Feb 18 2010

Tucson-Dateland-Borrego Springs

It seems like at least once a year a virus enters our lives and messes up some travel plan. This time it was the long-anticipated trip to Palm Springs for Modernism Week. Yesterday, as we were packing the Caravel, Emma began showing symptoms of “something” with a slight fever and nausea — and as easy as that, our trip evaporated.

If we had been planning a trip in the big Airstream, we might have gone anyway. It has plenty of space for a sick kid (her own bedroom), a roomy bath, and all the little comforts of home (extra blankets, comfort foods & tea, room to prop up with pillows and watch movies, etc.) We spent enough years on the road to have many episodes of 24-hour stomach bugs and 7-day colds, and we know we can deal with that even as we travel the country.

But this trip was to be spent in our tiny Caravel, a “weekend trailer” that is well-stuffed with three people in it, and two nights of the trip we would be evicted for the Modernism show and sleeping in a hotel room. With all the things going on and the limited space, it didn’t make sense to uproot Emma for a long weekend. So off I went, on my own in the Caravel again.

Since I am not expected in Palm Springs until Friday, I was able to take the scenic route along I-8 through the southern Sonoran desert. This allowed me to avoid Phoenix (always appreciated when towing), plus I was able to see the desert already green and starting to bloom from all the rain we’ve gotten this winter. It will be a beautiful spring this year.

Along I-8 in Arizona there isn’t a lot to see from the highway, but a few stops are worth making. One is Dateland, a tiny oasis where you can take a break, buy fuel, and most importantly shop for eight or more varieties of locally-grown dates. Actually, that’s hardly doing justice to the date theme of Dateland. You can also get a terrific date shake, and park any size of RV near the groves of date palms that line the southern flank of the rest area. It was a good spot to stop for lunch in the Airstream, in stunning clear and warm weather, approaching 80 degrees already.

Since I was taking I-8, I decided to drop in for one night to see Bert & Janie, Eric & Sue, at Anza-Borrego. Bert and Janie have been boondocked at Pegleg for two months now, and show no signs of wanting to go anywhere, which is unusual for them. Eric and Sue are fellow outdoor writers and photographers, who we last met a couple of years ago in Yellowstone National Park. Stopping at Anza-Borrego would add about 50 miles to my trip, but it had the compensation of a chance to see good friends for an evening rather than boondocking somewhere alone.

Tonight in Pegleg, it is cooling off rapidly and the wind has been up since 4 p.m. We started the evening with a fire in the handmade rock circle that Bert built, and talked about the brilliant star constellations overhead, but with the chill setting in it wasn’t long before the group broke up and retreated their individual homes.

In addition to my friends, there at least a couple of dozen long-term residents of Pegleg, all of whom are feeling their trailers rocking in the breeze as the evening deepens. Most likely I will be the only one leaving in the morning. The rest of the residents have little incentive to leave this free and quiet parking spot. Part of me would like to stay and stretch out like the others have, but mostly I am looking forward to what Palm Springs has to offer. By 10 a.m., I’ll be towing the Caravel again, to see what’s over the next hill.

Feb 16 2010

Mod Squad in the New Caravel

For the past couple of weeks we’ve been prepping to go to Palm Springs for Modernism Week. We, along with a few other vintage trailer owners, will be on exhibit at the Ace Hotel on Saturday February 20. There’s not much that we need to do except clean up the trailer and pack for a few nights, but the opportunity to get into the modernism spirit has gradually overtaken us. That means “accessories” circa 1968, so we have a prop box going to collect the things that will help set the mood of 1968 as people tour the trailer.

At this point we have some Melmac dishware, a couple of Life magazines (Jane Fonda as Barbarella on the cover of one), a transistor radio (non-working), an old plaid Thermos, some James Bond paperbacks, Jiffy-Pop, and various other things. The problem is that accessorizing can be addictive, so it wasn’t long before Eleanor was making 60’s-looking pillow shams, and hunting up giant peace-sign earrings for herself at the resale shops. Then I spent an evening collecting three hours worth of 1968 music for the iPod, which will play from a hidden location inside the trailer.

