Just outside Payson AZ I found a secret campsite that tics all the boxes. Payson sits at 5000’ so it’s a good altitude for a fall and spring camp. It would be too hot here in mid summer and too cold in the winter. With temperatures over 100° in July and snow on the ground in January, I try to be somewhere else in those months.
I like the area around Payson for the shoulder seasons, but several drawbacks have had me searching for better camps. Two of my camping sites have terrible roads getting into them and two others have little or no cell signal.
The cell signal has not been a problem since I got Starlink, but they keep increasing the price every couple years. Last year they introduced a limited plan of reduced data for less than half the cost. I decided to try the limited plan and supplement my data with cell signal. If it works, I will only pay $80 instead of the unlimited plan at $175.
I found this camp by exploring some areas past a little settlement called Freedom Acres. The road was excellent coming in off the main highway, hidden somewhat from the traffic, and best of all, has 5G cell service that rivals the speed on my Starlink! I found a level spot that has good sun for my solar and only one other RV is within sight. I’m only 5 miles from Walmart, Home Depot, and free water at the Speedway gas station.
I’ll be here for another week before I have to travel down to the metropolis for more doctors appointments.
A few weeks ago I bought a portable generator to replace the on-board unit in my motorhome. The Onan generator that was installed in my rig was on its last leg. It still started fine and powered everything in the coach but it burned oil and I could always smell the exhaust. And the main thing I didn’t like was that it weighed 400 pounds for something I used only once or twice a year. That’s a lot of weight to carry around for a backup.
Donnas mechanic agreed to remove the generator from Minnie in trade for the parts he could use from it. I thought that was a good deal so he and his son removed it one day when I was in town.
The portable generator that I bought is called Pulsar 2200. It’s dual fuel meaning it can run on gas or propane. I like the idea of a generator that runs on propane because propane is easier to carry than gasoline, burns cleaner than the noxious fumes from gas, never goes bad, and propane doesn’t gum up a carburetor like old gas does.
When I connected up the generator at camp, try as I might, I couldn’t get it to run from propane bottle. I final realized it wasn’t letting any propane to the generator and figured out the regulator was faulty. I called the company and they agreed to send another regulator out to me. I was leaving town the next day so I knew it would be some time before I received the replacement part. In the meantime I put gasoline in it and ran it for an hour or so. Even though I didn’t want to put gas in it, I wanted to make sure the generator would operate okay.
I used it a couple times on gasoline and waited for the part to come. Yesterday my batteries got down to 40% and the weather forecast was for clouds and rain for the next few days. My solar was struggling to keep up and the temperature went to 90° yesterday, forcing me to run my AC all afternoon. I started the generator, but when it quit a few minutes later, I realized I was out of gas. The nearest gas station is 25 miles away so I thought I would be in conservation mode for a couple days.
After examining the propane regulator that came with the generator, I decided to take it apart and see what was wrong. I figured it couldn’t hurt to take a look inside. When I broke apart the two halves of the primer regulator I found out that a pin had slipped out of the inlet mechanism. I replaced the pin and reassembled the part.
The generator started on the second pull and has been working fine for about an hour now! With the solar and generator, I’m putting in 100 amps to my batteries.
The main purpose of my blog is so that I will have a record of my retirement years. When my mind starts to forget, I can look back at my blog and remember: Oh I hiked the Appalachian Trail, or that’s right I drove to Alaska! It’s my form of a rudimentary diary of sorts.
It’s hard to think about and even harder to realize I haven’t added an entry in over a year. I think there are two reasons why I don’t write much anymore – let alone I procrastinate everything and I’m lazy – but when I’m not traveling much, I find it harder to think of anything interesting to talk about. The second reason I don’t blog much is because the family keeps close contact with each other through text apps, and a blog post is old news. It’s the main reason most of the family has given up blogging. And we are not writing for the world to read anyway. Our blogs have always been generally read by family and close friends.
As I get older, I find that I travel less than I did a few years ago. And not only am I getting older but my vehicles are getting older too! Ever since Covid, I have stayed in Arizona, traveling up into the high country in the summer and scooting down to the desert in the winter. I like to think of myself not so much as a snowbird but as a migrating nomad. I don’t ever want to live where it snows again!
