24/7 Chat About Anything

[Qxxx]

I see the weather in Yuma has finally cooled off, and next week's forecast is sunny and mid-70s. Yea. Perfect weather to work on all of your projects, crofter/Sue. November is such a gloomy month in the southwest, lol.

 

[Qxxx]

... but I love the look of the very burnable yurt with a plastic roof! LOL

TA, here is some info on fire codes for yurts. Also mentions a company named [font=Raleway, sans-serif]California Yurts [/font]in Ukiah, just down the road.

https://www.yurtpeople.com/fire-code-homes/

 

[maki2]

That is great news if the weather pattern has changed to 70s in the southern Arizona. I do want to head further south now. I have been enjoying my mushroom country fall experience but would like  warm, dry sunny but not too hot of days.
Steady rain here last night and this morning. No hikes for me today or chats with other campers. But I will later today share a fun photo I took yesterday after I get it downsized.

But first to beat back the gloom I will mske coffee and an omlette. I have some cheddar jalapeno muffins to go with it. Westport WA has a great locally owned grocery store with a bakery right in the store. Lots of specialty breads to choose from. The muffin tin sized bread, a bag of a dozen, seemed a good choice for A nomad. Good with peanut butter, good with breakfast and good with hot soup too. They have a very nice texture. Not a sweet muffin style, these are yeast bread.

 

[maki2]

Working on wiring up my RV converter panel this afternoon. Could not figure out why the built in battery charger built into the converter was not charging. I simply could not understand that one aspect of their wiring diagram. Which has had me procrastinating that task. Fortunately they had some photos on their website showing actual wires hooked up and that cleared up the mystery. Not the exact same model I have but it is pretty much the same for all of them for that one aspect of the wiringl. Now that I know for sure what hooks to what at least I can get it done and it won't take very long to do. Guess I will stay here at this campground for one more day and do some more of that "get it done" on my 120v wiring stuff before I head south. It want it simple to use my generator to change my battery or run AC stuff by plugging the cord into the side of my travel trailer.

The weather is another day of dreck for this Friday but it is going to be nice for driving on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Always more pleasant to do a drive along the coast with a bit of sunshine lighting up the sky

Looking forward to trying out some of that BLM camping time where the sun likes to shine. But I will then have to start bugging my friend Don to get my solar panel tilting arms and slides fabricated and shipped to me.

 

[maki2]

Lovely sunny day, barely a breeze. Staying at this campground tonight and tomorrow night.  The weather was nice enough to get out on the beach. With the low cloud cover gone I discovered there are 4 wind turbines on a hill about a mile away taking advatage of the winds from the Pacific. But they were barely moving today. 

Hope you all have a pleasant weekend.

 

[highdesertranger]

NO POLITICS, JEEZ .

I deleted a few posts

highdesertranger

 

[maki2]

I don't own a crystal ball, I can't read palms, I am not psychic. I have no idea what will happen to camping rules on any federal, state or private lands. Not this year or in any future years. None of us knows that with any certainty. It is all just speculation to say otherwise as there are way too many variables involved.

 

[maki2]

Now that it is dark I was ab le to test my wiring up of the converter unit as regards getting the smart charger unit in it functioning when p,ugged into source for AC power. In this case shorepower in the state park campground. I could tell by the battery staus on my solar controller when it jumped to a reading of 100% that the smart charger in the converter is indeed now actively charging my AGM house battery. Tomorrow I will go get some gas and hook my
 little Honda i1000 generator to the AC input and make sure that will work for when I am off grid.

My friend Don confirmed that he will try to get started on my solar panel tilt arms this coming week. With just one 150 watt panel I will be needing to tilt it at this time of year to get more watts out of the panel so I have enough reseve in my house battery to run the 12v blower for my heater at night.

Lots of stuff to do yet to finish my build and make the days go easier for a dose of that "easy living".

 

[crofter]

...November is such a gloomy month in the southwest, lol.

Haha, 365 days in the sun. Winter visitors are getting here, so I am staying in right now to avoid all the 14 day germs and other mishaps. Election day fun included bingewatching The Last Kingdom a pretty messy series, sorry its not G rated. Like a chess game, everyone ends up at their assigned spot eventually. Makes our process of change look pretty vanilla. 

My other pastime has been trying to get monthly income to appear. Not enough magic to get that to happen. All in all life is good.  -crofter

 

[travelaround]

Hi there. Living in the van again. Living in a burned neighborhood with feral cats my only companions, but they are skittish. I'm parked in front of my homesite... 3rd or 4th night now... I've lost count. Trying to find a local rental that FEMA will pay for... maybe same RV park my daughter is in..

