Mouse!

I did another two week camping trip in my Minnie, driving up to the Rim area on August 21st to spend time with Dale. He had been in a dispersed camp just off Houston Mesa road north of Payson for a couple of weeks, so I joined him there. We set up my solar to give it a whirl. It was putting in amps, but since it had been unplugged for several months, we had no idea how far below 100% it was, but it was well below 14.4 volts. So we just let it charge for as many hours of sunshine as we had.

The ranger came around on Monday to read us the rules (stressing the14 day limit mostly), and we told her we were leaving on Tuesday to move up onto the Rim into the Sitgreaves forest. She seemed satisfied we were not homesteading there and complained to us about "homeless" people who plant their RVs in the forest and spend all their time making a mess.

Our camp near Houston Mesa

We saw blue skies in the early mornings

True to our word, we did move up to the Mogollon Rim on Tuesday morning (the 23rd), after a stop at the Walmart in Payson. Dale had previously camped in FR171 Rim campground just below Willow Springs Lake, so we went back there. His favorite site was taken, so after driving past all 48 other sites, we settled into space 16. The driveway entrances on the majority of the sites were in horrible muddy condition, and ours was no exception. In addition, our site was filled with large (and small) rocks. But it had the most important features, and that was a southern exposure for solar and a northern exposure for Starlink. Plus it was plenty large enough for us both to tuck back in away from the road.

Our rocky, wet campsite

 

Mogollon Rim view

Little white bear in the woods

All that rain brought dozens of mushrooms

The only outings we took was to drive up to Willow Springs Lake and into Heber one day, and into Payson another day. We didn't really need anything, but just did it for a change of scenery. Otherwise, we mostly babysat my solar panel, trying to get my new Lithium Ion battery up to float. It seemed my one solar panel was not going to cut it due to the fact we had so much rain and clouds every day. So midway through the first week, Dale disconnected one set of his own panels and brought them over and hooked them up to my battery. After about five more days, we finally got the battery up to 14.4V, where it settled back down to 13.4, which is technically floating. After that, it floated each day before noon.

We had discussed on What's App ordering a battery charger on Amazon and Richard & Dianna offered to bring it up. I decided not to invest in that right now, but we did invite R&D to come up for a weenie roast picnic lunch with us. They thought a drive up to the pines sounded like a nice (and safe healthy) outing, so came up on Tuesday, the 30th.

Willow Springs Lake

 Daryl & Gisele were driving up to a church family camp in Pinetop for the Labor Day weekend, and since their route came right by our campground, they stopped and chatted for a couple of hours.

One morning I was sitting in my recliner drinking coffee and heard a rustling near my stove. I put my ear over there and traced it to the oven. I opened the door and saw the cutest little gray and white mouse looking out at me from among my frying pans (which I store in there). As cute as he was, I didn't want him in my rig, and commenced efforts to extricate him. I set up an electric rat zapper, first under my sink beside the stove, then after a couple of days of no success, I moved it to the floor of the cab, where I had heard him scuffling about one night. Still no luck. With Dale's help (and me standing by) we removed the frying pans from the oven, but my little house guest was no longer among them. I placed the zapper in the oven for one night anyway. 

This effort lasted until I drove home on Sunday before Labor Day. After getting my rig emptied and prepped for storage, I figured he must have abandoned ship in all that time and activity, but JUST IN CASE, I set the zapper trap on the kitchen floor, went out, and locked the door. Sure enough, three days later, I found him in the trap. 

He never felt a thing. R.I.P.

Poor little guy...

 

New Power Source

 I just realized I never wrote about my new power generating system. I'm not sure how I missed writing about that, because it is a very big improvement that my brother Dale installed for me.

I've complained countless times about my coach batteries; how often I have to replace them, how they don't hold charge, having to monitor the level throughout the day and night, and running the generator to re-charge whenever I'm camped without hookups. I've been wanting to get a Lithium Ion battery for a while, and decided it was time to bite that bullet. Also, as I mentioned in my October 2021 post, I had tried out one of Dale's single solar panels while camping with him and saw how well it delivered enough charge for my daily needs, so I put a solar panel on my Christmas list.

Dale was in town in February for a couple weeks, and I took advantage of that visit to get some help installing my system. I had the new battery and solar panel, and Dale had an old charge controller he was willing to pass on to me since he had recently upgraded his system to the "Tim Taylor Tool Time More Power Argh Argh Argh" set up. So with all the parts I needed, we (HE) got to work. 

It was a little more involved than we had expected since the new battery would not fit in the space under the step where the two lead acid batteries were. We ended up having to put it inside behind the chair, but that necessitated drilling holes through the floor and the wall of the old battery space to run the cables to the coach hookups. In the end, it all went together okay, and it's not really in the way behind the chair. Plus it's easy to reach the disconnect switch there. I disconnect the battery when it's stored for several months to avoid discharging the battery.

The basket of Hanna's toys sits nicely on top

After he got all the connections made to the coach, Trimetric gauge, and the charge controller, we set up the solar panel and checked it out. It worked perfectly! The panel was facing the early afternoon sun and charged the battery full by the end of the day. In fact, I had to run a little fan for several hours the next day to take some of the charge back off the battery before disconnecting it for storage. 

I think the next thing that is going to take more money out of my wallet is a replacement awning, as mine is peeling pretty badly. I did buy a repair kit, but I don't have high hopes it will do a very good job. And I need a tall ladder to work on it, so I'm not sure when I will get to that. But it's not terribly urgent.

I'm anxious to get back out camping. We've had another hot summer, so the cool mountain forests sound lovely. I've had such a busy year with one thing or another on my schedule that I haven't had a spare two weeks to string together a trip up north, but I hope I can rectify that soon.

Let me not forget to say "Thanks a lot, Dale"!!!

New AC

I mentioned in my last post that when Dale and I were camping near Rye, AZ, it was warm enough one afternoon for me to turn on my AC, only to discover it was putting out warm air. Since RV air conditioner units notoriously do not allow adding Freon, I figured I was in for a replacement. The fact my unit is 17 years old, although has many fewer hours on it than that age implies, I wasn't too unhappy over the fact it had worn out.

I hate taking Minnie out of my back yard to drive it to a service center, leave it for an unknown length of time, get a ride home and back, then bring Minnie back home and put it back in the yard. When a Google search turned up a mobile RV service company with excellent Google score and reviews, I decided to call him.

Juan from 4 Points RV Service came out later that week, checked out the AC, confirmed it was the compressor and that the whole unit would need to be replaced. I had been checking on Amazon for ACs and asked him if he would install one that I bought myself. He said he would, but I would only get the Amazon 1 year warranty, and if I got one from him, he would give me a 2 year warranty. He quoted me a price on the new unit and it was very much in line with Amazon's pricing, and he had one in town. Winner! 

He scheduled the replacement for one week later, arrived with the new unit and carried it up the ladder to my roof. After doing the installation, we checked out the temperature of the air coming out of the vents and it registered a chilly 55°. I'm really happy to have things in working order again, and very happy to have found a qualified mobile service to do future repairs for me. It sure was nice not to have to get Minnie out of the back yard.

I'm planning to get out camping with Dale in a few weeks in northern Arizona. With the exorbitant cost of gas right now ($6.00/gal!!) I won't be going very far this summer. Hopefully next year, the prices will be more reasonable and I'll take a longer camping trip. I've really missed being able to RV travel around the country.