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Thursday, June 27, 2013

MPG pulling the trailer

On one fill up I pulled the trailer in Drive (not Overdrive) over 2 very steep mountain passes, serious mountains with inclines that were miles long.  When I approached the incline, I sped up as much as possible to 60 or 65 and kept the pedal close to the floor as the van slowed to 45 and even sometimes 35 before it would downshift and get me up the mountain.  I used AC, keeping it on low.

MPG:  10.45

On the next fill up I pulled the trailer in Drive over some slight hills, but nothing major, drove with the windows down and kept the pedal in pretty much the same place, not inching it closer to the floor, but letting it down shift at 45 mph as needed. 

MPG:  11.62

When I combine pulling the trailer some and not, my MPG is about 14 when its usually 16 without the trailer.

I only put it in Drive when hooked up and in Overdrive when its not.

Would air foils or other additions/modifications help?  Opinions please, good people... (no need to suggest I quit driving over the mountains - sometimes ya just gotta go there....)


Wednesday, June 26, 2013

So much happened in such a short amount of time.

I'm sitting outside my daughter's house in Winfield MD.  I'll be here until the last week of July, when I will go to teach again (hopefully) at Campbell Folk School.

Thanks to Leonard and Robert I now have:

Solar Panels (thanks, Leonard); slight modifications to said solar panel (thanks, Karen VH and Robert)
Extra Deep Cell Battery installed on the Trailer (thanks, Robert for the excellent wood/cable working getting them installed in an almost impossibly too small space.  You're a very good problem solver and make doer!)
Figured out what the phantom draw was that kept drawing down my batteries (thanks, Robert for that happy accidental discovery)
A Zero Gravity Lounge Chair (thanks, Leonard)
Solar Powered Lights for the Awning (thanks, Leonard)
A week of rest, relaxation, good food and several campfires as Robert and I tried to figure out my phantom battery draw (thanks, Karen VH, Julie, Leonard, Robert and other assorted friends of Karen's)
A second week of rest and relaxation camped beside Leonard's workshop
A 1500 watt inverter (thanks, Leonard) and I gave my 800 watt inverter to Robert
A 10' piece of rain gutter cut in two pieces to be used to support the sewer hose (thanks, Robert)
A genuine appreciation for Bo Jangles Chicken (thanks, Robert)

Thanks to Mountain Air Automotive in Hayesville, NC I now have:

New Brakes, Rotars, Calipers, Hoses, and some other brake stuff
New Axles and Bearings in the van's rear end.  It now is a quiet ride (Thanks again, Robert for pointing out how noisy it was)

I told Dennis at Mountain Air that I was coming back there to teach the end of July and did not intend to spend my whole pay check on car repairs.  Dang, now I've put it out in the universe and now....


I've been able to fill up with gas and drive several hundred miles and can accurately calculate my MPG pulling the trailer.  Before it was always a combo of pulling it and not pulling it and I couldn't get a good reading.  I'll get the figures together and post them tomorrow.  They're a lot lower than I hoped, and I'm welcoming all suggestions on ways to improve said mpg.  I drove each tank full differently and will describe the processes in case it helps y'all make suggestions for improvement.

I need to go back and re-read my posts to see what I've written about so I don't repeat my self.


More to follow...


Thursday, June 13, 2013

Cleared for Landing

Don't you hate having to get up out of bed to take care of something that is just aggravating you to no end?

I'm a very light sleeper.  I go to sleep easy enough, just wake at the softest sounds or ... blinking lights.

My trailer had so many lights on last night it looked like a landing strip.

One side was the flashing (not in a pleasing order - kinda spastic) green light on the MiFi, the steady green light of the Microwave, the green light on the wall outlet to tell me I had power to the 12v socket and then there was the red light on the TV letting me know it wasn't turned on.

On the other side was the green light of the carbon monoxide/propane detector, the flashing white light on my computer letting me know it was sleeping soundly and the intermittent red light on the smoke detector.

After about 20 minutes of trying to ignore them, I got up and turned off what was safe to do so (NOT the smoke detector or CO/Propane detector. 

I wonder how I'm gonna power all these lights when I boondock without electrical hookups.   I guess that would be my description of roughing it...lol


Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Man is it hot in here

OK, it quit raining.  Now it hotter than blue blazes in my trailer.