My cat did not show up. What I like about parking in this neighborhood right now is that it is dark and quiet. Most houses nearby burned and those house lights.. no longer there. Not a cheerful landscape to see everyone's rubble but I got used to it quickly enough.

I walk across the street to feed the cats in Connie's driveway but can't do much cat hunting because burned or not it is private property that people should not enter or roam around on.

Today I finally got a replacement 12v cord for my refrigerator.. connected it in the cargo trailer. Hope the solar in winter is enough.. probably won't be.. this solar panel is very small. I'm thinking of going to Weed next week to rent a hotel room one night to get a shower. I can turn the receipt in to FEMA for reimbursement.

 

[crofter]

Hi there.  Living in the van again. Living in a burned neighborhood with feral cats my only companions, but they are skittish. I'm parked in front of my homesite... 3rd or 4th night now... I've lost count. Trying to find a local rental that FEMA will pay for... maybe same RV park my daughter is in..

My cat did not show up. What I like about parking in this neighborhood right now is that it is dark and quiet. Most houses nearby burned and those house lights.. no longer there. Not a cheerful landscape to see everyone's rubble but I got used to it quickly enough....

That is some tough duty, TA. Makes just bein broke sound pretty good. Hang in there, after the rain the grass will pop up again.  -crofter

 

[maki2]

travelaround it sure would be handy in terms of helping out your daughter if you can stay in the same RV park. Plus you will save on gas money too.

I can't imagine how upsetting it must be to park in front of your charred home and land with all the lovely green shrubs and trees gone as well as the mobile home gone. Poor kitties, especially if they were not living feral before the fire. Too much loss and devastation there.

Feels chilly here tonight, I lowered my popup top. Won't be very many more days until I make it into northern California. Unless of course I find someplace I just really feel I want to linger at in Oregon. I do want to spend some time checking out the town and area around Brookings if I can. But much depends on the weather and my funds. The mood of the nation is messing up my Etsy store sales this week. November is usually hopping busy for me, its not totally dead this week but it is pretty darned slow for a first week in November. Last month was way busier.

 

[highdesertranger]

ok let me explain something just because the title says chat about anything doesn't mean you can chat about subjects that are not allowed on the forum.

I deleted more posts.

reminder, don't respond to posts that break the rules and don't quote them.

one more time, NO POLITICS. next person that posts something that is even remotely political is going to get warning points and/or put on moderation.

highdesertranger

 

[maki2]

At present I have a daily self perpetuating system of creating wet wipes for cleaning task.  Every morning I use paper towels to soak up the moisture on the four non electric dehumidifiers in my travel trailer. Those units are made of glass so its easy to remove the accumulated water from the surfaces. Then those wet towels go into zip lock bags. They allmozt always manage to to get used up by the end of the day

I do have reflective window coveroings but until I get all my window trim put in place they are not airtight so I do still have some condensation on the glass and metal window frames. Of course the reflective foam backed coverings will never actually achieve 100% airtight.

 

[travelaround]

Cleaned up my van a bit this afternoon including mopping. I used vinegar.. trying to keep it natural as someday I'll have to rinse out that mop somewhere.. not sure where. No water nearby here and don't want to dip it in the river. Can just imagine someone seeing me do that and having a fit.

I'm likely to leave town tomorrow. Yes... haven't told my daughter yet but want to find a hotel out there... to clean up and do laundry. The only laundromat here is in pathetic condition. It was so nice to have my own washer and dryer for 8 months. I haven't had my own since about 2005. Then only had it a short time. My daughter also just bought a brand new washer and dryer set a few months before the fire. All burned now.

Van life is going well. Wish I had less stuff or more organized stuff in my cargo trailer. I need to work on making it more livable in there. It has better insulation.

 

[Qxxx]

I am very happy today, I have to say.
We are predicted to get, in just another day,
the first rain in many weeks,
though it may come down as snow,
Yea, yea, and hooray.

 

[Qxxx]

Wish I had less stuff or more organized stuff in my cargo trailer.

Where, pray tell, is the problem here? The nice thing about being on the road is, ya gots lotsa time to think on how organize things. Plus there are dumpsters everywheres.

What I have found is that you cannot figure out everything ahead of time, but as you go along, things tend to find where they naturally belong.

