theboondork's RV blog

Junction Texas

11/22/2019

The dam on the Llano River next to my boondocking site.

I'm actually boondocking in the Walmart parking lot at Fort Stockton Texas right now. But step back in time with me and Imagine I'm still in Junction Texas boondocking at the city Park, and pretend this blog post is what's going on in my life at the moment and not two days ago.

I'm not sure why there's no Internet available in this town except at the library, but I've driven from one end to the other and I can't find an Internet signal anywhere except in the library. And at the library the Internet signal is so weak I can't even pick it up in my truck parked 20 feet from the front door. Even in the library I haven't had to deal with Internet that slow since the days of dial-up.

I've learned from the time I've spent in the junction town library, that nobody under the age of 100 uses libraries anymore. And I guess that makes sense because in this age of the Internet, other than school kids that are forced to go, who uses libraries anymore?

But other than Internet problems Junction is the size of town that I could live with, it's pretty small, but everybody I've met has been just as nice as can be. It looks to me like every business in town is owned by a local, you're definitely not dealing with a multinational conglomerate when you walk in the door of any business on Main Street in Junction Texas,

I got some barbecue in town for breakfast this morning, and it sure was good. I've been eating my own cooking for a while, and I use the term cooking loosely, it actually means opening a can and heating it up. So getting some Texas barbecue was a real treat.

When I leave here I'll be heading West slow enough to hopefully hit El Paso Sunday morning when the traffic's light. At least that's the plan as It sits right now it's.

theboondork

The bridge over the Llano River a couple hundred yards from where I'm boondocked

Just before dark a little bus pulled up next to this group shelter at the city Park and a whole bunch of little kids got out and started running around and playing, but mostly they were looking at something. About 15 minutes later I found out what it was they were looking at, and tomorrow I'll show you some pictures.

4 Comments

Tim link

11/23/2019 07:48:02 am

Hey Tom - I'm watching a fascinating video on Battle Born batteries. A guy (Will Prowse) took one of the batteries and ripped it apart to check the quality of the components inside. I'm really, really glad I went with the Battle Born batteries after watching this. Here's the link if you want to check it out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5E30u-66VI

By the way, I disconnected the solar from my batteries last weekend (with a marine switch I instaelled) and going up today to check on it. I'm curious if they lost any capacity in that week.

Tom

11/23/2019 11:57:31 am

Thanks for sending me that link Tim, it was really interesting. He had a lot of nerve cutting into a $1000 battery like that, maybe it was a freebie from Battle Born. It made me feel a lot better about buying Battle Born also. I still haven't had any problems with mine, like I've said before, I forget their there, they just do their job quietly and with no maintenance whatsoever.

I had a lot of really cloudy weather the last week I was on Padre island including one three day period when it was cloudy all day, and I'm not talking about wispy clouds either, I'm talking about thick coastal clouds that you only get near the ocean, and just to test my sustainability I lived just as I would with the sun shining, leaving lights on when I didn't need to, leaving my 12 amp hour 17 inch Asus laptop computer running all day, using my microwave oven whenever I wanted, in other words just living a normal life, and I never ran out of electricity. So with the set up you have your never going to have to worry about electricity.... Inless you move to the Pacific Northwest.

I've never disconnected my solar panels from the battery bank, doing a one week test like you're doing is probably not something you will be able to duplicate when you're living in the Arctic Fox, so your findings will be interesting.

Tom

11/23/2019 08:47:36 pm

Hey Tom,

Getting ready for a flight tomorrow, so don't have a lot of time to respond. I was shocked when I got to the RV this afternoon; the batteries were down to 57%! The good thing is it was sunny and they were back up to 100% in about an hour or so when I turned on the solar (which was good to know), even though I was running the furnace, watching TV, etc. When I got ready to leave, I figured out the problem - after I turned off the inverter, I noticed that the microwave clock was still on. After trying a couple of times, I figured out that the inverter remote switch wasn't cutting off the inverter, so it had been on all week (as well as keeping all the AC appliances on standby, which drew power). So, I have to figure out what's going on with that (it's been working great up to this point). To be on the safe side, I turned off the marine switch between the batteries and the inverter this time (as well as to the solar charger and eveything else). The good thing is now I know if the inverter is left on with no solar, the batteries will last a little over two weeks. I'll be going out either next week or the following weekend to check on it again.

Just goes to show that most times we learn more when things go wrong than when they go right!

11/24/2019 10:24:16 am

I've always turned off my inverter at night when I go to bed since I don't need it for anything, and that saves me a 20 or 30 amps a night which is mostly what the inverter is using just idling.

Yeah that's the truth, if everything is going great in life you don't have to learn anything, it's always the adversity that makes us smarter and stronger. And I think that's the reason I like boondocking so much. Nothing is a given, challenges crop up and I have to overcome whatever it is and in doing so it makes me feel like I'm more in control of my own life which gives me a sense of freedom.

Good luck on your trip, I'm in Deming New Mexico and it looks like I'll be here until after Thanksgiving because it's usually not wise to be on the road during holidays.

Tom

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.

Junction Texas

Leave a Reply.

Archives

CONTACT THEBOONDORK