Now Eleanor has an entire costume for herself, and she’s begun to dress me as well. Of course, anything I wear from the 1960s is destined to look immensely nerdy. Since I currently have close-cropped hair, I’m going to run with the nerd look and perhaps don a clip-on tie or find some dorky pants. That shouldn’t be hard. Eleanor, on the other hand, will be looking more like a flower child. Emma will probably just be hiding from embarrassment the entire time, so she won’t need a costume.

When we first bought the Caravel, we had no thoughts of vintage style. The trailer was simply an inexpensive way to get into Airstream ownership. But like a lot of vintage owners, we fell in love with the trailer and it became part of our lifestyle. (That little trailer is exactly the reason Airstream Life magazine exists.)

We eventually kept upgrading the Caravel until it was no longer inexpensive. Worse, somehow along the way the trailer became the star, and we became its agents. I’ve camped in it exactly four nights in the past five years, and all of those nights have been in service of the trailer itself, not for my own recreation. Now it has become so exotic that to take it out we need to dress it up first. It is a sort of trophy trailer.

Well, that won’t last. We don’t own things just for the sake of having them. Everything has to have a purpose, or it soon finds another home. This little voyage may be just the thing we need to “break in” the trailer, and make it our own again.

That may seem an odd statement, but in the process of refurbishing the trailer, we managed to make it nearly unrecognizable to ourselves. The interior is nearly all new and smells like wood finish and sawdust. The cushion fabric is red rather than green. The cabinetry is smooth light blonde, rather than honey covered with water stains and burn marks. The big dents on the roof are gone, as are most of the scratches along the curb side. We replaced nearly everything that was broken or worn-out, and now the trailer is better, but it is also so different that we wonder if we chased out its soul. We look at it and think, “Is this still our trailer?”

Probably the passage of time has done as much to separate us from the Caravel as the refurbishing. On our last trip in the trailer, Emma was a four-year-old toddler and her parents were still novices at trailer travel. Our formative memories were riddled with minor disasters coupled with wonderful irreplaceable memories. The trailer got dusty every time we towed (from the floor rot), the black tank oozed out the top and smelled terrible when it got full, the bed foam was painfully uncomfortable, the windows leaked, and the spare tire didn’t fit. It was dented, and festooned with all sorts of ridiculous non-period things, like a giant white air conditioner that sat on the roof like a goofy cap.

Yet we loved the trailer and the adventures it led us to, enough to invest five times the purchase price in refurbishing it over the next several years. This was a leap of faith. We were trusting that it would lead us to more adventures and bonding once we had it back. Now we shall find out.

I expect that we’ll come to know and love the “new” Caravel very quickly. Just spending a few nights in it at Quartzsite I came to remember how fun it is, how neat & compact, how I get the exciting sensation of camping when I sleep in it, how much it is a joy it is just to look at the rounded silvery proportions of it. Even though Emma is no longer the tiny toddler that we remember tucking in on the dinette, there are good memories ahead to be made with the nearly ten-year-old kid we have today.

But if things don’t work out, there won’t be any trouble finding a new owner for the trailer. We are allowed to solicit buyers at the Modernism Show if we wish, and I’ll surprised if there aren’t a few folks in Palm Springs next weekend prowling the show for a nice restored trailer.

We’ll be on the road Wednesday night, and as always, I’ll blog from the road frequently until we get back to winter home base.

Feb 02 2010

Tow vehicle on the track

Towing a big trailer intimidates a lot of people when they try it for the first time. It should, because you can very quickly get into trouble when towing. It requires drivers to learn a new set of skills, and apply good driving practices at all times. I think it is particularly intimidating when you’ve just signed a loan agreement obligating you to 10 years of monthly payments, and you realize that a considerable portion of your net worth is now rolling along with you, presenting a large and shiny target for every nutcase driver on the road. A new truck/Airstream combination can easily come in at $80-100k. Atop that, there’s the knowledge that you, your family, and your dog are all going to be involved in any accident you get into.

