Tent Skills

Recently my lovely wife and I loaned our six person L. L. Bean tent to a church group. There were several tents needed. They had to be set up ahead of the group’s arrival. So far so good. 

With years of tenting practice under our belts we set up our tent in about 15 minutes. We weren’t in a hurry. After that we helped a second group sort out the mess they made with their tent. That took much longer. 

Normally when camping we have the whole camp ready in about a half hour -right down to the bedding, kitchen area, comfy chairs and solar electricity. Plenty of people with RVs take longer than that. 

Actually, one of our fun activities in a campground is to watch the new RV owner try to park and set up their rigs. We’ve seen tree collisions, picnic tables run over, power and water poles smooshed and sewer lines crushed. Could we help them? Maybe, but I’m not going to take the chance. Emotions run high and spouses speak nasty words to each other. One couple made such a spectacle of themselvesb they later went around apologizing to other campers. 

Typically most people upgrade from a tent to some sort of trailer or motorhome. We enjoyed the heck out of camping out of a converted ambulance. When that was no longer reliable we sold it and went back to tents. Why didn’t we upgrade to something else?

Time and money were big reasons. A tow behind trailer needs a vehicle capable of safely pulling it down the highway. Few people are smart enough to get a small trailer that can be pulled by a normal vehicle. Instead they get a heavier trailer with more bells and whistles. That requires a sizable tow vehicle with the added initial cost plus on-going expenses. Motorhomes are horrible on fuel, are high maintenance and costly to insure. 

We don’t want to sell our house to live in an RV full time.

Here’s the thing about tents. Get a good one. While they can be pricey there are often sales. We bought our L. L. Bean tent off season from one of their discount outlets for half price. 

So what do you do if it rains for days on end? Go to a hotel for a few days. With the money saved by tenting a hotel room now and then won’t break the budget. 

-Sixbears

Well that’s going to be fun

Looks like our election is going to be very interesting this fall. Here’s a thought: just like Joe won’t be running it’s entirely possible Donald won’t be either. At his age anything can happen -just like what we saw with Joe. 

But enough of politics for now. I think I stirred up the hornet’s nest enough. 

Speaking of a hornet’s nest, a good friend was mowing her lawn on a riding mower and hit a ground hornet’s nest. She was stung repeatedly then fell off her mower and broke her arm. That’s what messing with a hornet’s nest will get you. In her case I wish it was only a metaphor. 

Weather here has been very wet with intense storms. A trip to VT right now involves some long detours to avoid damaged bridges and blocked roads. I’m very careful on my scooter these days. Where there once road shoulders there are three or four foot ditches. There are parts of the road to my place that are crumbling into the river. It’s like we now have spring floods several times during the summer. 

I’ve ordered a backup battery pack for my cpap. Right now I run it off my solar electric system. That’s good backup for the grid but lately I feel I need backups for my backups. While it’s still possible to turn money into useful things I might as well take advantage. Money always felt kinda make believe to me. 

Not a bad time to round out your preps. There may be some civil unrest in our future and I know there will be nasty weather issues. 

-Sixbears

Experiment

In my last post I made of point of pushing some people’s buttons. It was very educational. Traffic to the site jumped 40 – 50%. 

If that sort of thing was important to me I’d be hitting those emotional buttons all the time. News and  pretend news sites are aware of what drives traffic. They know upsetting people is good for business. Never forget that news is a business and their main focus is to make money. 

The “pay” from this site is insignificant and that’s not a problem. I certainly don’t do this to make money. That frees me to say whatever I want to say. 

-Sixbears

Like it or not

This is going to tick off a lot of people but this is how I see the election going down. 

It almost doesn’t matter who the Democrats run against Trump. The Democrat is going to win it. 

If you are in the Trump bubble you won’t see it. He has a solid core group of people who’ll vote for him no matter what. They are also very vocal. They make so much noise that the Trump crowd seems bigger than it is. 

There are more people who will not vote for Trump no matter what. That ranges from never Trumper Republicans to Bernie Sanders liberals. Heck, some folks just won’t vote for a convicted felon. 

Expect a lot of right wing election denial in November, but there will be a Democrat President come January. 

Do what you want with this info, but be aware this is not an invite for a debate. If you really want to live in a country run by an authoritarian I hear Russia has a labor shortage. 

-Sixbears

Good Timing

Yesterday I serviced my solar electric system. One of the things I do after topping off the distilled water in the batteries is to charge them up from the grid. Because of that I went to bed with a fully charged battery bank.

So I get up in the morning and do my regular routine. It took about an hour to notice that the grid was down. It just happened that everything electrical I used the first hour was powered by my solar electric system. 

We had a storm during the night that took down a lot of trees. One of them, just a few hundred feet down the road, took out the power lines. The resulting fire also fried the Internet cables. The road was closed for a good part of the morning. 

I had a nice talk with one of the firefighters who was on the scene. He told me that most of the roads that had been repaired got washed out again during the night. Such is life here in the New England rain forest.

-Sixbears

House battery maintenance

My solar electric system is old school in a lot of ways. There have been upgrades. I updated the charge controller and the inverter. Some parts, like the panels themselves, have been in service for over 20 years. 

While I’ve changed out the battery bank a couple of times I keep going back to lead acid. I would have thought by now that I would have something better. Lithium batteries are an upgrade but the price is prohibitive. 

Besides price lead acid has some other advantages. They can take a fair amount of abuse. I made a lot of mistakes with my first battery bank and still got 10 years out of them. The big thing to remember with lead acid is to keep the cells topped off with distilled water. Never let them get to the point where the plates are exposed to the air. That one simple item is critical for years of service.

Another big battery saver is to never let them sit in an uncharged condition. Ideally, never let the charge get below 50%. If it gets to that level but it’s early morning I’ll let the panels charge them up. If it’s dark or very cloudy I’ll top off the battery bank from the grid. Should the grid be down I’ll go into serious conservation mode. Eventually the panels will bring the batteries out of the danger zone. 

I’ve just topped off the distilled water so the batteries won’t have to be checked for three or four months.

-Sixbears

Scooter Cannonball Training

With all the weirdness going on lately it felt good to get out on the scooter. Only part of the afternoon was free but I did knock out 150 miles. That included a couple of rest stops to cool down from the heat. 

The previous owner had purchased a nice top box for the back of the scoot. That looked great and all, but it had some downsides. One big issue was that the darn thing would pop open without warning, scattering my stuff all over the road. A bungee cord over the top usually stopped that from happening . . . usually. 

While it doesn’t look as slick I replaced the top box with a milk crate. That actually worked out great on my trip. One big advantage is that the crate easily holds a 2.5 gallon gas can, plus a whole lot of other stuff. The top box only really fit a 1.25 gallon can. 

My route took me all over the back roads of ME. Almost every time I use the motorcycle GPS I discover something new. Also, it’s one thing to mess around with the settings from the comfort of home. Making adjustments on the fly when hot and uncomfortable is something else. Watching videos from previous events really brought home the fact that I have to know all the ins and outs of my GPS. 

It looks like I can count on a ride to the start of the event. My daughter should be available to load the scoot on her truck and drive me across the country from NH to OR. That’s plan A. With the nature of these things it’s prudent to have a plan B and C. 

-Sixbears