a bag with wheels, but that bag was both bulky and heavy. I shoved it into the entranceway of my camper for the rest of the drive to camp, but quickly realized that dealing with it in transit was going to be a royal pain in the ass.

My Rig
Here’s my truck, camper, and original utility trailer not long after I bought it. Note the dent in the upper corner.

So I got on Craig’s list and bought a 12-foot cargo trailer. It was a bit “rough,” as I blogged not long after acquiring it. I hooked that up to the back of my rig and stowed all the extras I’d crammed into my truck and camper. It had two axles, but I had trouble getting the tow ball height just right to distribute weight evenly on both of them. It was also a bit rickety and had me worried about long distance driving with it. But it made it back to Washington intact. I wasted no time selling it to a friend who was looking for a tool trailer that could be parked on job sites.

Truck and Trailer
Here’s my current rig. The newer trailer is in much better condition than the original one and includes a toolbox on the tow hitch.

I went hunting for a new one. Literally new. My search brought me down to Yakima, where I stopped in at the Lance dealer for a part I needed for my camper. I mentioned that I was going to look at some utility trailers at a dealer down the road. Mike, the co-owner, mentioned offhand that he and his partner brother had a utility trailer that they never used and would consider selling. I took a look. It was almost exactly what I wanted. I looked at the new ones, then called Mike back and started negotiating for his. About a month later, at the tail end of a trip to Tacoma, I picked it up.

I started customizing the interior almost immediately, adding E-track to the walls so I could secure various items to it. The goal was to turn it into a sort of mobile jewelry shop that could also haul the things I needed to do jewelry shows and camp. I loaded it up and secured everything, but wasn’t very happy about its setup as a shop — I had to take out too many things and set up a workstation on folding tables and then be sure to stow everything before moving. Boxes were big and piled up and difficult to access. The IKEA drawer units I’d put in had limited storage space for the weight they added to the rig. It was uncomfortable and inconvenient and it just didn’t work out the way I’d imagined it would.

So this year I built the tables and shelves I needed to make a real shop area in the front of the trailer, leaving the back wide open for show equipment and camping stuff.


Here’s a brief video I shot the other day that shows off my mobile studio space while I’m parked. It also includes a glimpse of my new inverter. And did you know that I maintain a YouTube channel for ML Jewelry Designs? Find it here.

My Power Needs

Before I discuss my needs, I need to make it clear that I camp off-the-grid. I’m usually not in a campground, but if I am, that campground usually does not have any utilities running to the site. That means I need to be self-sufficient with power (as well as water and sewer). I rely primarily on solar power but also travel with a 2kw Honda generator, just in case I have cloudy weather or unusually high power needs in my camper.

What I’m discussing here is my jewelry-making power needs.

My primary jewelry-making tool is a flex-shaft. The popular brand name is Foredom and that has become a bit of a generic term for that kind of tool, but mine is a Eurotool brand. It’s basically a hanging drill motor attached with a flexible shaft to a hand piece that can accept Dremel sized tools. You turn it on and off with a foot pedal that controls the speed of the motor. Because this tool requires AC power and the only way I can get continuous AC power while camping off the grid is to run my generator (which I don’t like running because of the noise), I didn’t bring it. Instead, I brought my battery operated Dremel, with its spare battery and charger.

I also use a small rotary tumbler quite a bit, as I discuss in this blog post. That also requires AC power, but it only needs 36 watts. Unfortunately, sometimes I need to run it for hours at a time. I was able to run it with a portable 150 watt inverter attached to the power port in my truck or in a battery pack I’d bought primarily to run my telescope. I quickly ran down the battery pack and had trouble getting it charged back up. And the idea of draining my truck batteries to run a tumbler was not very pleasing.

I also found myself with lots of other little batteries that needed charging. My camper does not have an inverter; due to limited space, it only has two 12v batteries. (Higher capacity 6v batteries will not fit in the storage cabinet — I’ve already looked into it.) On short winter days with a low sun angle, the 200 watts of solar flat-mounted on the roof can basically keep those batteries charged and let me use DC power ports to charge my phone, watch, and iPad but not much more.

