 Stars over the boondocks quartzite Arizona I moved this morning, I went back to Quartzsite and I'm camped at the high jolly Boondocking area. I figure I'll be here three or four days before I go to Phoenix for the holidays.
I've been giving some thought to getting another solar panel, I've got a good spot on the roof for one more and I think that will be all that will fit up there at least in the 140 Watt size that's up there now. The panels have worked well but when it's cloudy they start to fall behind in keeping the battery charged up with my normal usage. But I have learned that they do better if the trailer is parked pointing north and south, the roof is sloped from the front to the back and parking North and South gives the panels a little better angle on the sun that's a little low in the sky and not directly overhead. Parking that way is not a problem while boondocking, I can park anyway I want but dry camping in a parking lot like I just did in Laughlin Limited me to an east west orientation. And that cut back on my power production somewhat. If I'm going to add a panel Quartzsite is an excellent place to do it, there are bunches of vendors here selling everything imaginable for RVs and since solar panels are very popular in the desert everything I need to do the job is readily available. Bear in mind I'm being overly picky about the solar panels, not once have I run out of power I've never even come close to running out of power, but I can see that that's a possibility if I had maybe three days of clouds and not much sunshine. And the more panels you have the quicker you can catch up when the sun comes out. Another thing I'm considering is making a couple of the panels tilt so I can aim them at the sun, doing that radically increases their output. I was hoping I could avoid that so I don't have to crawl around on the roof putting panels up and down but that's actually what most people do. I guess if I had to get up there and point two panels it wouldn't be too bad, but moving six panels up and down is not something I'm willing to do.
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 RVs dry camping at the Riverside casino Laughlin Nevada. Please click I'm still in Laughlin Nevada, and it's been kind of chilly the last couple of days but worse it's been really cloudy so my solar panels have not been keeping my batteries fully charged. But today was sunny and clear so the batteries got up to 95% of a full charge. I made the decision early on not to get a generator hoping that my solar panels could handle the load, but in the winter with the sun low on the horizon they don't put out as many amps as they do in the summer. Most people get around this problem by tilting their solar panels to face the sun but that's a pain to get on the roof and move your panels up and down so I decided I would try to put enough panels on the roof that I could still get all the power I needed even though they were laying flat. This worked pretty good until I had two straight days of cloudy weather and then the panels couldn't keep up with my usage. The solution may be to add another panel or two I know I've got room for one more but it will take some measuring to see if I have room for two more. The Riverside casino here in town has a car collection inside and since it's free I spent a couple of hours this morning looking at the old cars. It makes me feel really old to look at antique cars and be reminded of my childhood but that's what these cars did. Just as you walk in the door there are two motorcycles a Yamaha 360 enduro and a Triumph 650 Bonneville, I owned bikes just like those when I was younger and it really brought back some good memories.  I owned two motorcycles just like these when I was younger, my Yamaha was a 1972 and my Triumph Bonneville was a 1969  A Cord  A beautiful car. Please click  Dry camping at the Pioneer casino Laughlin Nevada. Please click  Laughlin Nevada. Please click I finally made it to Laughlin Nevada, it took a long time but I wasn't in a hurry. This is as far north as I intend to go this winter from here I will head back south. Laughlin is a neat town, it's kind of a Las Vegas for geezers. It's not as big as Las Vegas so it's easier to get around in, it's not as crowded as Las Vegas so you don't have to stand in lines, and there's a lot of places to park an RV, what more do we geezers need ? I'm staying at the Pioneer casino, RVs can dry camp in the parking lot for free. Most of them allow you to stay for free or for a very very small price which will include a place to dump your tanks, which becomes a problem if you stay here for several weeks because dumping can cost $10 or more if you're not staying at a RV park. I think I'll stay here for at least three days, it will take about that long to do the things I want to do. I haven't been here for a long time so I need to relearn where things are and check out all the new things in town. I just missed a desert race they had this weekend, if I had known that was going on I would've made an attempt to get here earlier. The race cars are still in town sitting on their trailers in bad need of repair after the race and by the looks of them desert racing is a very expensive hobby.  Laughlin Nevada |
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