Battery Buildup

I was looking through my unpublished folder and saw this.  I wrote it while I was hanging out in Chicago a year ago but thought it still had some value, illustrating the battery struggle I was beginning to go through.  Really my batteries should have been replaced last year but I eeked by.  I thought I would go ahead and publish it.

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My time in the north is a cold grey existence. This is something that affects the body mind and soul. But it also effects the batteries in my van.  The number of good solar days is limited and even the ones we get, the sun is low and not very effective at getting me a good charge. I haven’t seen my batteries above 80%.  Most of the time they are hovering around the low 60s and I am only getting 30-40 watts off the panels. I have been working mornings from coffee shops just to save the juice. 

This wouldn’t so much be an issue if not for another problem.   I have the fuse pulled on the wire between the engine and the house batteries.  Normally, running the engine for a bit, even just moving from my night time parking spot to my daytime spot can really put a lot of charge into the house batteries.  But, as I say, I had to disconnect it.

For the past couple of years I have had an odd random occurrence. I would be driving down the road and suddenly I was coasting. The dash and headlights would go out. Most times, seconds later, *poof*, everything would be back to normal and I would just keep rolling down the road. I am not kidding, the first time I said to myself, “did that just happen or am I falling asleep?” A couple of other times the poof did not occur immediately and I would pull into the shoulder.  A turn of the key, it would always restart.  This happened maybe every month and a half or so.  I was afraid it was my main fuse & control box going out. Something I have heard to be an issue with these Chevy Express vans. An eight hundred dollar part.  

Then one day it occurred to me maybe it only seemed to happen when I had the front to back wire hooked up and the fuses on both ends in working order.  I pulled the fuse and was in this mode when I was under the van for a totally different purpose.  I realized I had this huge abrasion in my front to back charging cable.  Ok, well that certainly explains why I would blow a 200a fuse every so often.  It would short out and kill the engine until the fuse blew.

Replacing thirty feed of heavy gauge wire was not a fiscal possibility for me.  Money is always tight these days despite my living situation.  I had to figure out a way cut it clean and splice it.  Here I have to give a shout out here to O’Reilly Autoparts. I went to their shop in Milford Michigan looking for a battery cable splice kit. I figured that had to be a thing, right.  No.  I guess not. What they had could splice two cable ends but it had a battery terminal post in the middle and it was $60.  The second option was to buy two lug end terminals. Put one on each end of the splice point then bolt them together in the middle.  Either option would have some ugly component of it needing to be wrapped up in a wad of electrical tape.  I explained to the workers both of these options would suck and why. The younger of the two said, “Ahhh. Here’s what chyah do…”

I did just what he told me.  I went to Lowes and picked up a short hunk of 3/8” soft copper pipe and a package of heat shrink tubing.  I cut a  3” piece off the length of tubing.  I slide three pieces of heat shrink tubing over the wire.  The cut cable ends fit perfectly inside these bits of copper pipe.  I then put the pipe into a bench vise and tightened it down on the wire.  Then covered it in the two layers of heat shrink.  It was a perfect splice job.  I hereby faithfully promise to be an O’Reilly’s customer whenever possible.

Examining the cable further along its path I discovered other spots showing signs of wear. It is only going to be a matter of time until I would be having this problem in a multitude of spots. My solution is to put this cable inside a protective layer.  While I had the cable out for the splice, when reinstalled it, I put it inside Pex tubing.  This will keep this sort of thing from ever being a problem again.  Pex is tough stuff and will protect the wire from any sort of abrasions.

Also while I was at it I replaced the battery isolator solenoid.   I had purchased a new one almost a year prior, just never gotten it installed.  What a battery isolator does is make sure you can’t drain the engine battery by something you do in the house.  But when the engine is running it senses that and acts like a turned on switch.  So the engine charges the house batteries.  This one had an additional feature.  It could also sense charging current on other side, it could actually charge the engine battery from the solar panels. 

The other thing, it had a higher amp rating.  One of the theories for the fuse blowing, prior to finding the big abrasion, was that this device was too small and overheating when engine-starting-level current was passing through it.  Ah well, it can’t hurt.

I thank my friend The Cowgirl, for getting me access to the shop and working some horses while giving me some time to wire.  

The Road Return Traveled

Leaving the Quartzsite it was time to head back to a place as diametrically opposite of the desert as is possible.  Minnesota, where my feet have to touch every thirty days for tax/residency reasons.  It is a bit of a pain in the ass, but it is a pain in the ass I can deal with, in trade for the life I live. 

