We arrived in Vernon yesterday and spent a few hours with Brad's brother (who I will call Bob, which is an inside joke so it works perfectly). We went for supper and had a good long visit and while he was hoping we would stay on his property, we found the land was too sloped and opted for the local Superstore.
We had been having trouble finding Propane, clearly we should have filled it in Calgary because there wasn't any in Lake Louise, hence why we didn't stay there and continued on to spend the night at a truck stop in Revelstoke. There also wasn't any in Golden which given there are still a fair number of RV's on the road was shocking to us. We stopped at the Superstore upon arrival yesterday in Vernon to dump our tanks at the free dump station in the parking lot and having a quick shower before going to Bob's.
Our dash said it was 31C yesterday... holy hot stuff, we're not used to the heat anymore and poor Robbie has very little experience with it so we're taking extra care with him..
I had just been in the Superstore to buy a more fitting (literally) garbage can and so we were sitting in the front seats chatting when shortly after we noticed a couple walking past. They stopped at the window and said, "Are you Rogue Less Travelled"... whaaa? "Yes"... And we spent the next few hours chatting with readers of the Blog. What a nice surprise that was.
Our first visitors, Brenda & Len
Brenda & Len have been full-time for 6 years, and they have solar so that got us talking about our solar issues and Len seems to have quite a nack for numbers and clearly knows his solar stuff. He agrees the issue is lack of batteries and we'll likely have to upgrade our wiring later on. He also offered the same recommendation as 'Handy Bob', the TM-2025 or TM-2030 monitor because the one that comes with the system doesn't tell you everything you need to know.
Now Brad wants to make me spend more of his money on batteries... (everything we do is always me spending his money - even though its really mine, its just a quirky Archie Bunker thing we do). New readers should check here for details on this reference.
I'm still in shock that people recognized us and had the gumption to come and say so. We had a great visit with them, really enjoyed it. And guys, we really appreciated that you made the effort and offered so much knowledge too. Thank you. We will be going to check their fifth wheel this morning and no doubt have another chin wag.
Now, back to the birthday boy. Guess I'll have to make breakfast and coffee this morning... it's always something... LOL
No idea what we'll be doing today, likely just go to Bob's and spend some time. Bob is clearly having trouble getting around but insists on making the effort regardless, so we'll see where the day takes us.
Time to beautify and get the birthday boy out of bed (he was up in the night but I don't know for how long)...
PS Just realized I didn't update the blog about the solar. We replaced our bulging 2- 12V's with 2-6V's and it is working great, except we don't have enough batteries. Sorry for skipping that part, its been a long couple of days.
It is amazing how many people we can run into in our travels that follow our blog. Nice to be able to chat with people who have been this lifestyle for a long time, always lotsa info to exchange.
ReplyDeleteMore 6 volt batteries is always better
Thanks George
DeleteIt is nice to meet people who you follow or they follow you. In regards to batteries, our coach is bigger than yours so we probably have more than you need ... but we have 10 house 6V batteries and 2 - 12 V cranking batteries with 7 - 140 watt solar panels on the roof. We do have a residential fridge though, which pulls a lot of that power. Because the batteries take up a lot of room we had to switch all of the house batteries to AGM as 4 of them had to go in the "basement" where it would not be vented.
ReplyDeleteThat is a lot of power for sure. We really enjoyed meeting readers and learning from them, I always say it's nice to know I'm not talking to myself when people comment, so to meet readers in person was a real treat.
DeleteThis past year, we went to four AGM gel batteries! Lots of differebde and we are happy ( 2 x 270 watt panels )
ReplyDelete... and I thought we had a lot, 540w beats us everytime. LOL AGM is what we had originally, but having had a lot of expenses recently with the travel etc we opted to do flooded this time but will upgrade again eventually.
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