So suddenly those “defensive driving” tips you have taken not-so-seriously rise to an unprecedented level of importance. Suddenly you’re the one cursing that guy who cut in between you and the car in front of you, using up all the distance and reducing your time to react. Now you’re paying attention to the rollover warning sign on the Interstate exit ramp, and the 25-MPH speed limit on the big cloverleaf intersection. You realize, “Hey, they mean me” when you are towing two or three tons of expensive housing behind you.

In late 2000, Eleanor had a rollover accident with baby Emma in the car, and ever since I’ve been interested in getting both of us some advanced driver training. We know how to drive, but do we really have the instincts to react properly when it all suddenly goes very wrong at 60 MPH? I’d like us both to have some more confidence about our abilities in adverse situations, and the trained reactions to avoid a crash.

Now, after years of Airstream ownership and years of full-time travel, I am pretty sure I know how to handle my Airstream. The number one rule is simple: SLOW DOWN. There are many other practical rules as well, involving getting in and out of tight spots, evaluating situations before getting trapped in them, backing up, passing, rough roads, etc. I’ve got all those pretty well figured out by now, mostly as a result of painful experience.

The thing that concerns me about towing is not the trailer, but the tow vehicle. Most tow vehicles have a high center of gravity and are more prone to rollover than the average car. Adding an Airstream actually tends to help with this, by putting weight down low and stabilizing the vehicle — if properly hitched. But adding people, fuel, and cargo usually raises the center of gravity in an SUV, and most drivers aren’t aware of this until they notice adverse handling.

Moreover, pickup trucks and SUVs are generally lousy at high-speed maneuvers. They aren’t designed for that. You’ve got a narrow maneuverability envelope to work in at highway speeds. Exceed the envelope, and the tow vehicle will go out of control, often without much advance warning. That’s further reason to understand the limits of your vehicle, and to train yourself how to react properly.

Last weekend a local car club was holding a “Defensive Driving” course up in Phoenix, and we signed up. The instructors recommended showing up in the vehicle you drive the most, so we brought our Airstream’s tow vehicle, the Mercedes GL320. At 6,000+ pounds, it was by far the largest and heaviest car on the track. Most people were in small sedans or sportscars.

The course included about half an hour of “chalk talk” followed by individual instruction on a course set out in the parking lot of a former Wal-Mart. We took turns driving through the course with an instructor in the right seat. The tasks included an emergency lane-change maneuver, a slalom, an emergency brake followed by immediate lane change, and a panic stop strong enough to engage the anti-lock brakes.

I thought all of this would be routine, but I was surprised. Each task had an unexpected element to it. In the emergency lane change, I discovered how easy it is to go the wrong way when you’ve got to make a snap decision. In the slalom, I was frankly amazed at the handling of the GL320 — it went through much faster than I had expected.

The panic stop was a particular challenge for me. I thought I was pressing pretty hard on the brakes, but I had to try three times before getting the ABS to kick in. Once I did, the GL320 came a stop really fast. Turns out that I’ve been holding back on the brakes, probably as a result of learning to drive up in Vermont without ABS, in the snow, where you’ve got to keep a light foot on the brake to avoid skidding. Old habits die hard, but that one needs to go. The ABS computer can do a better job of modulating the brake pressure than I can.

After lunch, the course was re-set as an autocross. Racing your “daily driver” through the course is the icing on the cake at these events. We walked the course twice, then Eleanor and I each took a couple of tries at it. On our second try, we were timed. You can see me driving the autocross course at our Airstream Life photo/video community. My time was 49 seconds, Eleanor’s was 51. Not bad actually, considering the vehicle we were in. (Our past tow vehicle, a much larger and taller Nissan Armada, probably would have skidded excessively or tipped over if I’d driven it that hard.) The best time of the day was set by a past national autocross winner, at 38 seconds (in a Mercedes E300), and I think the highest time was 55 seconds.