The drive back was mostly uneventful, just the way I like it.  I spent the first night in Phoenix, bar hopping with my friend Tamale Guy.  I was quite pleased when he responded “Groovy” when I texted him to say I was only minutes away from our meet up spot.  I thought I was the only person trying to keep that word alive in our language.  I was quite happy to have found a second. 

That night he treated me to a smorgasbord of Phoenix dive bars.  At the first, as I pulled up, there were two people standing outside smoking weed.  It is a legalized state so not a totally uncommon sight.  A few minutes later I discovered one of the two smokers was my bartender.  Ten minutes after that I checked in with her.  She had forgotten my drink order.  But to cover her error she bought one for me, so thanks stoners! 

Green chili wontons!

Night two brought me to Las Cruces New Mexico where I actually ended up staying in the older “suburb” of Mesilla.  It was a quaint, pretty, little town where at a restaurant called Peppers I had some fantastic green chili alfredo pasta.  I had been hungry for pasta for a few days, so maybe I exaggerate, but I loved it a lot.  The dish was only very lightly sauced, just the way I like it.  Green chilis were a terrific addition, giving it a fresh, green, spicy flavor.   My friend The Oklahoma Girl has been wanting me to try green chili stuff every time she hears I am in New Mexico.  It's her favorite and now I can finally answer the question when she asks, "have you tried the green chilis?"  I even doubled down and had some wontons, also quite tasty.

While I was in Mesilla I really wanted to visit the “Baked Chicken” marijuana dispensary in the hopes they had t-shirts but it didn’t work out. I toured around a little and hit some of the gift shops. I bought a couple of christmas presents for the grand daughters and spent some time looking at the beautiful, old world adobe. The town is organized on a square with cute little shops all around the edge.  

I stuck around and worked from Mesilla the next day and over lunch break hit a Mexican place called Andele on the advice of a friend.  Great lunch!  Cheap prices and enough food to get a second meal of tacos the next day.  Instead of a salad bar they had a salsa bar.  Nine different types!  No surprise, again with the green chilis as part of this bar, the green chili salsa was without doubt the best I have ever had!  Just the right amount of spice and that wonderful green flavor.  

At this point, after Quartzsite, I was feeling like I needed a fresh dose of friendliness so I planned my route to include a stop off in Holdrege Nebraska.  I forget about these quasi dry towns though. I arrived on a Tuesday night and The Drive Bar is closed.  Sadness. 

Luckily I had a quick backup plan.  But I first have to say, I am not typically a steak guy.  As an owner of old houses and having four kids, I had been committed to a budget of hamburger.  When I do get feeling flush and go the steak route it is a fillet minion.  Which I guess, according to steak people, doesn’t count. <eyeroll>  When I was in Holdrege the first time I was told by two different people the best steak in all of United States could be obtained just five miles outside of town at a country restaurant. I was intrigued back at the time.  Honestly, any time you attach the words “Best in the” to any food item you have me hooked.  Eventually I am going to show up there.

The name of the restaurant was The Speakeasy and the patrons of The Drive were not kidding.  A few miles out of town on the main road, a train crossing on a smaller road, and then finally a very small road leading to a six way intersection (!) and the home of The Speakeasy.  I parked next to a grain bin.

The steak was done perfectly.  Seasoned perfectly.  Crisp on the outside, medium rare just as I had ordered it. I had a salad and baked potato.  Only a very slight amount of waitress judgment crossed her face when I asked for more butter and sour cream. The service was outstanding.  It seemed like there were three people covering my table.  I was constantly checked on and if I needed something there was a person who appeared instantly.  Sadly they were out of stock on the cabernet sauvignon I wanted but the alternate wine was passable.   I ordered olives and with the red wine, me closing my eyes, imaging myself in Italy, it was a beautiful moment.  The olives were great!  A nice mix of green and ripe and no skimping on the quantity, I actually had to push myself to finish them. Just the way I like it.

Where The Speakeasy really wow'd me was in dessert.  Again, I don't typically partake but I was having a fancy night out.  When the waitress said the magic words "kind of like a creme brulee" I decided to go for it.  --Am I ever glad I did.  What I got was a vanilla custard with a carmalized dark maple syrup on top.  So, so tasty.  I love maple flavor and this was incredible how it mixed with the vanilla of the custard.  It was a dessert I will remember for a very long time.