I usually live alone but Donna spends a few weeks camping with me up in the national forests in the summer, and Karen and Damon spend a month camping with me in the winter. Everyone is planning to meet up again this January in Yuma. I still have friends I have met over the years that I will camp with once in a while, but things are always changing and friends come and go.
I’ve made some changes to my motorhome this year. The mini split, 12 volt fridge, and Starlink have all improved my lifestyle. I have enough solar and batteries that I can survive on total electric. I even removed my onboard generator and bought a small dual fuel portable just for emergencies. I was carrying around a 400 pound generator I only used once a year, if that.
I found out my mini split worked better on heat mode if I placed a fan by the ceiling to move the heat down. The built in fan doesn’t circulate the warm air down to the floor without a little help. I solved the problem when I purchased a small ceiling fan that fits perfectly in front of the mini split.
I got rid of the old broken-down, ragged couch that I didn’t have any use for, and replaced it with an 8” twin mattress. I built a platform out of plywood and framing lumber, and left the plywood so I could slide it out to the full twin size. Then I cut 8” off one edge of the mattress and made sections that I could drop behind the bed to sleep, and remove them and slide the frame back to the wall to convert it into a couch. I still like my over-cab bed, but there will be a day when climbing up and down in the middle of the night might become a problem. 😂
I think I’ll stop here. I’m thinking not many have made it this far anyway. I’m staying in Quartzsite at the present but heading down to Yuma in another week. I have to have a clutch put into my Jeep – $1700! Ouch!
Made it to Quartzsite for the winter. The calendar says it should cool down now but the southwest is still hot! Here’s hoping that November will be cooler.
It was a nice time in town last week. Richard’s celebration of life event was a wonderful tribute to a his time with us these last 77 years. Several relatives gave testimony of the love we all shared with him. He will be missed.
While I was in town Daryl helped me install a mini split air conditioner and a new fridge. With the crazy weather we seem to be experiencing now, I wanted to be prepared for whatever Mother Nature wanted to throw at me. With a mini split you can not only cool a room, but they also serve as a heat pump for those chilly mornings. I’m trying to get away from propane as much as I can so I bought more solar panels to beef up my system. I now have 1600 watts of solar for my little motorhome!
I have been using a chest type DC fridge for a couple years now, but I never really liked it. You have to dig through stuff to get what is always at the bottom, and I never liked the location I made for it. The new fridge is an upright that fits in the hole where my propane fridge went. It is also a DC compressor cooling system so takes a tiny bit of electricity to run. I like having a door that opens to shelves and a separate freezer that will keep my ice cream frozen.
I will update with a review after I’ve used both appliances and know more about them.
Part of my quest to go total electric is figuring out ways to heat water without burning propane. A few years ago I mounted a large black pipe on the roof of Minnie and let the sun heat my water. It works quite well when I have good sun and it’s not too cold out. The only problem is that you have to use the water late in the day and long before the sun goes down. If you wait too long, the water cools quickly to an unusable temperature. In the cold days of winter, it’s sponge baths or burn propane for a shower. I longed for an occasional shower right before bed without burning propane.
I started exploring small electric hot water tanks that are made to mount under the kitchen sink and give you instant hot water without waiting for delivery through long pipes from the main hot water tank. These tanks usually hold only 3 gallons of supply and recover quickly. I found a prime deal of 20% off on one and ordered it for a Christmas present to me.
I puzzled over where to mount the unit and came to the conclusion that pulling the propane water heater out and installing it in the same place would be easy and give me hot water to all my sinks and shower.
I spent the last two days disconnecting the old unit and installing the new electric one. Parts here in Quartzsite are twice what they cost at Home Depot, but the hardware store is close and had Sharkbite connectors I like to use. Four connectors and a propane plug cost me almost $50.
I have been testing it out today and I think it’s going to work fine. With all my batteries and solar, heating the water only uses a small percentage of my power. I timed my shower and came up with 4.5 minutes of hot water. That’s plenty for me( I don’t spend much time washing my hair). The only thing that concerns me is the fact that it takes 1850 watts of power when heating. That’s almost maxing out my inverter. The specs said 1500 watts. I’ll have to be careful to turn everything else off when I use it.
As with everything I tinker with, I’ll undoubtedly find out more as I use it. I’ll try to update how it’s working in a later post.
