Battery wars....continued

7:20 am - Sunday - April 5th - Wittmann, AZ - 50° F, 56% humidity, wind 6 mph out of the north by northeast......clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 77° F.  Here is a throwback picture from this date in 2017......

On this date in 2017 we were walking on the beach near 

Pismo Beach, CA and staying at the local Oceano Elks Lodge

When last we left off one of our 8d batteries had given up the ghost......

Deceased 8d battery

....and my friend Tom had ordered two new 8d batteries from O'Reilly's in Wickenburg, AZ which is about 22 miles to the north via Highway 60.  Around 11 am Tom and I loaded to two old 8d batteries into the rear of their Honda CRV and made the drive into Wickenburg.  As you all must know any quoted price on a new battery includes the requirement you must give to them your old battery, or core, which is why we hauled those old batteries 22 miles into Wickenburg, plus who wants old batteries sitting in your garage for years on end, right?  The quoted price was $195 per 8d battery, plus tax.  The total came to $430 for the two batteries.  We were back home about 12:30 pm and proceeded to unload the new batteries, but before installing them Tom helped me.....or should I say I helped him install a new positive battery clamp on one of my cables.  Years ago when we first got the Newell I had to replace this clamp with an off the shelf one that is attached using a screw clamp.  This is not ideal, but I did not own, and still do not own a hydraulic crimper.  Tom owns such a tool, so we removed the old clamp, and crimped on a brand new one.......

New positive crimped clamp installed

.....once the new clamp was installed we proceeded to load the new batteries onto their sliding trays, then reattached the positives and grounds to their respective terminals......

.....and we were done.  On top of that everything worked just as it should! We should now be good for another 8-10 years on our house batteries.  Just as it was when we owned our sticks and bricks home unexpected repairs crop up from time in our home one wheels, and we deal with them and then get back to living the nomadic dream.  When we arrived in Wittmann on March 4th replacing our two 8d house batteries was the last thing on our collective minds.  Of course, if we had to have a battery sulfate, we could not have been in a better location to deal with its replacement.

Once I had put away all my tools, and supplies I cleaned up, and then took a LONG nap.....as you know I take a lot of what I would call 'cat' naps, but I haven't had one of those LONG naps in a very long time.  When I awoke it was after 3:30 pm....I must have been tired.

Our Wittmann weather has been absolutely idyllic the past 10 days, and that trend continued on Real Saturday.  We continue to be.....wait for it......we continue to be asymptomatic.    Current Arizona stats are: 2,019 positive tests (there are 7.2 million people in Arizona) out of 27,160 total tests.  A total of 267 people have been hospitalized over the course of the last few weeks, but we do not know how many are currently in the hospital.  There are 41 reported deaths from the Chinese virus over the last three weeks.....for a little perspective....in Arizona 3 people die every day in auto accidents, so over the same 3 week period 63 have died in auto accidents.  A little more 'micro' perspective.....I had a greater chance of being killed in a car accident Saturday than I had dying from the COVID-19 virus.

For a 'macro' perspective the national numbers are as follows: Out of almost 1.7 million tests performed there have been 307,000 positive tests.  Out of those 307,000 positives there have been 8,300+ deaths to date out of a population of 330 million.  Of those 8,300 deaths 3,600 are in the state of NY, and most of those in just three counties.  The source for these numbers, and the ones I report each day is COVIDTRACKING.COM/data, which is updated numerous times daily.

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