So much to do.....

7:54 am - Wednesday - October 23rd - WW -  49° F, humidity 54%, wind 4 mph out of the northeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 81° F.  On this date in 2020 TLE and I were in Bandon, OR visiting some of our old haunts from our Cape Blanco Lighthouse days back in 2014 and 2015.....

Bandon Coffee Cafe

Fish tacos at Tony's Crab Shack.....best ever!

When we arrived at The Wilson Wilderness (TWW from this point on) Monday we quickly parked in what we knew would not be our permanent site, but we were tired, and I didn't want to drop the trailer so I could position the Newell in a better orientation.  When we are boondocking, and relying upon our solar panels to provide our electricity, we like to have the Newell face due west so our 4 roof mounted solar panels will get sun all day long.  We awoke to temps in the high 40's and ran our gas furnaces for about 45 minutes before the sun began to hit the Newell.

Once we had some coffee in our systems we began to get organized.  I first backed the Newell and trailer up about 100' so I could drop the trailer, then move the Newell to a better position.....

....which put us in front of the house.  This will not be our permanent position, but will serve us well for the next few weeks.  I'll need to use the Ford loader to better level the site where the Newell will be parked until next April, and there are a few other things that needed to be done.  While I was maneuvering the Newell Charles used his pickup to position the trailer next to the site where the Newell will eventually reside......

....the Newell will eventually be backed into the area to the left of the trailer facing due west.

Next it was time to tilt the solar panels, which took about 20 minutes, then we began to assemble our Bluetti power station on the driver's side of the coach......

.....our plan is to continuously power the Newell with these three batteries which total over 6,200 watts of power.  It will be like we are plugged into an electrical pedestal.  To the Bluetti system we have attached three 100 watt solar panels to charge them up each day.  As I write we got through the night with the coach totally powered all night long, and still had 41% left in the battery bank....perfect!!!  The next experiment will be to use our electric heaters Thursday morning to heat the coach.  Frankly, the Bluetti system is working better than I expected, and now that $4,000+ I spent seems to be well worth the expense.

TLE and I spent part of the day unpacking the trailer, so it can be used as my shop once again, and we've still got a ways to go on that, but we're getting there.  Later in the day I installed some indoor/outdoor carpet on the deck of the house, and a runner down the stairs....that turned out pretty nicely. Additionally I put up our two market umbrellas to provide shade on the deck in the afternoon. Eventually a patio cover will be added, and the deck extended, but for now it is much more welcoming.....

....around 11:30 am we drove over to Grand Canyon Caverns to help Charles and Phyllis take on 1800 gallons of water ($9 for 1800 gallons!), so we could learn the process and do it ourselves when we need more water, and they are not here...

.....it takes about 3 minutes to fill each tank.  It is a 25 minute drive each way, most of which is on the Primitive Road.  Once we hit pavement it is just another mile to the water station.  We were home by 1pm and doing more work.  By the time 5 pm came around TLE and I were beat.  I took a shower, and then we headed into the house for dinner with Charles and Phyllis.

There is so much to do here, and all we can do is focus on one thing at a time, and keep moving forward.  This is exactly the kind of project I love, and I know this winter will be amazing! 

By the way, my sister-in-law took a video of us entering the property on Monday.....

....TLE also took some pictures of us crossing a cattleguard....

Thanks for stopping by!