logistics, boondocking and WALMART
More manly details and the learning curve. Our first months budget wasn't great. We overspent by a decent amount and in order to stay out here 'living the dream' we HAVE to improve our numbers. After Kristin broke down our January expenses we realized we could make big improvements in a few key areas. First was our gasoline bill. Driving through Texas we spent almost 600 bucks in gas last month. Ouch. (Yes, Texas is massive and we were a little excited to leave. plus horrible gas mileage.. you get the picture.) We're pretty sure we can shave off a few hundred from that this month. Solution: Drive less. We're almost at the Pacific now, so nowhere left to go for a bit. Our next area for improvement is camping fees. While 35 bucks a night may not sound like much, that's 1,000/month in park fees. We didn't spend that much, but again, OUCH. We can do way better than that, so we set out to make it happen. First, we've been finding more reasonable parks. They're not all winners but most have been fantastic. The other solution is to boondock. Boondocking is also called dry camping and is basically camping (legally) on government or private land (sometimes parking lot) for free. We've done this a few times now. Our fist one night stint a few weeks back went off without a hitch. Attempt 2 a few nights back did not.
In our attempt to save money in between parks Kristin found us an amazing boondocking sight located in the saddleback mountains (BLM land) just west of Phoenix, AZ. We pulled off the hwy, drove in towards the mountains and picked our spot off a dirt road at the base of the range. Pretty spectacular. The next 2 nights were amazing. We were living off the fresh water we brought in our tank (30 gallons) and our propane which ran our fridge as well as hot water heater. Military showers weren't great but we were clean enough. After 2 nights it was time to move west. We stopped in Quartzite to dump our tanks and get some more water before boondocking yet again. This was to be our last day of dry camping before settling in for a few days at a gorgeous state park along the Arizona/California border.
The morning sun at our first stop, Saddleback Mountain.
Night 3 in a row of boondocking went well. No mountains to climb here but the land was clean, quiet and peaceful. Kids spent most of the night throwing rocks in a ravine and swinging on a ridiculously thorny mesquite tree. Apparently these 1 inch barbs are not something to fear when you're 5. Nasty buggers and now I see why Texas ranchers hate them. But to kids in the desert this scraggly thorny tree was a conquest. And the only game in town besides throwing more rocks.
The big kick in the pants for us was waking up that 3rd morning of boondocking to blinking red lights in the camper. It was the light on our fridge saying it didn't have enough electricity to spark the propane igniter which keeps it cold. And the lights were dim when we turned them on. And the water pump was dead. And the carbon monoxide detector was attempting to beep at us that it was losing power, until even that stopped. Our house battery was DEAD. How did we not see this coming? Well, we did. And we didn't. Our camper has only one deep cycle marine 12v battery to power us while boondocking. We have a control panel on the side of the wall that alerts us to the battery's condition. It said we had 1/3 power left when we started our 3rd night. We knew it had to be charged but also figured we had plenty of power left for one more night off the grid. Wrong. Apparently 12v batteries discharge at a much faster rate toward the end of their usage cycle. Ours simply canned sometime in the whee hrs of the morning. So there we are in the sticks without power. Which we NEED to pull in our awning, our slideout, and lift our trailer tongue up enough to get the trailer hitch on it again to tow us away. Not to mention without power our food was going to go bad. With a little head scratching it was easy enough to figure out I could simply start up the suburban and jump the camper battery. I hooked them up together and ran the burb while Kristin pulled in the slide and awning. I jacked up the tongue and we disconnected our jump circuit.
Jumping the camper battery!
After hooking up we were off again, this time to our oasis on the Colorado River. Couldn't happen fast enough. Now we know. Lesson learned. We can be out two nights in a row on our battery. Otherwise we need some solar panels to charge what we have, another house battery hooked in, or a generator. Prices for these range from about 200 bucks to 3,000 for a really nice genny. Keep you posted.....
UPDATE: We're currently installing a second house battery to increase our power capabilities. No solar charger yet, but we'll see how much of an improvement we see with these upgrades.
Other thoughts: WALMART. We never went to Walmart in Austin. Maybe it was the stigma or we were just plain Target snobs. But... Walmart is EVERYWHERE. My hats off to the Waltons, they've conquered midsized America. Any town with over 20k people seems to have a Walmart. I can't always say they're classy joints, but Walmart seems to have all the things. You need a Machete? Check the sporting goods isle. Last store I walked through had several to choose from. No kidding. (I didn't buy one.) Need rubber cement to fix your inflatable kayak? Yep. Propane for your camping grill? Yep. Muffins for your kids that last 2 months without refrigeration? Yep.. Yeah, we passed on the groceries. Otherwise, sigh, hail the mighty Walmart..
Here we are now in Southern California. We made it. I guess that'll be the next update in a week or so. Pacific time. Everything is expensive. Yes, darn it, California is beautiful.
Ben
