theboondork's RV blog

My first day at the races near Monarch Colorado

7/14/2019

I didn't actually have to go to the top of Monarch Pass but I was killing time so I thought I would run up there and get some fudge from the gift shop. It was sort of a tradition with me to stop at the tourist trap on top of Monarch Pass and take a break, and get some fudge. This is the little Bronco in the parking lot at about 13,000 feet.

I moseyed on into Monarch Colorado before lunch, found out where the race pit was, saw a familiar face, and was told where I could boondock.

So I'm now at the top of the hill climb course, in an area that's actually a working gold mine, where the race cars turn around and wait till they can go back down the mountain. I'm up pretty high, and in the middle of nowhere and since I have no Internet or phone service I will post this when I get back to civilization.

I think I'm up about 11,000 feet or so because timberline is not too far above me, and by 4 o'clock it was chilly enough that I had to put on a long sleeve shirt. The altitude is not bothering me as much as it did on my shakedown cruise, I was able to walk up a small hill, a very small hill, without feeling like I was going to pass out, so I must be getting used to it.

I had a bit of bad luck when I got here, I got here early so I was the only one in the upper pit area where I was going to boondock. I picked an area where I thought I would be out of the way, set there about 30 minutes, decided I wanted to move forward about 10 feet and when I moved the truck shut off by itself and wouldn't start again.... That's not a good feeling.

I've worked on plenty of gas engines, but I've never worked on a diesel engine before especially a modern one with all the electronics on it so I did the only thing I knew how to do, I opened the hood and stared at the engine looking as pitiful as possible.

This worked amazingly well because when the racers started showing up word quickly spread around that I had a problem and a diesel mechanic came over, checked a few things, figured out what was wrong, and fixed it... You cannot believe how thankful I was. So I would highly recommend that if you have to break down it's best to do it around a bunch of auto racers and their mechanics.

theboondork

This is my boondocking spot at a working Gold Mine which for this weekend will be the upper Pit for the race car drivers. This is where the race finishes, and everyone has to wait in this area till everybody is at the top then they all go back down again and do it all over about four times a day.

Me boondocking at the Gold mine, at this point I'm the only one up here except for one miner, digging away the side of a mountain with a backhoe.

A miner balanced precariously on the side of a cliff digging for gold. About half hour after I got there he drove the backhoe down near where I was, got in his truck and left.

8 Comments

Darrell

7/14/2019 05:57:06 pm

I'll be crossing Monarch in a week on my way to Gunnison and points north. I'm not sure I'll be stopping for fudge, but will probably stop for a breather before going down the other side. Be safe out there.

Tom

7/15/2019 03:07:17 pm

Thanks Darrell, driving through these mountains usually takes your undivided attention which normally makes anyone a safer driver. If not, they won't be doing it for long.

That gift shop is in the perfect place right at the top of the pass when most folks are ready for a break, bathroom or otherwise.

Drive over to the far left side of the gift shop away from the Gondola tourist trap, It's a big parking area, plenty of room for trailers, and there's seldom anyone over there. The view is prettier to. Check out the old antique snowplow parked beside the building on that side.

Too bad I won't be there, I could help push you over the top.

It will be a pretty drive up Highway 50 once you get away from Pueblo. I've stayed at Haggard's RV several times. The owner and his wife run the place. She does almost all of the campground work, and he owns a garage in Pueblo where he's the chief mechanic, fabricator, and welder, in fact he's the guy that made the motorcycle rack that carries my little Beta 250 on the back of the Arctic Fox, but it was for my Yamaha WR 450 when he made it.

The snows in the high country are almost all gone now but the Arkansas River, which you will be driving beside for most of the way on highway 50 is still running pretty fast, there's a lot of pullovers so take some time and watch the rafters go flying by. When you get through Canyon city, which is actually spelled Canon city, then you'll be in the foothills and things will be really pretty from there on out.

Stay safe going through the mountains, sometime the views are so pretty it's hard to keep your eyes on the road.

Tom

Tim link

7/15/2019 02:27:35 pm

Hi Tom,

Looks like you're really getting to some pretty remarkable places this summer with your new camper. Does the Arctic Fox feel like a mansion when you get back to it?

