Florida Wrap-up

Another winter in Florida finished. We left home on Christmas day and returned today, just in time for four doctor's appointments scheduled the remainder of the week. It was a great trip, as usual. It was colder than during past winter trips to Florida, but it was cold everywhere else too. Better to be cool in Florida than frigid at home. We met many old friends and made several new friends.

The numbers:

Duration: 91 days
Distance: 2011 miles
Temperatures: Low 28 degrees, high 88 degrees
Number of days at Busch Gardens: four (and we have a rain check for another visit next year!)
Number of free beers at Busch Gardens: Who knows?
Number of motor home rallies and shows attended: Four
Number of days paddling: Seventeen
Cheapest Price paid for diesel: $1.769, Wal-Mart, Tifton GA, 3/15/09

Now time for a ton of home chores!

Almost Home!!!

We arrived at Mom's house yesterday afternoon. Today she has had me busy doing chores such as changing furnace filters and smoke alarm batteries. One of her filters is an unusual size: 10"x10". No one in Morganton has them in stock. Lowe's can order them, but you have to buy a case lot of 12, and it will take two weeks to get them. Being a practical kinda guy, I bought a 10"x20" and cut it in half. Two for the price of one! That seemed to work OK for now. I suggested she talk to some of her neighbors. Maybe they have some, or could go in with her on a case load.

We had hoped to visit with our friends Bob and Donna while we were here, but we learned yesterday that Bob had a heart attack on Saturday. They took him to the heart center in Charlotte on Sunday for tests and treatment, and now they have determined he will need to have bypass surgery. Our prayers go out to Bob and his family.

We will be home tomorrow. We have doctor's appointments in the afternoon and volleyball in the evening (I miss my volleyball!). I think we are ready to be home!

Spending $$$ at the Rally

We had a good time in Perry at the FMCA rally. It stopped raining sometime in the wee hours of Tuesday morning and the sun was out for the remainder of the event. By the time we pulled out this morning the lots were dry and hard. With the sun out I could monitor the function of our new solar array. During this late winter season the sun just won't get directly overhead, but I was still seeing up to 24 amps DC, very close to the maximum output for the panels. I'm pleased.

We each attended 4-5 seminars each day on a variety of technical and educational topics. I also spent a great deal of time talking to component vendors, such as our refrigerator manufacturer, asking detailed technical questions. I scored a few free replacement parts and service. FanTastic Vent gave me a replacement switch for one of our roof-top fans. Roadmaster cleaned and lubed our tow bar and replaced a major component that was showing abnormal wear. We also spent a lot of time in the vendors booths. We bought a high quality12v portable fan, FanTastic Vent's Endless Breeze. It will be very useful for when we aren't on shore power and don't want to run the inverter. It is also very compact and easy to store. We also purchased a DeLorme PN-40 hand-held GPS. I had been wanting a good hand-held GPS for some time, but couldn't decide what to buy. I was leaning towards the DeLorme product because they have great technical support, lots of cheap or free downloadable maps, and our PC software and GPS are by DeLorme. DeLorme had a booth at the show and was offering the PN-40 for $100 off list. There was a lead technical guy at the booth, and I spent several hours talking with him. He spent time with me outdoors with my new handheld unit showing me some tricks.

