little things

A plethora of hot air balloons. Around here people actually give hot air balloon rides as Christmas gifts. Which explains why the sky is full of balloons at sunrise and sunset nowadays.

I talk about the big things that make my boondocking lifestyle easier, safer, and even possible like the solar panels my battery bank or my Hearthrite radiant propane heater. But today I thought I would talk about some of the small things that also make my boondocking life easier and more comfortable that I could probably live without, but  wouldn't want to try.

In no particular order of importance I will start with my 12 volt Fan-tastic floor fan called the Endless Breeze. I spend most of my life without air conditioning but that doesn't mean it doesn't get hot in the Arctic Fox.

Try as I might to stay in temperate climates sometimes it still gets hot, sometimes very hot, and even though my Fan-tastic vent fans do a good job of keeping hot air out of the Arctic Fox it can still get pretty warm if there's no air moving around and the floor fan does a great job of bringing the cool air in and blowing it on me.

Another thing that I always have is a calendar not just any calendar but one that works for me. When I first went full-time I thought the last thing in the world I would need would be a calendar. In fact I considered one to be an impediment to my freedom because I didn't think I would care what day or what month it was, but for the second time in my life I was wrong.

Now I use a calendar for a lot of things such as knowing when my two weeks are up on BLM land, or when there's a birthday I need to remember, but most of all I use it to leave notes to myself on things I need to do tomorrow or next week which is the reason why I always buy a special calendar. I Always get mine at Walmart even though I'm sure they sell them elsewhere and it's called a Large Grid calendar. And instead of having pretty pictures on it it has large boxes for the days of the month that I can write in about things I don't want to forget.

Something that doesn't help me boondock but does save me money is an electric hotplate. And because of my electric hotplate I haven't used one ounce of propane the whole time I've been at Ben Avery's.

 When I'm plugged in to shore power I can run everything in the Arctic Fox on AC except my stove. And the hotplate allows me to do what little cooking I do with free electricity instead of expensive propane.

A recent addition to my boondocking happiness is a quality portable AM/FM radio and the one I bought is made by C Crane and is a model 2E. The Arctic Fox came with what was euphemistically called an "entertainment center" but the AM radio part of the entertainment center was utterly useless.

My truck parked right outside the door of the Arctic Fox would pick up all kinds of AM stations out in the sticks but inside the Arctic Fox my radio picked up hardly anything but static in less I was very very close to a decent sized town. So after getting tired of sitting in my truck to listen to the radio I looked on the Internet and found out that this C Crane radio was an AM monster and so far I've been very happy with it.

Last but certainly not least is something I was a little hesitant to mention because of the delicate nature of the subject. But in the end I decided it's importance far outweighed the embarrassing nature of the subject and it needed to be tossed into the ring of ideas.

Since I don't heat the Arctic Fox at night when I wake up in the morning it can be pretty darn chilly in here and for some strange reason the bathroom seems to be the coldest place in the whole trailer, and the coldest thing in the bathroom is the plastic toilet seat. It was as if I kept the toilet seat stored in the freezer overnight. There is scientific proof that a block of dry ice is 25 degrees warmer than a plastic toilet seat. But fortunately the solution was not only easy but cheap, I bought a knitted toilet seat cover. I couldn't believe the difference, I swear it feels like the seat is heated, I bought three of them and will never ever be without one.

There are more little things like this that make my boondocking life easy and that I wouldn't want to live without but that's all that comes to mind right now I'm sure I'll think of more in the future.

         theboondork

The needle sharp translucent spines of the Rope Cactus