At some point, I'm hoping to write up a blog post, but I've been so busy, that I haven't had time. On the weekends I'm up working on the RV, I don't get home until 8 or 9 pm and then I just eat something and go to sleep. Soon, I'll have more time.

In the meantime, I'm just cluttering up your blog with some updates on my RV work. Here's where I'm at now:

- I finished up a few little odds and ends on the solar and electrical system, so I'm calling it complete now. I'll probably play around with the wiring a little to see if I can organize it a little better, but that's about it. The only issue I had was with a solar breaker box that I put on the roof. There was a loose connection in it that I found with my multimeter and now all of the solar panels are working great.

It's great that now I have DC and AC power and can use everything in the RV. I haven't tried the air conditioning yet, but (theoritically) there's no reason it shouldn't run. I haven't needed it yet, so will probably wait until I put one of those EasyStarts (which will probably be next year).

- I bought and installed a Tire Pressure Monitoring System and love it. I velcroed the receiver unit to the dash and it's easy to see and out of the way. So far, it picks up all eight transmitters fine, although I haven't taken the RV out with them on yet.

- Also installed a wireless backup camera and two wireless side cameras. All of the cameras are working great, but I remember the issues you had with yours when you were in motion, so I have my fingers crossed. I think the side cameras should work fine, since they are close to the front of the RV. We'll see and I'll keep you posted.

- I built a sewer hose storage compartment using 5 x 5 inch fence post like you did for your RV. It all went fine and was one of the more fun projects I've tackled. I tried to attach it to the underside of the RV, but didn't get very far (it was getting late as well). I'm still not sure how I'm going to do it. Where and how did you attach yours? My plan was to use metal strapping like plumbers use, but I'm a little torn about using it.

- That's about it for this year, I think. I'll probably do a few smaller projects, but I'm going to try and get out and use it some now, probably starting in August.

Hope you're out having fun in the little Bronco as I'm typing this

7/15/2019 03:52:11 pm

No problem clogging up my blog, I clog it up as best I can but sometimes I get behind and need a little help clogging it up. But anyway were all interested in how you're coming along with your Arctic Fox project.

Yes the Arctic Fox does feel like a mansion compared to the little Bronco, enough so that I sometimes wonder why need all that room. Just from a short time I can tell that yes the Bronco is too small to live in, but the Arctic Fox is more than big enough. Kind of makes one wonder about life's options.

I'm sure the air-conditioning will work, getting it to start is not all that hard, I've even started mine up with my solar system, its getting it to run long enough to do any good that's the problem. For that it takes some serious battery power or just move to a cooler location, that's always been my option.

I'm a little confused about your eight tire pressure monitors. I only have four, because my truck came with its own, doesn't your truck have its own TPMS? Or am I reading that wrong?

I do hope your wireless cameras work better than mine because that was one frustrating endeavor. Maybe mine were just junk to start with, or maybe they had a problem. But it wasn't a waste because whenever I get around to it I'm going to put one on my little pop-up so I can see what's going on behind me, not that I care, I figure thats somebody elses problem.

The plumbers tape will work fine, but it always looked kind of cheap to me. I just happened to have some 5/16 [I think] all thread laying around and cut four six-inch pieces off. I then drilled two 5/16 holes in the horizontal part of the trailer frame about 6 inches apart, put two threaded rods held by locknuts in the frame holes, put the plastic fencepost between them and then held the fence post in place with a 6 inch piece of aluminum flat stock with a hole drilled in each end for the all thread to go through held up by couple of locknuts. And I did this to both ends of the fence post. Not very elegant, but it hasn't fallen off yet.

I bet you find a lot more little projects to do once you start spending time in the Arctic Fox, and I actually enjoy doing little projects when I'm traveling, not the kind of vacation traveling that I'm doing now but the full-time traveling that I do in the winter. Once you start living in it it will probably require some customization, and that's what will make it a home.

At the moment I'm still having fun in the little Bronco, I'm on the way home so I'm writing this from the Colorado Springs Bass Pro parking lot where I'm spending the night, with any luck I'll be home tomorrow.

Tom

7/16/2019 08:41:25 am

When I'm up at the Arctic Fox just resting between projects watching a little TV, it seems huge to me, even coming from a bigger apartment. I probably have the smallest fifth wheel at the storage facility, but I think because most of the living area is one big room makes it feel larger than many of the others. I'm really impressed with the feel of the 27-5L.