Sure enough, leaving the event I had a sense of much greater confidence in the vehicle, knowing much more accurately how far I could push it in a turning or braking maneuver. We’re far from professional drivers at this point, but the day was well spent and I hope we’ll advance our skills later in another similar event.

Jan 20 2010

Sunny rainy days

Ironically, as I sit down to write up this blog which is eventually going to discuss solar energy, the weather here in Tucson is astonishingly wintry. Three Pacific storms are blowing by this week, each one bringing more rain and wind than the previous one. Last night we heard the unfamiliar sound of heavy rain pounding our flat house roof in the desert, and this morning we woke to crystal clear air, sidewalks and driveways scrubbed clean of dust, a few downed palm fronds, and beautiful views of snow in the Catalinas above 6,000 feet.

Webcam image courtesy of UA Computer Science Dept.

Even when our forecast looks like this, it’s usually sunny most of the day in Tucson. They get excited about rain here, for obvious reasons, and a “winter storm” has an entirely different meaning than it does in the rest of the country. Here, it means wind, a little rain, and maybe a thunderstorm. “100% chance of showers” doesn’t mean rain all day; it means definite rain at some point in the day. Freezes are rare except in the mountains.

Normally after a big snow we’d go sledding in the mountains, but Emma has one foot in a cast that can’t get wet, and she can’t climb snowy hills anyway. Broken fifth metatarsal, nothing serious. And we’ve got carnies in the driveway, and I’m afraid to leave the house unguarded while they’re here. (Just kidding, they’ve been good courtesy parkers).

So instead of karate, hiking, biking, and sledding, we’re forced to some sedentary activities like cheap Tuesday night movies and Tucson Roller Derby.

The ladies of TRD put on a good show Saturday and now Emma is sporting a cast covered with the autographs of roller derby queens, which is just extremely cool. Not everyone has the autograph of Bev Rage, Furious Oxide, Pinky McLovin, Hellbent Betty, Zippy’s Takeout, Dirty Duchess, Blanka Trohl, and others on their foot.

The breaking of the metatarsal also means we’re staying home for a little while. So, it’s time to clean up the inbox and respond to various inquiries. Yesterday, blog reader Vernon wrote to me about solar panels:

Rich, it seems that I get more real world data from your blog than most ‘data’ sources… Have you ever logged hour-by-hour amp output from your 230 W solar system under ideal conditions? I see your daily totals and they seem well below the system theoreticals … Thanks!

I often watch real-time amp-hour output from the panels and I’ve found that theoretical output is not very useful in the real world. There is huge variation depending on sun angle, time of year, time of day, cloudiness, dust on the panels, and shading from trees. There’s also some loss inherent in the wiring. As a result, on a sunny day at noon we might generate as little as 8 amps, and as much as 12 amps.

The rest of the day the output will be considerably less. In December, even on a clear day, output will generally run less than 3 amps until 9 a.m., and after 3 p.m. Thus, on a clear winter day we might generate just 25 amp-hours per day. On a partly-cloudy day, that can be cut to as little as 15-20 amp-hours, which is not much at all.

But under “ideal conditions,” we can generate quite a lot more. In late June or early July with full sun and 16-hour northern daylight, we could certainly produce more than 60 amp-hours per day.

We’ve never been able to measure our true total potential capability because, ironically, you generally need the least power in summer when it is most easily generated. Thus, our batteries are always full by 2 or 3 p.m. in the summer. Once the batteries begin to reach full charge, the system stops absorbing power and we have no way to determine accurately how much more power we might have been able to store.

Winter is the relevant challenge. That’s when you have short days, low sun angle, and much higher power consumption due to increased furnace and light requirements. It takes a powerful solar charging system and good weather conditions, to generate and store enough power to make up a typical day’s use.