In the end, I am not sure the steak at The Speakeasy toppled my long standing first place, The Old Mill in Austin Minnesota.  A place it seems to double as an executive dining room of Hormel Foods executives.  I am positive they have an arrangement for the best beef to come across the line.  From prom dates to present day, every steak they have made me has been the best.  But what do I know? I am no steak guy.

Coming back to the cities where I have lived for so long and lost so much is one of mixed emotions.  This is where my friends are.  A lot of the family I have.  This is a place where I have been so happy.  But over the years it has also been a place where I have been so sad and my life has fallen apart.  Luckily the temperatures will drive me out before I let this get me down too far.

I rolled back into the city just in time to take my friend to a doctor’s appointment the next day.  She was signed up for a ctrl-alt-del on her heart and I was the hospital transport.  I put in half of my work day from a waiting room, then got her post GA, somewhat loopy-self, transported back home, my good deed done for the day.

Before I left the area though I had some van re-work to do.  For that part of the story I will make you wait.

The Art of Blending

Stealth camping is when you blend into your background.  I have taken the most common vehicle a city has, the white cargo van, and turned it into a camper.  Then I have hidden it in plain site.  I can take it into any big city and make it my apartment.  If you do it right, they are invisible.  

But, my life has changed.  When I first started this project I was stealth camping around a city I knew well.  I knew good starting spots.  I knew the areas to stay out of.  I knew where all the good coffee houses and donut shops were.  Over the past year I have had to apply everything I learned and go for an advance degree.  Now I travel to cities I know nothing about.  Allow me to draw back the curtain and give you a peak.  Here is what I think about and how I do it.

I have described some of the issues when I arrive in a smaller town.  Those tend to be places I overnight while driving.  I think small towns always have a few spots where I fit in.  I never plan down to this level of minutia.  While driving, I am tired, I stop.   Small towns… They're small.. I can just drive around and find that spot.  Going to big cities though, is an entirely different deal.  Cities require planning.

I use Google Maps.  I never stay in the downtown of a big city.  What I look for in Maps is a donut area maybe about a mile out with the hole being downtown. (I just realized I am already two donut references in and we are early!)  What I am looking for is light yellow colored area.  Those are small commercial areas within the residential.  Then I use the street view to look at what those areas are.  I am looking for old-school business districts.  Not strip malls or big boxes.  I want to see flower shops, gift shops, small bars.  I look at the edge of where the commercial area meets the residential.  A perfect spot is when there is a multi family dwelling unit, an apartment building, at this edge.  Nothing too new, they might have underground parking.  Nothing too big, parking might be hard to find.  In Google Maps I have three such spots, a primary and two backup plans, picked out before I ever hit the city limits.

It is not uncommon at all for the primary to not work out.  Sometimes when I physically arrive in an area I discover something obvious that disqualifies it.  Though I try to read the signs in Google often I can’t.  So I will get there and it will be posted no parking from 2am-6am. 

On my recent trip to Pasadena California surface parking lots exist.  (I am too tall to fit into any ramp.) The parking cost is: from whenever you arrive, until 11:59pm of that day,  $15.  I had researched two of these such lots a few blocks from one another.  If none of my other spots panned out my plan was to pay for two spots.  Use one parking lot during the day and the other at night so the van wouldn’t appear in one spot for too long.  But I hate paying for parking.  

Many times I don’t really care where I am.  When I went to New Orleans last year I just floated around the city.  I parked wherever the wind took me.  But on the Pasadena trip I had a very specific area I had to be in every day for a conference.  I got lucky.  I found lots of great overnight stealth spots.  I was really thinking I would stay the four nights of the conference at the best one.  But it was not to be.

The best spot I found I “poisoned” on the second night. Here is what happened.  Two nights previously I found a really good spot.  Some industrial looking buildings on one side of the street.  On the other side was a bar, a duplex and then a six-plex apartment, then a house which was actually a charity and was closed until ten in the morning.  Quiet street, nice trees.  Overnight I felt really safe there. Perfect.  

In the morning I pulled out.  I drove about two blocks to a spot with a church.  I parked out front on the street, but close to the service entrance.  It was about a six block walk to the conference.  Afterward I walked around, caught some dinner.  Caught some Pokemon.  Had a glass of wine while I wrote to y’all.  Regular night.