We also made one major coach improvement purchase. As you know, our coach is relatively short and lacks some indoor storage features often found on larger coaches. For example, many larger coaches have a credenza on the wall behind the dinette and some sort of computer desk. We have neither. We spend a lot of time on the computer and must work with the PCs in our laps. When we need to print a document, we take the printer out of the wardrobe and set it up on the dinette table. We also have portable file boxes for our papers that we keep on the floor of the wardrobe. Not very convenient. At a rally in January we talked to Davis Cabinets a company in Oregon, specializing in cabinets for the RV industry. With the sour economy, many owners have decided to keep their coaches instead of trading up and are putting their $$$ into modifications and improvements. Just like us. For example, many coach owners are upgrading their TV cabinetry to fit new digital HD TVs. Davis Cabinets was taking orders for new cabinet projects at the Supershow in Tampa in January. They would take measurements in FL, fabricate the cabinets at their shop in Oregon, and deliver and install the cabinets at the rally in Perry GA. We decided to buy a combination dinette credenza/computer work station. On one side it would have a cabinet door and pullouts for a laptop, supplies and a printer. On the other side it would have office drawers and a lateral file drawer. In the center under the table, it would have two cabinet doors and adjustable shelves. 14" deep and almost 7' long. Davis said they could match our knobs, pulls, wood finish and Corian top. Perfect! Almost ..... After placing the order and talking with Shaun Davis a number of times over the last two months, we found he was having trouble identifying the pattern for our solid surface top. He checked sample chips from Corian, Avonite, Wilsonart, and several other manufacturers, but nothing matched. He shipped us chips, and we went to home improvement centers ourselves, but could find no exact match. He installed the cabinet on Monday, but we are currently without a top. Shaun took a sink cover representing our pattern back to Oregon with him. He is confident he can identify the pattern and ship the top to us in NC shortly. We're keeping our fingers crossed.

We moved about 200 miles north this afternoon to Fair Play, SC. We are parked at Thousand Trails Carolina Landing, on the shore of Lake Hartwell, just over the GA line. This is not the nicest of the TT parks, but is is OK for a short stop-over. Many of the sites are on hills, so level site are at premium and some are eroded. We did find a nice level site with good grass. The water level on Lake Hartwell is way down, so the dock is high and dry. We will stay here two or three nights, then drive to Morganton and spend a day or two with my mother. It's a good thing we are almost home in NC. The quart bottle of Texas Pete I packed is almost empty!

FMCA in Perry

This morning we moved about 190 miles north to the Georgia National Fairgrounds and Agricenter at Perry GA. For the next 5 days we will attend FMCA's 81st International Convention. We are dry camping here until Friday, meaning we are camping without the benefit of external electricity, water and sewer. This was to be the first real test of our new 400 watt solar array. Unfortunately, it is overcast and raining hard now and the forecast for tonight and tomorrow is for more rain. So much for any solar gain. The forecast for Wednesday through Friday is much better, so we'll see how it works then. In the meantime we will have to continue to run our generator. Dang. While, here we will attend a ton of seminars, buy a few parts and accessories from the thousands of vendors, and maybe window-shop for few new motor homes. We have one significant purchase in the wings that we are pretty excited about. I'll talk more about that and post some photos when it's completed.

The Land of the Trembling Earth

We previously belonged to a great canoe club in Florida, the Central Florida Paddlemasters. I won't go into the gory details, but, unfortunately, that club folded about two years ago. That was a bad thing, because we really liked many of the club members and paddled with them many times, including two "Week of Rivers" events where we paddled a different river or creek every day for a week. In order to fill that void, we joined the Florida Sport Paddling Club about a year and a half ago. Several former CFP members belong to the FSPC and had recommended it. Until now, we had never hooked up on a trip with the FSPC.

However, on March 11-15 we attended the FSPC Okefenokee Swamp Spring Fling at Stephen C. Foster State Park near Fargo, GA. We have camped at Stephen C. Foster State Park before, but I had forgotten how nice it was. We checked into the park on Wednesday afternoon and picked a nice grassy pull-through site. All sites have 50A electric, water and cable. If we held our mouth right we could receive the park's free wi-fi. It's a good thing too, because our Verizon air card was nearly useless that far out in the boonies. On Wednesday evening we shared a pot luck dinner with the club attendees and tried in vain to learn their names. There were about 25 folks attending the event, but by the end of the weekend we did learn most of their names.

On Thursday we paddled from the park marina northeast up Billy's Lake and then up Millie's Lake. We lunched at the Millie's Lake day-use shelter then paddled another hour towards Big Water Lake. It has been many years since we visited the Okefenokee, and I had forgotten how pretty it is. Billy's Lake is relatively wide and open. When we turned off towards Millie's Lake the channel was narrow and winding, with a distinct current. Pets are not allowed in the refuge, so this was the first time we have paddled and left Matilda behind. Just as well, since we saw many alligators.

