We’re Campin’ Again

We sure are livin’ up to to the title of this here blog lately. We decided pretty quick after viewing our calendar, that we just had to go campin’ right away if we wanted to go at all. This time I hadn’t unloaded the camper so we just had to load everything else up. We’ve decided to return to the management area where we camped a week or so ago and visit with all the new friends we made. We both had appointments with the eye Dr. on Wednesday at 2:30 & 2:45 and we left immediately after for the woods.
So here we are, campin’ again. Boondockin’. Dry campin’ with no hookups. This time we brought an extra 15 gallons of water with us along with a full freshwater tank in the camper. We learned that we’re not relyin’ on the water here. Our last trip here proved we can ‘Boondock’ with no hookups for an indefinite amount of time if we have a source to replace our water supply. Dumping is not a problem cause there’s a campground 3 miles west and another 4 miles east where we can dump.
All the folks we met last trip are still here as well as a few new rigs from PA & ME. The weather is cold like the last trip, 33 this morning and the ‘Community Campfire’ was not well attended last night. Lets hope things improve in the coming days.
Friday
It was supposed to rain today, commensin’ this evening. Well Mother Nature put the rush on things and it started rainin’ round 5AM. We spent the day playin’ cards, computin’ and watchin’ TV while it continued to rain outside. After dinner we were waitin’ for the ‘opening ceremonies’ to the Winter Olympics, that we thought would start at the beginning of the Olympic programming at 7:30PM, but it didn’t start till 9PM. I didn’t think too much about the power we were usin’ and Mr. Murphy snuck up and smacked me in the back o’ my noggin’. Around 10:30, during the opening ceremonies, the inverter started to scream it’s low battery alarm. Batteries are down to 50% charge, so I cranked up the generator to put a little charge back in the batteries. I was just too cocky about our power usage and not able to go out in the pourin’ rain to monitor battery voltages. So we missed the end of the program, Oh well.
I did find out something interesting. I placed our generator under the rear of the camper to keep it dry and in case we had to run it I could run outside and start her up. Well running it that close seems to interfere with the Digital Converter for our TV. I even put the TV on inverter power while the genny was runnin’ and still had the interference. The TV picture would become pixilated and the sound would skip words even though I had a 92% signal strength on the channel. I guess the generator frequency was affectin’ the Digital Converter. Saturday I moved the genny back away from the camper and tried the TV again, powered by the genny and powered by the inverter while the genny was runnin’. With the same 92% signal on the same channel I had no interference what so ever. Somethins’ goin’ on that I don’t fully understand, but I think I figered’ a work-around.
Saturday
Saturday dawned icky instead of the promised sun and Linda said she had enough, she wanted to go home. I said, “Honey, what if we didn’t have a home to go back to and were livin’ full-time in the RV”? We…ll she countered with, “You always told me if you don’t like the weather we can move, if you don’t like the scenery we can move, if you don’t like your neighbors we can move”! She got me there. So I replied, “Where could we go that’s warmer? We’re in Florida”! GOTCHA!!! So we stayed and the sun came out and we went to town and did some shoppin’, had lunch at a great Chinese Buffet and went to the Flea Market. We got back to camp just in time for the ‘Community Campfire’.
Sunday
Sunday we had a wonderful breakfast and waited for the day to warm up some so we could get a shower before we attended the Sunday service held here each week. After services we had some lunch and spent the afternoon visitin’ around the camp. We cooked some NY Tube Steaks fer dinner then headed to the fire to close out the day.
Monday
Monday was spent packin up, then we spent the next hour and a half sayin’ our goodbyes. Seems we have some company comin’, besides Linda’s Aunt & Uncle this month. Jay & Ellie are comin’ over to stay a few days, after hearin’ Linda’s Uncle Don is a Mandolin player, and he wants to play some with Don.
So were headin’ back to the ‘Rancho’ for what  looks like an extended stay this time. Until the next episode.
Hope to see ya down the road as we’re;

Dancin’ on the Wind.

Test, Test and time for Refigurin’

We are Boondockin’ at Prairie Lake Wildlife Management Unit, outside Keanansville, FL. There is a big camp here but the only facilities are vault toilets and a hand pitcher pump for water. We came out to test the addition of the second battery which doubled our electrical capacity to 250 AH. Doesn’t sound like a lot but were in a truck camper, there’s only so much room fer’ stuff. We figured we’d need some more water while we’re here, so we brought along some water jugs to fill at the pump. Only thing is the pump has big sign on it say; “Do Not Drink” and it looks like tea, so’s it aint goin’ in our tank. Seems like we’ll have to get water elsewhere, if we need it.

This is our second full day dry camped and so far the batteries seem to be doin’ fine. There is about 14 ‘snowbird’ RVer’s camped here and we have met everyone of them the first day, tryin’ to recall all the names has been a challenge. Every night we all sit around the community fire and spin yarns, joke and tell stories. The lot is a mixture from NY, WV, ME and quite a few from Michigan. Some have camped with each other for many years, some are newcomers. I’ll post some pictures of the ‘Crew’ around the fire if I can get some one evening.
Update:
We are now in our fourth day here and the batteries seem to be holdin’ up fine, 12.52 volts. We’ve been conservative in our use of power, but we’ve watched TV for 3.5 hours the first night 45 minutes the second, 1 hour last night, used the fresh water pump as necessary for water & flushing, and only use one or two lights at a time. We have used the generator only for a few minutes at a time to make toast or run the microwave, so there has been no rechargin’ from that to speak of. The fresh water tank reads 2/3 full, the grey water tank is 1/3 full and our black tank is under 1/3 full. At this rate I think we could survive for a week easily without having to run the genny to recharge the batteries. We’ll see as were only going to stay for two more days as we’re supposed to get some severe storms Saturday.
Now to the Refigurin’! Dirty Frizaner, Somana dirty rotten g#*.. Gr….um….p! Mr. Murphy come up and smacked me in the back o’ the head. The battery rack placement is not as good as I thought. The current placement makes it to difficult to load the camper on the truck. The clearance on both sides is tight enough, but now it’s ridiculous! So….s, I think I’m gonna move it to the rear of the lance on the same side, between the camper and the taillights of the truck. I pondered that spot but didn’t think I had the room until I finally got the camper loaded and realized the present location was just too much trouble. So when we return home I got to go to work on moving the rack. It will be close tolerance, but not as close as the location now and shouldn’t effect loading. So it back to the drawin’ board on this one.
Well that’s all I got fer’ now. Hope to see ya’ down the road, as we’re;

 Dancin’ on the Wind.