The Solution

Last year, I’d looked into getting a solar charged battery power system installed into the cargo trailer. The trailer has a metal toolbox on the hitch bars and I figured it would make a good place to put the batteries. I already had a Zamp portable solar panel that I could attach to my camper. Why not use that to power a 2kw system on the utility trailer? But the estimate I’d gotten — more than $3,000! — gave me pause. A whole year’s worth of pause

This year I went forward with a less ambitious setup that included just two 6v batteries and a 1kw inverter. I had it installed in Quartzsite, AZ, where there are numerous solar power dealers who work on RVs. (I went to Solar Bill’s, but Discount Solar is another dealer there.) It still wound up costing about $1200. But if I kept the batteries charged, I would have all the power I needed to run my tumbler and charge just about any device that needed charging.

Solar Panels PM
Here are my solar panels in my current setup location. The original location had the panels in full sun from around 9 AM to 5 PM; in this new spot, they get sun at 8 AM but start falling into shade around 3:30 PM. The cable for the panels is only 12 feet long and the plug for it is at the front of the trailer. Poor parking planning on my part, but it’s all good.

Plug and Outlet for Solar Panels
Here’s where the panels plug into the side of the toolbox where the batteries are.

Batteries for Solar Setup
Here are the batteries inside the toolbox. There’s a vent hole behind them. I lost about half the box capacity to store things; I can’t put anything on top of them.

1000 Watt Inverter
Here’s the inverter, mounted in the front corner of my trailer just under one of the shelves. I’ll likely use the area around it as a charging station for various batteries in the future.

I brought it all back to camp, set up the solar panel in a good spot, and let the system do its thing. It was a bit iffy at first. Although the batteries were charged when I got them, I don’t think they were at 100%. My immediate use brought their power levels down a lot more than I expected. But after a few days with bright sun on those panels — including days when I didn’t use the power in the trailer at all — I soon had the batteries fully charged and able to share that power with any device I plugged in without a considerable power droop. I even managed to charge that big battery pack overnight without draining the system batteries.

I’ve since set up a little portable table near the inverter where I’ve parked various battery chargers — for my Dremel, my Ryobi tools/lights, my drone, and even my laptop. It has become the go-to place for charging things and it does a remarkable job. In the future, I’ll probably just use the shelf beside the inverter to set up a charging station.

Since moving my cargo trailer closer to my camper, I’ve also moved those portable panels closer. That means that if the utility trailer batteries are charged up and I don’t need them, I can attach another 160 watts of solar to my camper to bring those batteries up to full.

And yes, I did look into putting 200 watts of solar on the utility trailer’s roof. It would have cost me an extra $1400 for the panels, controller (which is built-into my portable panels), wiring, and labor. Not worth it — at least not yet.

Long Term Benefits

I know I won’t be traveling like this every winter forever. In fact, I’m starting to think the this might be my last year at Arizona’s Colorado River backwaters, where I’ve been coming since 2014. I’m starting to feel as if I’m stuck in a rut and and after living too many years in someone else’s rut, there’s nothing I hate more than that.

I’ve been thinking of making some major changes in my life that includes shifting focus on how I spend my free time. There will come a point when I don’t need that utility trailer at all. It seems a shame when I’ve spent so much time and money customizing it.

But the way I see it, the improvements I’ve made to the trailer make it even more flexible for me or a future owner. I can see converting it into a small living space for rugged camping — there are quite a few people camping in converted utility trailers out here in the desert. My jewelry workbench illustrates how easy it is to build removable structures onto the E-Track I’ve installed. Where I’ve put in a workbench, someone else could easily make a platform for a cot or other sleeping space. The storage shelves in the nose of the camper aren’t pretty, but they do make it possible to store lots of things in a way that can be easily secured in transit. And the power makes it even more attractive for off-the-grid use. All it takes is a need and a little imagination.

Until then, I’m enjoying the upgrade.