On Friday we set out to the west and paddled to the Suwanee River "sill". The sill is an earthen dike with flood gates built in the mid 1950s to maintain a constant water level in the swamp, primarily to prevent fires. As with many of man's attempts to control nature, this was a failed experiment. The floodgates were opened and abandoned several years ago and the water in the swamp was allowed to seek its own level. We paddled through the rusted flood gates and down the Suwanee River another 2-3 miles to Lem Griffis' Landing, where we had left our cars. Dorcas and I counted alligators today, the first time we have ever attempted to make an exact count. 21 alligators today. Or 20 3/4 if you discount for "Stumpy".

On Saturday we paddled on the Suwanee River about 14 miles from Lem Griffis' Landing to Fargo. The river was low but the current was surprisingly fast. There were numerous sandbars and amazing bald cypress and tupelos. While we could have taken Matilda on this section, we chose to leave her at home. Surprisingly, we spotted not a single alligator on this run. On Saturday evening we had a Robert Service poetry reading contest. I was not previously familiar with Robert Service, although I soon realized I had heard some of his work. Robert Service is perhaps most famous for poems of men in the Yukon gold rush. We were entertained with poems and skits, with costumes and props. Great fun!

Power On !!!

I have always been intrigued by the idea of solar panels on the motor home. Our Safari TREK had a 75 watt photovoltaic panel, however, 75 watts is pretty minimal. It will maintain the battery during periods of bright sun and moderate electrical usage, but could not effectively bring the batteries up from a discharged state. Our coach has a number of "phantom" loads, that essentially cannot be turned off without cutting off power to the whole coach. Such loads include LED lights on all light switches, the CO detector, the LP detector, the security alarm system, etc. Additionally, there are other invisible, but somewhat discretionary loads that drag the batteries down, such as the always-on circuits in the TV, VCR, DVD and microwave, the inverter and the 12V electronics in the refrigerator. If left unattended with everything possible turned off, the batteries would be discharged in a matter of a few days. Not good if we need to be away from the coach for any period of time when it can't be plugged in.

So, I have been drooling over solar power for some time, but have been dragging my feet because I wasn't sure how much to add, didn't know how to do it or who to have do it and was afraid of the cost. While at a rally a month or so ago I learned of a guy near Lake City FL who has done solar installations on many of the TREKS. He was said to be very knowledgeable and competent, but a bit of an oddball. He lives on a 500 acre property that is totally off the grid: no electricity, no water, no sewer. There are 9 miles of marked trails, the gator pond and the turtle field. He installs and services a number of electrical devices in RVs and operates a campground where other like-minded sorts come and hang out. I gave him a call and made an appointment, and that is how we came to meet John Palmer and Palmer Energy Systems.

Sizing a solar system is an interesting exercise. You can add up all your power loads for a particular style of camping, and size your array to meet that demand. But in the end you just throw all that information out the window. Basically you install as much solar as you can afford and that you can fit on the roof of the coach. A good rule of thumb is to install as many watts of solar capacity as you have amp-hour capacity in your battery bank. We have room for four 100-watt panels and still be able to walk and access all the vents and appliances on the roof. 400 watts also worked out pretty well with our two 8D AGM batteries, rated at about 500 amp-hours. So it was decided to install four 100-watt panels and a 500 watt charge controller. John Palmer is a man who speaks his mind and works at his own pace. He said to allow three days to do the job. We started on Monday morning, took frequent breaks and stopped before 4:00 each day. We had no serious difficulties and finished on Tuesday afternoon. Palmer wanted us to stay at least until noon on Wednesday so we could observe the output during high sun. That was fine since we had allowed for three days anyway. Ideally, with bright sun directly overhead, we should be seeing about 24 amps from the array. At noon, the sun was still far from directly overhead due to the position of the sun in the winter, but we were still getting almost 21 amps. Good enough. The system seemed to be working. This system will not eliminate our need to use the generator, but it should cut down on generator hours. More importantly, it will allow us to park the coach for extended periods and leave the refrigerator and other systems operating without worrying about draining the batteries.