It is for this reason that I recommend serious boondockers go for much more panel capability than the standard 55-watt installed as part of the Airstream “solar package.” You want to have the power to get through a couple of partly-cloudy winter days if you camp during that season. Having tilting capability on the panels will also boost power production considerably, but this is difficult to implement on an Airstream. The best way to look at it is that solar generally just makes your batteries seem bigger.

The other piece of the solar equation is the capability of your solar panel controller. Most solar controller incorporate good charging, so that when you have sun the batteries can enjoy the maximum capacity available. However, when you go plug in (whether to campground power or a generator) your factory-installed power converter kicks in, and those are often pathetically bad at recharging batteries. Read about our experience here. It makes sense to replace the factory converter/charger with a better 3-stage charger if you are going to use a generator to top off your batteries in addition to solar.

Jan 09 2010

Battery lesson

Reluctant to head back to home base quite yet, we have stopped in Quartzsite AZ for a few days of free camping in the desert. We’ve been camped at the BLM’s “Roadrunner” area, which is about five miles south of the town. This is classic boondocking, no services at all, no established campsites, and no fees. The lack of amenities is balanced against the feeling of freedom that comes with staking out a little patch of gravelly desert and just enjoying the simpler pleasures of life.

However, sometimes reality intrudes on our attempts to “get away from it all.” Last night I noticed that the Tri-Metric battery monitor was reporting strangely low voltage in our batteries, despite having used just 33 amp-hours of our total power reserve. That’s about 15% of the theoretical power available. Not long after, the voltage dropped to 10.8 volts, the lights began to dim, and I realized we had a serious problem with our batteries.

Around 9 p.m., the trailer was effectively dead. No power means no lights, water pump, or heat from the furnace. Eleanor and I were outside in the dark examining our battery bank by flashlight. We have a bank of four Optima “blue top” Absorbed Glass Matt (AGM) 12v batteries. We tried disconnecting each battery and checking voltage, hoping to isolate one battery with a problem, but they all reported the same voltage. At that point we decided to reconnect all the batteries, and limp through the night without any heat.

By reducing the power load to the small amount required to maintain the refrigerator’s circuit board and a few other “parasitic” draws (radio memory, propane leak detector, etc.), the voltage popped back up to 12.2. We all piled into one bed and stayed pretty warm, even though the trailer dropped to 46 degrees.

In the morning we hitched up and towed directly to Solar Bill’s, one of three solar installers in Quartzsite. Solar Bill’s is a fixture in Q, having been in the same location for 22 years. The guys did a load test on the batteries and found that two of them were dead as a doorknob. The other two were fine, despite having been installed at the same time.

The problem seemed to stem from our wiring. Our batteries should have been wired in parallel. As it turned out, they were wired in two banks of two, in such a way that one bank took all the load while the second bank was basically just coasting. That mistake contributed to the short life of the Optimas. They lasted 3.5 years when they should have had twice that lifespan.

Although two of the batteries are still good, the recommendation with batteries is to replace them all at the same time. This meant the two good batteries would also need replacement, an expensive procedure. Solar Bill didn’t like the choice of four 12-volt Optimas, so he suggested 6v golf cart batteries, but they wouldn’t fit.

After weighing several options, the best choice overall was to remove all four Optimas and replace them with one huge Lifeline GPL-4D. This eliminated the wiring issue and freed up our forward battery box for other uses (like tool storage). The “supercell” sits in the forward storage compartment under our bed, in the space formerly occupied by two of the Optimas.

As a bonus, the Lifeline weighs about 40 pounds less than the batteries it replaced, with a theoretical power capacity about the same. The two used-but-good Optimas will go to the Caravel, thus doubling the power available in that trailer, and we’ll have one Optima (from the Caravel) left over for future use.

But this has made for a very expensive week. Four tires, and now a replacement battery. I was happy with our relatively low maintenance expense in 2009, but so far in 2010 we’ve almost blown the budget for the year … and we are still awaiting the repair or replacement of our catalytic heater. On the positive side, it seems like we’ve dealt with a lot of the big-ticket items, so perhaps the rest of the year will go well.