I've run some numbers on the RV air conditioner with my system. After getting it started, my air conditioner should pull about 13 amps AC (but will take about 16 to get it started, which I'm going to ignore for these calculations), which is roughly 130 amps DC from the batteries and panels. Theoretically, my panels can produce 118 amps DC, but between my two solar chargers (I have the old one hooked up too to the 20 watt panel that came with the RV), they can only produce 101 amps. Of course, to get those 101 amps, the temperature would have to be perfect (in which case I wouldn't be needing the air conditioner), the sun would have to be perfect, panels totally clean, no clouds, no trees, etc., etc. In my case, unless the sun is directly overhead, some of the panels are always shaded because of the air conditioner shroud. So, I'll probably never see 101 amps, but might see ~75 for short periods (which is just a quess). So, in the daylight, even with 1420 watts of solar panels, I would have to pull ~60 amps out of the batteries per hour (and it would get worse as the sun gets lower). I have 600 amp/hours of batteries, so I might get up to 10 hours of cooling (in a perfect world), but my batteries would be completely empty by the end of that period. Trying to run it at night is probably completely out of the question.

If I do find myself boondocking in extremely hot conditions, I would probably need to crank up the generator and use it in conjunction with the solar panels and batteries to run the cooling (my inverter will combine power from multiple sources). I think when I would probably be most likely to use the AC with just the batteries and solar panels it is for short periods of time when moving from one location to another and stopping at a rest stop for a break. That would have come in handy last year at some of the locations I stopped at during the day.

BTW, I'm really impressed by how comfortable the Arctic Fox is even on hot days. I've been in it in 88 degrees with just the fans and it was fine. The humidity was relatively low at about 50%, so that helped (50% probably seems high to you guys out west, but it's low for the east coast in the summer). I'm guessing it's a combination of the shading from the solar panels and the good insulation in the 'Fox.

I researched the TPMS issue last year. Basically, trucks over 10,000 GVWR are not required to have TPMS, so GMC doesn't put them on most of their 3500's (mine's over 10,000 GVWR). So, I had to get a system with 8 monitors.

I have my fingers crossed on my wireless camera system. Now that I've punched all these holes in my RV and am more familiar with the RV in general, if they don't work, I feel comfortable pulling them off and getting a wired system and use the wireless for something else. The signal right now is excellent, so I'm hopefull, but I know your problems started when you were towing. I'll keep you posted.

I really like the way you attached you sewer pipe holder, so that's the way I'm going to go as well. Three things I don't like about the plumber's tape: 1) The tape is pretty thin. Probably strong enough to hold up the fence post, but I'm just envisioning the damage to my RV and other vehicles if it ever let loose (say if it rusted and I didn't catch it), not to mention the liability. 2) I was going to attach the tape with screws, which I don't feel comfortable with at all (aka, more potential for failure and damage). and 3) I can't really figure out how to make sure everything is nice and snug up against the frame. I think your system alleviates all of those concerns.

I already have a huge list of other projects I want to do, but I'd like to stop on the projects for a little bit and get out and use the RV. I think you're right, that list will probably keep growing as I use it more.

Hope you had a good trip back home. Looks like a lot of fun at the races!

7/16/2019 03:31:21 pm

The numbers for the air conditioning you gave are very interesting. I knew running the air conditioner on solar was possible just not feasible, but I've never actually seen numbers like that before that lay it all out. Once you start boondocking you'll have a better understanding of conserving electricity. Because almost everyone has enough electricity for today, the problem is tomorrow and the rainy day after that. So no matter how hot it is using all your electric up in one day running an air conditioner would be taking a chance on not being able to boondock tomorrow.

So based on the hot humid places you may be visiting when you go full time, I think it was wise to create a system like you did, and have a generator for backup. That probably makes more sense than just staying in more temperate dry climates like I have to do.

The excellent installation in the Arctic Fox can be a blessing or a curse. It holds in the heat during the winter very well, and that's a blessing. But if you let the interior get too hot in the summer, it's a bear to cool off, thanks to the curse of all that insulation. But when you're living in it you will quickly learn when to start cooling it off and went to start warming it up. It just takes a little experience on what's comfortable for you.

