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Have you ever filled a long-neck bottle using your kitchen faucet? The typical pattern for doing that is to turn the water on fast to fill most of the bottle then to slow the water down so it won’t overflow as you finish filling it. If you then wanted to maintain that level of water you could set the faucet to a slow drip to compensate for evaporation.

Charging your batteries from your generator with a three stage charger works the same. The first stage is called “bulk” charging and it puts in lots of power very quickly until the battery is about 75% full. Stage two is called “absorb” and it puts in power more slowly until the other 25% is reached which can take up to 12 hours. Stage three is called “float” and it keeps a trickle of power going in to keep them level without overcharging them before you turn the generator off.

Then you turn the generator off, turn the inverter on, and keep right on using power from your batteries until the next time you decide to fill them up again.

We have a problem with our charging system. But we don’t know if it is the charger or the monitor that is the problem. Our system charges quickly but the monitor says the batteries are not full.

Oh, goody! Another puzzle to solve!  🙁

TTYL,

Linda

For the SKP reunion we just attended we parked in the desert on BLM land where you can stay two weeks for free. Now we are parked in the desert on BLM land for two weeks for $40. ???!!!

The difference is this section of BLM land comes with amenities and the $40 allows us the right to use those amenities as much as we want to. Like dumping our full black and gray water tanks.

Filling our fresh water tank.

And getting rid of all the garbage we’ve been accumulating.

There’s nothing like partying with your friends without those facilities to make you appreciate those amenities.

We expect to go through the lines three times if we stay the full two weeks. Once on arrival today and then the end of each week until we leave.

Or we could stay all season for $180 but I can’t imagine us parking in one place that long, can you?

TTYL,

Linda

I know I haven’t been talking to you all lately. I’ve been busy talking to members of the Escapee’s RV Club at our small group’s annual reunion. The group gets bigger every year. Here’s some of this year’s group at Da Boyz Pizza and Pasta:

And from the other end of the table:

Big group. And not everyone was there!

Here’s some of the guys solving our world problems.

That’s a lot of people to catch up with. Your turn will come again. Sometime.

TTYL,

Linda

Headed to a party following directions from memory. The party is on BLM land in an area we’ve visited before so we think we know where we are going. Past the Shell station, turn right, go about three miles, look for our group on the left. Likely to be the only RV group with a boat here in the desert.

So, we go past the Shell station, turn right at the sign that says BLM 14 day use area, drive about two and a half miles down the road and suddenly find ourselves in this.

Now, we know all the other RVs in our group did NOT drive down this road. So we pull off to the side to turn around.

And get our Sandcastle caught in a sand trap!

Put boards under the jacks to lift the wheels enough to put boards under the wheels then try to drive out.

Alley oop! Onto and over the boards. Into another hole. Now what?

Call for reinforcements. Dave, Lee (driving his 4-wheel drive truck) and Mike come to the rescue.

Much discussion. More people arrive to help. More discussion. I start worrying about the view through our windshield.

Lee drives his truck around the area in front of us looking for the firmest ground. We jack up the RV again and make use of every one’s wood to build a road out of the hole.

And drive right out!

And down the correct road, the one RIGHT behind the Shell station. The one that’s paved all the way down to our site.

It’s dark by the time we get to the right place but, hey! We are HERE!

TTYL,

Linda

Oh, did I tell you that when we got stuck we discovered our toilet is leaking again and had overflowed? Now where’s that boat?

Saturday we were headed for an overnight in Tucson, Arizona. We thought we might stay at a park west of town that has been recommended to us by several people. But there was a state park closer to our route that also gets rave reviews. At the last minute we decided to go to Catalina State Park, http://www.azstateparks.com/parks/cata/index.html.

But, I hadn’t done any route planning to that location so I quick called it up on Google Maps on Dave’s iPhone and ask for a route to the park.  It said we should take exit 255 from I-10 and follow state route 77 to the park. Which we did. More or less.

As we were driving north on a multi-lane, divided, suburban street a car ahead of us suddenly took a sharp left across a couple of lanes to get in the left turn lane. We manage to stop without hitting that car. He apparently was responding to a truck carry one of those electronic warning signs. The sign said, “Ina Road closed.” We would be crossing Ina but not turning onto it so we continued north.

And came to a road block. Not only was Ina closed but so was Oracle, the road we were on. We had to make a u-turn, which required the guys directing traffic to move some trafic cones for us but, at least, the street was wide enough for us to make the turn without having to unhitch our car from behind our motorhome. So, we drove back south to another major cross street, took that west to the next major cross street, and turned north again. Onto a street that was being rebuilt.

The right half of the street had no pavement so all the traffic was sharing the left half of the street. With lots of stop lights that were not timed to deal with the unusual amount of traffic being rerouted down it.

So we crept along for a couple of miles then finally turned right to get back to the street we wanted. As we were turning left on Oracle again, those directing traffic were starting to remove the cones which would have let us go straight through.

But, I am now VERY glad we did not come straight down that street earlier in the day. For where we were forced to make our u-turn was where a man went on a shooting spree yesterday. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0108/Arizona-shooting-Rep.-Gabrielle-Giffords-hit-at-meeting-with-constituents

Those people who were just making their normal Saturday morning visit to Safeway were the ones who had a really bad trip. We got off easy.

TTYL,

Linda