 

[maki2]

Yeah progress made. My 120v outlets are all now functioning. I want  to add in a couple more for convenience later on but not until my cabinet end panfels are fabricated. ThT means I can plug my generator into the side of the trailer. When off grid and run my laptop, printer and vinyl cutter without a big clutter of cords on the floor that has been driving me nuts the last few months. My fridge also has its own a 120 wall plug socket to power it when I am on AC power.

Next up hooking up more of the 12v sockets for device charging off the house battery.

Thinking I will stay one more night in this campground as I need to stop in Warrenton, Oregon on Monday at Platt elecctric. I need a 2 pole 15 amp square D circuit breaker and could not get one at the local hardware store or at the Home Depot in the town a half hour to the north east. But I know Platt is very likely to have one in stock and its not out of my way my heading south. The extra day just means more time to get to that 12v wiring. The more I get done  with that aspect of my build the easier it will be for free or low cost, off grid, camping in Oregon, California and Arizona.

Going to be chilly tonight and tomorrow night but not quite to freezing and I am warm and cozy enough in my trailer. It is colder because Sunday and Monday will bring more sunshine.

Time for hot chocolate though , laced with a small amount of rum in a celebration for important  jobs finally accomplished today. Time for a video too

 

[nature lover]

We have had some of the most wonderful weather here in Central PA. It doesn’t seem like November and as I said before if it was this way every day all winter long I wouldn’t go south. I’m feeling the pressure between being brave and on my own and leaving some dear friends and support behind. These have been dark days emotionally and bright days weatherwise. All my problems are in my head including my brain tumor. My biggest struggle now is living with myself and my disorganization. I know that in order to Live in a van efficiently I have to have a place for everything and everything in its place. It takes me about a week to get things so screwed up that I can hardly live in it anymore. I’ll need discipline and discernment. I have friends that want to help so bad and give me things and they don’t understand at all that I just can’t take extras of some things because it wastes and clutters space or take things that aren’t going to be used at all. If I had storage space in a bricks and sticks I would gladly pack away extras of this and that in case of need. But for now one of everything I need is enough and Walmart and Amazon are my back up. I’m thinking of making a list of the things that I need extras of. Food is one and batteries or another all of my lighting is done with AAs and AAA‘s and at this point I don’t have enough rechargeable’s although I have some. The investment in rechargeables is three or four times the regular price but in the end much more cost efficient Friends try to be good but very few of them understand what it’s like to try to organize your life into a 6 x 10‘ vehicle. If that sounds like I’m blaming my problems on other people you’re right I don’t want to blame it on myself, that’s no fun.

I look out on this pond in this beautiful weather and think boy wouldn’t it be great to jump in. I don’t know what the water temperature is now but I’m not jumping in. That’ll wait till I get to Florida then I’ll jump in. I’m having a hard time Deciding what color of thong I have to buy to swim in Florida with. That was a joke not many of you may get but I’m a fat balding man 275 pounds with a beard down to my navel. I dress very conservatively like my Amish friends and a thong was just a joke. If you can visualize me wearing that thong you will not sleep for the next five nights at least.

It is nice to live without a schedule but in another sense if you don’t have a schedule you don’t have get anything done. I have planned for Wednesday the 11th to be launching day and as it gets closer I see that it’s not going to get done. So now I’m trying to determine whether I’m intentionally making things last longer to stay or whether I’m being affected by uncontrolled circumstances. I think one of the major things is emotionally separating myself from this area where I had a wife and family and some sense of happiness. Launching out and doing what I’ve always wanted to do sounds great in many ways but it’s almost like giving into the fact that she’s gone. Realistically I have to face the fact that she is gone and get on with living. Guess I’m just boring your folks with this stuff but this is what comes pouring out of my head.

God bless the nomads and please God get inside our heads and heal our minds.

 

[maki2]

Nature lover my favorite go to lights are rechargeable. I have a pair of Luci lights that rechagre with solar. Plus I have 4 led lights that recharge via USB. Those 4 are 4 inche long. They come as a set of 2 at Home Depot. I love that I can move then around  to where I need them including workin inside of cabinets and other tight spots. Easy to charge them while driving or off my house battery.

I did invest in a fair amount of recharveable AAA and AA but. Now these little 4 inch LED have become my most used cabin lights. 4 is good because I have enough that if one runs out of juice I still have plenty of light left.

I screwed in a few steel fender washers here and there where there was no handy steel structure to stick the magnets onto


The 4 inch lights link to Home Depot https://www.homedepot.com/p/Commercial-Electric-4-in-LED-Portable-Under-Cabinet-Task-Light-2-Pack-NCL10-20/308724030y