My plan was to drive back to the good parking spot for the night.  A block before I got there I waited for cross traffic at an intersection.  The guy ended up turning, to be in front of me.  But then he parked exactly where I had planned to park.  I couldn’t really pull in behind him.  He might wait for me to get out or at least take note if I didn’t.  So I had to drive on, and give up my good spot for the night.   I was bummed.

I had consumed two glasses of wine that night because, California.  That was a lot of wine for me.  I was probably just fine. But I was driving in a strange city at eleven pm looking for somewhere new to hide.  All the while kicking myself for the timing of losing the good spot.

I eventually found a place.  It turned out fine.  But even if it is eleven o’clock as it was, I follow the same routine when I arrive.   I park. I walk all the way to the end of the block where I came from and I read every street sign. I look at every windshield and the back right corners of the cars.  If I see consistent stickers there is a parking restriction.  That night, at eleven pm, I would have gone ahead and risked a ticket.  I would have been fine.

So once I have determined I am safe from being towed, I walk around a couple blocks.  I observe.  This is the safety test.  Do I feel safe here?   I am not actually looking for pristine neighborhoods.  I am looking for comfortable.  What kind of cars are parked here?  How much of the broken cubes of glass from car side windows is in the gutter?  That night everything was within acceptable tolerances.  I stayed.

If I am pulling into an area I have already researched, or sometimes I park the van earlier in the “night spot” and walk to some entertainment.  When I get into the van, I always get into the drivers seat.  Never the side door. The first thing I do is have a quick look around.  Is anyone looking at me?  After a moment I pull out my phone.  I spend a couple of minutes on it.  Anyone watching should be bored.   Then I turn it off and wait.  Then have a longer look around.  Is there anyone I can see still from the first review?  Only after I have established my invisibility do I get into the back. 

So far I have only been talking about nighttime spots.  These are the places you find where you slide into them about ten and leave by eight in the morning.  You make no extra noise.  I am very careful and even try to move slowly as I get ready to sleep. 

Daytime spots are noisier.  Shopping mall or large grocery store parking lots for instance.  Those are also good because they are a great place to get solar.  I try to find a place where the parking lot is well over sized and I am not shorting them a customer space.  That ensures they’re not watching.   Plus, where there is one such lot, there is an odds-on chance there is another such lot, similarly oversized, within a block.  ‘Merica.  I move over the lunch hour.  Sometimes it is good to re-orient for solar reasons anyway.

I work a lot from my van.  It is a very small space.  In a crazy way I think that helps a lot with my focus.  I have a desk that folds down from the wall.  If the weather is agreeable, it is a very comfortable place to work.  And for all the crazy down-sides to my life right now, I do like staying where the weather is agreeable.  But working, I am making noise.  I say the F word. I am moving around the van. Making coffee. Talking in meetings.  I don’t really talk much so that doesn’t add a lot.  All those types of noises radiate out of the steel box way better than you think they would.  Working inside the van in a quiet neighborhood would attract attention.  

An amusing note, parking on streets with a lot of traffic or a four lane can certainly work too.  But, high speed passes by big vehicles make the van rock around.  I get motion sick.  

Parking wise this is about it.  It has kept me safe so far.  I feel pretty good about it.  I do have to think about the other part. What happens if someone breaks into the van?  I have a deadbolt lock on both the bulkhead door and the side door.  I have metal anti theft screens on the side and back windows.   My vulnerabilities are that a professional thief could have a crowbar and pop open the rear door.   That would certainly be a worst case.  The most likely scenario is I will hear one of the front windows break.  I will make a lot of noise and hopefully the bad guy runs off, right?

If you are considering this sort of life you will pick up and find tricks of your own you will employ.  One last suggestion?  Visit this new place.  Find amazing parking spots.  *Take notes*  

Desert Time

When I was here last, a couple of weeks ago, I knew I didn’t give Quartzsite an honest test. I knew that as I was experiencing it.  I certainly knew it when I was writing about it.  I only visited the town itself.  I had unpleasant interactions with people who are sick of dealing with tourists.  I did pull onto the BLM land but it was so close to the freeway, it was an all night roar.  No, not an honest test at all.

Around the town there is the Bureau of Land Management, BLM Land.  If you buy a pass, either two week or the season, you are allowed to stay anywhere on the BLM land.  And that land is vast.  It is possible, with the right camper setup and four wheel drive, to be the only person in some huge desert valley.  The only person within miles.  But I don’t have a setup like that.  The distance I want to drive the BV from some sort of road is far less vast.  I worry about hitting some hole and breaking an axel or getting stuck in the sand or something.  

