I'm sailing away

[AbuelaLoca]

Can you give details about portable waste tank and the pump? These sound like things I might want to make my life easier?

 

[masterplumber]

Nice update Jim, I imagine between you and Dragonfly the eating is pretty good around there. ?

 

[Queen]

It all sounds great, Jim. Really enjoy reading about your doings.

 

[jimindenver]

Can you give details about portable waste tank and the pump? These sound like things I might want to make my life easier?

The portable waste tank is 25 gallons and has wheels so that it can be towed in a campground to the dump site. I'll set it in the back of the Expedition and use a 12 volt pump I bought at Harbor Freight to pump the grey water off of a hose fitting on my dump valve. I could get a maciator pump for the black tank except I bag the toilet when I boondock and have no black water. Once at a dump site the tank has a side valve and sewer hose that emptying very fast. I'll put a link to the one I bought but they come as small as 6 gallons. it will allow me to stay somewhere like Ehrenberg for months and not have to move the trailer to dump.

https://www.amazon.com/Barker-25895...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=163D23D9B5RJXQ6B8DZJ

The water pump for the fresh water jugs sits on a 5 gallon drinking water bottle

https://www.amazon.com/Powerful-Ele...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=8YE8KMBKFJ5E90VE9A5V

 

[jimindenver]

Art

Thank you and the back has been doing better. I keep working on ways to make it easier on myself like not unhitching the trailer unless I know I'm staying a week or more.

MP

I didn't do a lot of cooking for the group, mainly some coffee in the morning, some cookies and a few corned beef briskets in the solar ovens. One was for a pot luck and Diane used another solar oven to cook a 4 pound meat loaf. It's nice not firing up the propane ovens when it's hot.

Queen, Thanks and I'm glad you like it. I'm not real exciting but I hear max has a fan club going somewhere.

 

[jimindenver]

I ended up staying in Ehrenberg with Dragonflys group for about a week. Nice people, fun times, I think they are coming up to Cottonwood soon. Bob stopped by the second day surprised to see that I had stayed and asked if he could shoot a video. I said sure after I clean up a bit so you might see more of me sometime if I didn't break his camera.



The sunshade on the awning I came up with when we got the trailer. It's just a queen sheet with clothes line though the seem ran down the slot on the awning.



The sunsets are beautiful as are the sun rises


Here is Bob catching a wonderful rainbow



They say the rainbow ends at a pot of gold but it's just my truck which is really tan colored.

 

[jimindenver]

The trip up to Cottonwood was longer than I thought. I don't know why I considered driving up to get the fridge and then back to Ehrenberg in one day but I'm glad I didn't. after getting the fridge I headed to the National forest and took the first spot I found. The next morning I found out I had parked across the trail from a RC air strip out in the middle of no where.


After trying to find a forum member and failing I stopped at the bottom of road 552. I called it a hole because it ended with three drops and two very tight switchbacks. Very isolated and quiet but without the cell booster and antenna I would have had no internet. The only phone service was Sprint on 3G of all things. I did get one person come down in a Mercedes Sprinter class C. It scrunched a few times on the way down and he said he assumed he could get down there after seeing my trailer was down there but he didn't realize how high it sits off the ground. He scrunched on the way out too.

There was a storm that produced 20 MPH winds. The clouds were so low that it made a great shot of the mountains.



I waited to leave until the trail was dry and a good thing too. I was concentrating on the plumbing so much that I cut the first switchback too tight and felt the trailer sliding off. Luckily the truck was already in 4x4 low and had the weight and power to get the wheels back up on the trail.

Now I'm up top on 549 which sees a bit of traffic now and then from the ATV tours but it also gives wonderful cell signal. A storm up here rocked the trailer even with the stabilizers down. It's a good thing the truck is still hitched up, it and the equalizer bars act as a great anchor in the 30 plus MPH winds.



I can't complain about the sunsets here either.

 

[jimindenver]

You will always see a solar oven out in my sites if not all three. I use them every chance I get. The one thing I can't do is fry with them which brings up the other way I use solar to cook. This is breakfast on solar.



The panels have no problem producing enough to run the smaller burner of this cooktop. They replace the power the Mr coffee uses early on or when I run a pot of water through it for washing dishes. Unfortunately I still have to use the propane stove for my 30 year old toaster.



I wanted to do ribs in the Sun oven but it was too windy and hazy. Instead I fried up some onions, summer squash and beans on the hotplate. I didn't need a whole pot of hot water to wash so little so I wiped out the pan and put it back on the hot plate with a bit of water in it. It took minutes to get the water hot enough to wash the pan and silverware I had used. Again all powered by the panels without the batteries ever knowing it.

Last thing is thank you to Bob for letting me have his sun oven that he no longer had room for. It was the original while mine was a cheap clone which now resides with Dragonflyinthesky. I hope she enjoys learning how to use it like I did.

 

[Queen]

Nice shots, Jim, and I like the cooking ones too. I keep wondering how to make toast on our electric stove, forgot about those gizmos, thanks for the reminder.

 

[slynne]

Is that toaster a rack you put near a propane burner or do you put it in a propane oven? I can't quite tell. Either way, what a good idea! Where would one get one of those?

 

[ArtW]

Rack atop a burner, Walmart had them in my area, in the camping department, I might even get one, one day
Beautiful shots, Jim, wish I was out there

 

[jimindenver]

slynne

It sits atop the burner and holds 4 sandwich size pieces of bread. Toast one side to your liking and flip for the other. The only thing I dislike about it is it takes longer than the eggs do. Another way of doing it is to get a three pound metal coffee can, remove both ends and string heavy bare wire across one of them or set a cooling rack on it to hold the piece of bread. Set that over the burner on low and flip as needed. It only does one piece at a time but uses the flame more efficiently.

 

[Gary68]

jimnotindenver?
stinkyjim?
jammin jimmy and the buttercups?
solar oven jim?
the tall guy?
denverjim?

 

[ArtW]

I've actually toasted directly on the burner, that's tricky, and the toasting is never close to even lol

 

[Queen]

We could get a chef-y and use a butane torch for toast!

 

[shadowmoss]

Cook some bacon. Put bread in skillet in bacon grease, toast. Flip, toast other side in what is left of the grease. You can cook bacon, reserve some of the fat, cook eggs, add fat back in and toast bread. I haven't done this is a long time. May be time for bacon, eggs and toast tomorrow.

 

[jimindenver]

I know some people fry their toast, unfortunately I never developed the taste for bacon.

 

[jimindenver]

Queen, here is some cooking for you.

First I did a rack of baby back ribs in the sun oven

In the pot seasoned



Finished in sun oven



Laid out which took two sets of tongs to get them out in one piece



I was a good boy and saved a third for lunch tomorrow.

 

[jimindenver]

I also did a loaf of bread. I tried to thaw and proof it in the fridge but had to wait longer than I wanted to to get it into one of the solar ovens. By the time it had risen  the sky was hazy which caused it to rise more before the oven was hot enough to start cooking it which is why the top fell.

Ready to cook, the spray bottle is water and helps create the crust



done in the sport oven



Cooling


Cut, it looks funny as does the cook but taste great ( the bread, not the cook   )

 

[jimindenver]

When the sky went hazy I fired up the oven in the trailer just in case. I hated to waste the propane so I made a few small batches of cookies.

peanut butter



Chocolate chip



This is how full the Engel is. Two ice cube trays sit on top


So dinner was ribs , fresh bread and fresh brewed ICED tea with cookies for desert. A cigar was a nice finish



Here's the boss in my chair making sure I didn't sit down on the job.