Solstice time......

 7:33 am - Wednesday - December 22nd - Anza Borrego Desert, CA - 44° F, 35% humidity, wind - CALM.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 70° F.  On this date in 2018 TLE and I visited the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, KY....↴

After 3 straight days of hiking and biking we took off Tuesday to just enjoy where we are, and sometimes that is just enough.  Of course, whenever we haven't ridden our bikes for a while there are always minor tune ups and/or adjustments necessary, so I spent part of my morning adjusting the front disc brake on TLE's eBike, and then checking the air pressure in my front and rear air shocks on the Haibike SDURO, as well as adjusting the travel on my adjustable seat post.  I also spent time checking the fluid levels in the Beetle (coolant/oil/window washer).

Next I turned my attention to refreshing the ground connections on our 2,000 watt inverter.  I have noticed a voltage drop over the past few times we used it, and figured those grounds were more victims of the salt laden air of Coastal Oregon.  There are three grounds in all, and each of them did need to be cleaned.  Once that was done I turned on the inverter to check my results, and found each leg had a voltage increase of 5%, or more bringing them each closer to 120 VAC.  The acceptable voltage range for appliances runs from a high of 124-126 VAC down to a low of 106 VAC.....lower, or higher than that you run the risk of damaging your appliances (A/C, TV's, microwave, toaster oven, etc.)  Our Heart inverter is quite old, and Heart was bought out years ago by Xantrex, so I'm sure it is probably time to consider replacing the Heart with a more modern/efficient inverter.  As you may, or may not know, most modern inverters are combined with charger/converters.  You can still by charger/converters separate from inverters, and visa versa.  I like having them separate, because if you have a combo unit, and one of the components goes bad you usually have to replace the whole unit, and they are quite expensive.  Additionally, if I were to convert over to a combo unit I would have a lot of rewiring to do.

Finally I got out my spray bottle of lithium grease to apply to each of our window awnings as they have been squeaking more loudly each time we deploy them.  Again that wonderful salt laden air of Coastal Oregon, right?  Yup!  I love puttering around like I did Tuesday just taking care of small issues....the time just seems to melt away.  Speaking of time Tuesday was the first day of Winter, aka: Winter solstice meaning the daylight portion of Tuesday was the shortest of the year....we had just shy of 10 hours of sunlight......the days only get longer from here.  

It was relatively overcast most of Tuesday, and by sunset time there were a lot of clouds on the western horizon.....sometimes this means an amazing sunset, and other times, like Tuesday, not so much......

.....as the sun dipped below the western mountains the sunset potential was great, but alas this was all we got.  With cloud cover we get warmer overnight temps, and the last couple of low temps have been in the low to mid 40's, meaning our house batteries fair much better overnight.  We've been waking up each day with the batteries hovering around 90-92% rate of charge....not bad.  With, or without amazing sunsets, and sunrises this is an amazing place to live.....rent free I might add.  We are surrounded by nature, and have an amazingly large 360° horizon, not to mention the millions of stars overhead at night.  Not a bad way to live......not bad at all.  😊😊😊

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