A pajama kind of day.....

 7:57 am - Monday - January 13th - TWW - 16° F, wind 8 mph out of the east by northeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 43° F.  That was one COLD night!  On this date in 2013 TLEW and I were enjoying another Cedar Key, FL sunset.....

....we were there over 5 weeks and I do not believe there was ever a less than spectacular sunset.  We took enough sunset photos to fill calendars for years....in fact one of our friends we met there did just that, and sold them on Amazon!

I guess I shouldn't make a big fuss about how cold the weather has been the last week, or so, since most of the country is under snow cover right now.  I've see snow pictures from Texas, Georgia, Alabama, and many other places one would normally not associate with snow covered landscapes.  Meanwhile Southern California is burning to the ground....literally....go figure.  Anyway, earlier this morning the temp hit a low of 16° F.  That is a new low for us at TWW, but not the lowest temp we have experienced in the Newell.  The winter we spent at the Grand Canyon (2017/18 @ 7,300' elevation) we saw overnight temps as low as 5° F on many an occasion, and single digits on many other occasions.

Phyllis and Charles left for their drive back to Phoenix around 10 am, and we were all alone, once again.  I really had no aspirations for Sunday, big, or small, except to watch a few NFL wild card playoff games, remain in my pajamas, and stay warm.  There were three playoff games scheduled for Sunday, and the first two were really not very competitive.  The final result in those games became obvious before the end of the first half.  On the other hand, the night game between Tampa Bay and Washington came down to the last minutes tied at 20-20.  Washington won on a last second field goal, which hit the right upright on the goalpost, and caromed to the left, and through the uprights for the winning score.

Late in the afternoon I started up Phyllis' Newell to air it up so I could install the rear tire covers she bought.  I had installed the front ones a couple of days ago, but the rear wheel wells of the coach were too low, and I could not get the tire covers on the tires.  Once that was done I was done for the day.

Along with the installation of the two 300 amp hour Cloud Energy lithium batteries, and new Victron charge controller (when it arrives), I am going to rewire the 4 solar panels on our roof from parallel to series to get more wattage out them during the short charging window we have each day.  I should be able to at least double the input wattage, if not more, by making that simple change.  I really don't know why the original installers didn't wire them that way to begin with, but it is what it is.

Each morning while I am composing my latest blogosphere offering I see (I can see the array from my desk in the salon out the large driver side salon window) the Eco-Worthy Dual Axis solar tracker begin to tilt from the neutral position to face the rising sun in the east.  It is like clockwork.  The sun hits the sun sensor on the array around 8:20 am each day (right now), and the array begins to tilt to maximize the absorption of solar energy.  It goes from ZERO to 350 watts quickly, and within an hour it will be closer to 600 watts.  The highest wattage I've seen so far is 630 watts at peak.  Every single day since I rewired the six 100 watt panels into series we have gotten back to 100% on our Bluetti AC200MAX battery bank anywhere from 11 am to 1 pm, depending on how depleted the battery bank became overnight.  Most mornings, like this morning, the battery bank is at 75%, or greater.  By the time we finish making our morning coffees using our electric pot it's into the mid to high 60's, and then the recharging process begins.  I haven't been using the Predator to charge first thing in the morning most of the time.  I am only using the Predator to charge the house batteries for about 1/2 hour from 10:30 am to 11 am each day just as the sun finally begins to light up the roof panels.  I run the Predator again in the evening around 30 minutes to top off the Bluetti battery bank before going to bed....that's it.  There have been a couple of exceptions to this rule when the house batteries got down into the 60's overnight, but for the most part we're sticking to the 60 minutes run time per day.  Both of the Bluettis are far exceeding my expectations for durability, and consistency.  I've only turned either of them off once, or twice since we've been here at TWW.

We've been running the Predator on its gasoline option for the past week as our 120 gallon propane tank was down to 30%.  We get a propane delivery this Monday (today), and we'll switch back to the propane option then as it is way cheaper than gasoline.  As I write Monday morning we still have 20% in the tank.

Oh, by the way, I did remain in my pajamas all day long.....thanks for stopping by!