2000 Excella General Maintenance

[elolson]

My latest theory for ac when off grid camping is my generator. I finally got the DirecTV thing figured out when on the road and can reliably set that up in 15 minutes or so with good sky. Honda will run for hours, gas usage is minimal. My two interstate batteries will no longer hold a good charge. They have been in 5 years or so. Fairly disappointed in their life. I have talked with a couple of folks who use their batteries and an inverter with solar and they do pretty good. I think Quartzsite is the solar central of the universe. Kind of a multi-sentence ramble but punch line is that it may come down to how much a/c usage you need. If you are running the whole rig including making popcorn for the kids with the microwave, watching movies and maybe you already have a nice gennie then it may not make sense to gear up on solar. If you have fairly minimal A/C needs and are going to spend every day for 5 mo camped out in the desert with no hook-up then maybe it is worth the infrastructure.

[elolson]

Originally Posted by polarlyse

I guess the adventures never end. Yesterday I installed a new Anderson hitch. When done I took it for a drive to make some adjustments. Like a dummy I had left a set of keys to the trailer on the propane tanks. Yup, you guessed it. I only went around a several mile circle but upon discovering the loss I made 2 circuits and no luck. Fortunately I had another set and today I went to a full service locksmith and they had all the blanks for a full set of new keys. Could have been worse.
Lesson learned

Should get my stabilizer frames back from sandblasting and painting tomorrow. Woo Hoo
another job on the road to completion.

See ya'll on the road one of these days.

Sorry to hear about the keys. I threw mine away one time. Found them by pure luck and of course went out and immediately had a whole set of spares made. How is the rig coming along, any pics?

[polarlyse]

We just got home yesterday from a trip to Florida and New Orleans. Total mileage just about 5200 mi. We attended our first AS rally in Sarasota, Fla. Enjoyed it and will consider attending again. I did enjoy the maintenance seminars and got some good advice from the experts there. Met some nice people too. Did have a mishap in after leaving New Orleans. Was pulling out after a fuel stop when the knucklehead next to me got impatient and opened his drivers door to get in and snagged my awning arms. Bent the arms and put a nice dent in the side and the force pushed the trailer over and dented the other side too. Working now with the insurance co. and will have repairs made. Always something. During our AS ownership I've logged somewhere near 40k miles with only a few scratches from branches. So I guess I was due. Haven't seen the police report yet but I certainly see it as a no fault on my part but this remains to be seen.
Good to be back home and planning for the next outing.

See ya'll on the road sometime.