My friend, Leonard stopped by on his way to work and asked me why I wasn't running the air conditioner.

Because I didn't want to run up your bill, I say.

Oh, don't worry about that.  I changed all the lights in the Workshop to compact florescents saving about $25 per month on my electric bill.  You can use $25 in air conditioning. 

Which I am. 

Man its so nice and comfy in my trailer. 

Thanks Leonard, and Mr. Edison.

Monday, June 10, 2013

Rainy night in Georgia

It is one.  And, it was a rainy day in Georgia.  Tomorrow looks to be the same. 

It rains a lot here and in North Carolina this time of the year, almost every day so far. 

Shouldn't complain - Oklahoma had such drought and so many little ponds and creeks dried up, crops died and farmers and ranchers sold livestock because they couldn't keep them fed and watered (cost of feed and hay went up due to demand and less crop production).

I posted a message on Facebook about how I enjoyed sitting by an open window with it raining and how we can't do that in Oklahoma.  Rain usually comes in at a slant, or during storms, sideways.  Its pretty windy in Oklahoma.  Leaving the windows in your house up will leave you with a wet floor.

Did you know that Oklahoma is the 10th windiest state?  Texas and Kansas are windier.  Of course a couple F5 tornadoes with close to 300 mile per hour winds ups the daily averages, but still its a windy state.
 
Peace, Love and Singing in the Rain

What the book doesn't tell you

I've written a few posts about visiting my friend in Ellijay that lives at the Coosawattee River Resort.  Karen lives on a little strip of land, no wider than a normal RV spot at a campground and there was no room for my trailer there, so I left it at her land just outside of town and slept in the van.

I'd found that there was a phantom draw on my battery power that was depleting my battery within a day of getting it fully charged.  I had the battery tested twice at 2 different Wal Marts and they assured me it was still a good battery, and that it just needed charged up.  Which I did daily.

Anyway, Karen, Robert and I all read the manual trying to figure out just where the draw might be.  I called Jayco, the manufacturer of my trailer and they gave me the name of a repair place about 30 miles away, but it was Memorial Day weekend and so I was going to wait until Tuesday to take it in.  I even bought a second battery and a generator just so I didn't get caught somewhere without any source of power. 

Quite by accident, when Robert was wiring the second battery to the trailer, he touched the little box thingy attached to the bottom of the trailer tongue that the break away brake control line plugs into and it was very hot.  It seems that even when the trailer was unhooked, if the line was not plugged in, the trailer was doing what it was supposed to do and applying the brakes.  So for days, it sat there, going nowhere, with the brakes being applied.  Robert plugged the line back into the box and sure enough, within an hour the box had cooled down and the meter quit showing a phantom draw.

This would have been good information to have in the manual though we concentrated on the parts that had to do with the electrical appliances and never even considered the braking system.  Another lesson learned.

Peace, Love and Happy Accidents


Sunday, June 9, 2013

Practice makes perfect - well....

I successfully unhooked all the trailer's hookups and hooked up to the van by myself.  It only took 4 attempts at backing up to get the hitch and ball in the same place (very important to hauling a trailer down the road).

I'm feeling less like a newbie and have made several mistakes that I've learned from.  I understand this is a valuable tool - learning from your mistakes.

Will spend this week in Jasper then head back up to Brasstown, NC to teach.

Peace, Love and Confidence

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Fear

At Campbell folk school most of the students are retired folks.

On our name tags it tells our state of residence and what class were taking. When. People read Oklahoma, of course I get storm questions.  But when I tell them I,m a full time RVer they ask me if I'm not afraid to travel alone.

No, I say.  And they then try their best to convince me that a wise and prudent person would be afraid.  What about my family, they ask. My daughter is fine with my decision, I say. So now they're not only sure I'm not playing with a full deck, surely my child is also not wise and prudent otherwise she would convince me to not live this life. .  

Some people turn a pale shade of gray with envy and others say why not live my best life anyway I can. (I like talking to those folk)

I just smile but may soon. Pretend I still have a home in OK just to not give the fear mongers fodder.

NO. I am not afraid to travel alone.   I wish you were traveling with me. 

Peace and prudence to you all