Those of us that are denizens of the West are fortunate that were blessed with a relatively low humidity. No matter how hot it is, a little shade, a little breeze and you can be fairly comfortable. Around the end of this week its supposed to get up to 100° in Denver, and I will spend most of the time in the Arctic Fox with no air conditioning, just a 12 Volt fan sitting on the floor, we will see if I survive, or wimp out and run into my daughter's house.

I understand now, I didn't realize the larger trucks didn't come with the TPMS, probably because I've never had a truck larger than a three-quarter ton

I really enjoy doing little projects that make the Arctic Fox safer, easier to live in, and especially more comfortable. I really enjoy driving down an almost empty interstate Highway, which is fairly common out West, and thinking of projects that I would like to do. And then pulling into a Home Depot in some little town and buying the pieces to do the project. I'm never in a hurry, because I hardly ever have any place I have to be so I consider stopping and picking up project bits and pieces fun.

I am safely back home now, and looking forward to going to another hill climb race. It was fun to watch, interesting to take pictures of. And what can I say about the people I met at the race except their great folks and I hope I get to see them again.

Tom

7/17/2019 08:32:42 am

What I learned by running the numbers is that it's probably fine to run the air conditioning an hour or two off of the batteries and panels and maybe a few days adding the generator in. However, if it's really hot and humid and I'm stuck at a spot for more than a couple of days, I should be looking for shore power somewhere. Now, I'm not planning on being in a situation like that, but most of my family lives in the south and I expect there will be times I have to travel down there in the summer, which is never my preference (I usually go in the winter). I plan to be like you and go to cooler, drier places in hot weather.

Interesting observation about the AF insulation. This summer, I've been going in the morning and it's been easy to keep it cool. Luckily, I lived in a house with little to no air conditioning in it for many years, so learned a lot about when to open and close windows to keep things relatively cool.

One summer I spent a week in Salt Lake City and the temperatures got over 100 F. It was really hot in the sun, but I was amazed how cool it felt in the shade. Humidity really makes a difference in comfort level. With 95% humidity, it can feel hot even at 75 degrees.

I've had a blast this summer working on the AF. I think of it as my weekend cabin (although I'm not sleeping in it) and having fun just working on projects and seeing progress. I can see continuing that when I go full-time.

Last summer, I camped with a Corvette racing club at a Harvest Host location. They were a really interesting group and if I had more time and not been on a schedule, I would have gone and watch their races (something to look forward to in the future, I hope).

Good luck staying cool. It's supposed to get up to 98 F this weekend with 61% humidity, so I'll probably just work on the RV in the mornings and then rest up in the AC after that.

7/17/2019 02:31:29 pm

That's what I did when my mom and dad lived in South Georgia and I still had some friends in Florida, I always visited in the wintertime, and the longer I stayed away from the South in the summer the more difficult it was for me to enjoy being there in the summer. I know South Florida is a popular retirement area but after dealing with the heat, the humidity, the high cost of living, and don't get me started on the crime, I'm not sure why it's so popular.

Since I've lived with air conditioning and without it I would say that air conditioning is addictive, the more you use it the more you have to have it. Now admittedly in the South with high humidity living without air conditioning would be extremely difficult mostly because were so used to it, but like I mentioned before I grew up in South Florida with no air conditioning, and even though I wouldn't want to do it again it certainly didn't kill me or my parents.

And the same thing applies to me now, I so seldom turn my air conditioner on that I have to turn it on just to make sure it's working. I've got used to living without it, and I've chosen places to live, and the proper time to be there that to me an air conditioner really isn't necessary. But I'm quite sure I would feel a whole lot different in the South during the summer.

I also enjoy working on the Arctic Fox and doing things to make it fit my life better. Because to me it's more than a home, it's a magic carpet, that takes me any place I want to go and keeps me comfortable while I'm there.

You mentioned something when talking about the Corvette racing club about how you would like to have done something fun and enjoyable but "you didn't have time and you were on a schedule". Always keep in mind when you go full time to never be in a position to have to say that again. Since your life will be almost totally in your own control when you go full time, try to fashion your life so those words can be stricken from your vocabulary.

Design your new life so that you always have time to go do something enjoyable, and do your best to stay away from schedules. Schedules control your time and your movements, and I know a lot of people will disagree, but something controlling my time and my movements is not freedom to me.

Tom

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My first day at the races near Monarch Colorado

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