it's good to be home, but I miss the high country.

Now that temperatures are in the 90s in Denver I dug out this picture I took of Dillon reservoir during my Bronco shakedown cruise last month and it made me feel cooler just looking at it. I need to spend more time in the mountains, the weather is so much nicer in the high country during the summer.

With my minivacation behind me my life has gotten back to normal now, and I can tell it's normal because I had to go to the bank, Home Depot, and get a propane refill, for me it doesn't get much more normal and mundane than that.

I did learn something while I was getting my propane tank refilled, I found out that the propane refill stations like I normally use to refill the Arctic Fox propane tanks can actually refill the Rhino type exchange tanks that I have in the Bronco camper. I had always heard they couldn't be refilled and had to be exchanged for a full one but this guy filling my Arctic Fox propane tank at Ace Hardware said he fills the exchange tanks all the time. And here's the kicker, even at Ace's outrageous propane cost of $3.89 per gallon I still would've saved four dollars having it refilled instead of exchanging it at a grocery store like I did. I know there's some convenience involved in exchanging them but it's nice to know that I have a choice.

I've done a little checking on the solar system in the little Bronco and have found that the solar panels are charging up the batteries to 14.3 volts just like there supposed to. And with the batteries completely disconnected from the camper so their getting charged but there's no load, phantom or otherwise. By morning when the surface charge has dissipated the batteries are reading 12.8 volts, and don't lose anything after several hours of being disconnected from the solar panels and the camper.

So it appears to me so far that the solar panels are working, the solar controller is doing what it's supposed to do, and the batteries seem to be okay. So the next thing I will do when I get around to it is put a load on the batteries with the solar panels disconnected and see how long the batteries can supply the load.

But I'm already beginning to think that I was using more electricity than my meager solar system could supply. If I remember correctly both of my panels together are only supplying about 11 amps/hour and my 17 inch computer uses about 12, even more if it gets serious about actually accomplishing something. I think my little refrigerator uses a couple of amps because I hear a fan running almost all the time. So it looks like I might be trying to swim upstream with only two 100 watt solar panels and I'm going backwards faster than I'm going forward. There may be more solar panels in my future.

                   theboondork

Some of my daughter's roses.