So driving well off the beaten path is out of the question, I instead drove about five miles south of town on the highway, then off onto a marginally paved road for a couple of miles which turned into gravel for a couple more.  Then finally onto a desert path where at about ten miles an hour I was able to creep back to a spot next to a couple of saguaros that looked nice.  Differing from the lonesome valley, this close to town area is more organized.  There are camps divided into sections and usually some sort of central tent.  The area I chose was one of the larger camps.  

Just some background on my life to give you a little frame of reference,  during the summer instead of living in The BV, I have a camper on a leased spot in a campground in northern Minnesota.  The people who stay at this campground are the best bunch of weirdos I have ever met in my life.  Open, friendly, non-judgmental, happy.  You can’t walk by them without a wave or conversation.  I was really expecting the same exact thing at Quartzsite, just less trees and more cactus.

It turned out to not be the case at all. The people in this desert campground were cool, distant and bordering unfriendly.  I did a fair amount of walking.  There was a nice circumference trail about four miles.  Nobody waved or made any sort of contact.  I noticed a similar things as people walked or drove by where I was camped.  Eyes forward, they didn’t even look in for a wave.  I know it seems like a small thing but it was so universal and so different than I have been used to, it seemed strange. 

Every day except Sunday they have a happy hour at the main tent from four until six and so I went to a few.  Every Wednesday they conduct sort of a business meeting during happy hour.  It was like a HOA meeting.  Reports of people driving where they weren’t supposed to.  Complaints about people driving too fast.  Worries of people taking too much food on the first pass through the Thanksgiving buffet the next day. (Where like every other buffet there was mounds of food left over at the end.)  It just all seemed petty.

I’m not proposing any sort of correlation but in this whole campground every single person I saw was white.  Not even any Asians.  There were tons of American flags, Blue Line flags, of course a couple Trump flags always show up to spoil any event.  But there were no Pride flags.  None.  No Black Lives Matter flags either.  I didn’t like it.

People aside, the walking was fantastic.   The trails are groomed and perfect.  It is such a different place than I have spent much of the previous month.    A week ago, on Hollywood Blvd, I was bombarded by tumultuous noise.  It is virtually silent here.   Not particularly dark at night, it is full moon time and even six or seven miles away there is a lot of light from town.

One amusing interaction I had… The first evening I arrived I was on a walk.  It was a good hour before dark.  There was sort of a dust storm going on which was a new experience for me.  First walk on a new trail.  I had been told about its route but I didn’t know for sure.  I was about twenty minutes into the walk stopped at a campsite where I saw a guy, this was before I knew about the unfriendliness,  I asked him about the trail route.  It turned out he wasn’t a walker.  He told me he had no idea where the trail went.  In the end he told me “Yeah, I see people walking around this way.  You might get lost in the dust storm but you will probably will be fine.”   With this stunning recommendation I decided instead to head back to the van and do further exploration with an earlier start.  

The rock hunting was fun.  When I unpack I will report my total poundage.  I found one AMAZING rock it looked like a dragon.  I have a summertime project where it will fit it beautifully.  No surprise there is lots of quartzite laying around.  Lots of volcanic rocks filled with holes.  I really had to control myself and tried to limit my collecting to four rocks a day. 

Isn't this cool? Maybe my life's
coolest rock.

It  had been my intent to talk to people and get together a collection of stories.  How people came here and why they come back.  Very few people were talking.  But I met a woman the first night who said seventeen years ago she and her husband bought a camper and started to travel more.  I am guessing she is late 70s.  A year in, he died and she started traveling alone in the camper.   She came here to this campground the first time. She went back home and sold all of her stuff. Now she spends winters here and summers she lives on the road. About ten years ago she met a guy who now travels with her.  She said, “He’s twenty two years younger than me but what the heck.”

A lot of life is a matter of expectations.  I had many coming to Quartzsite the first time and felt a little let down.  Honestly, my whole blog has been hung up on this one post because I like writing happy stories and when I can’t I get sort of stalled.  But, every day I was there was beautiful.  Sunny, high 60s and perfect.  Every night cooled down and I would typically run the furnace for a few minutes every morning.  Will I go back?  Yeah, probably I will.  My expectations have shifted and I am willing to roll will them.

During the week I was there the population of campers around me roughly tripled.  Closer in to town I bet there were ten times as many and town itself was dozens of times busier.  The rush to Quartzsite is on!