Northwood, IA

While mostly hurrying across Iowa, one day I made a little pit stop in the small town of Northwood, IA to let Lucy stretch her legs and enjoy the nice little park they have.

A cluster of mushrooms I saw at a Oskaloosa, IA dog park:

George Washington Carver National Monument (Neosho, MO)

This is a nice, FREE museum dedicated to George Washington Carver in SW Missouri, with a great shaded picnic area and nature walking trail.
 

Pittsburg Public Use Area (Missouri)

I stayed at Pittsburg Public Use area which is a free campground, at least until sometime in 2019. when it's changing to paid. I don't know how much, however. It's primitive with water spigots and vault toilets, with a camp host on site. No electric, dump station or showers. Sights are mostly very unlevel.

One morning, near the end of my 13 night stay (May 11-23), I woke up to a horrible scraping noise under the trailer. I had removed half of the underbelly skin to get rid of tons of old rats nests and wastes, and an armadillo decided it would be a great place to live, even carrying in fresh green leaves to munch on later! The noise was it's tail dragging and claws on the thin sheet metal. After disturbing it a lot and removing more of the sheet metal, it wandered out after I left it alone, just as I was returning. Then it just wandered up next to me sniffing around on the ground, then left. Go figure.

Okay, OK! Wahoo!

After a couple weeks of mostly Wal-Mart overnight stops, but also 3 free nights at a casino with full hookups, I'm finally at my 2 week long stop to get me through the rest of this month. I've had to go a little over my budget for this month (kicking $80 on credit to next month, *sigh*) but you do what you gotta do. I won't be as short next month hopefully. I also may just have to quit trying to pay so much off at once. It puts me short and I end up feeling stressed and what not.

So anyway, I'm at Wahoo Bay near good ol' Okay, OK. Now the title makes sense, huh? There is  camp host who comes by to collect into, namely your license plate number, the site you are occupying, how long you plan to stay and your signature. They told me that the state park just 1.5 mile away allows day use for $5, and has hot showers. I will probably go do that a couple times instead of paying the camping rate like I planned to do once. They have one vault toilet and trash cans here in the free area. There is a boat launch here too, but that costs if you are so inclined to use. 

Oh, they also warned not to leave trash behind, because the agency is really going after people with fines. I pointed out that I leave places cleaner than I find them, and they thanked me for that. You know it's bad when they have nothing nice to say about the locals who frequent the park, constantly breaking rules and leaving it trashed. Fires outside of designated rings is a no-no too, you can't make your own either, like the one at this site made from retaining wall stones that somebody left behind.

So anyway.... my 100W mono solar and 190AH  SLA battery setup is working very well. I'm typing this from my laptop with it plus the 120V LED light strip I had in the truck camper plugged into a 175w inverter and they are barely pulling on the battery. It's totally dark out, so the solar panel isn't contributing any. Now I wish I hadn't bothered to spend $20 filling up my gas cans for the generator. I really don't need it that much. I guess I'll use it during the day for the generator and 120V WindMachine fan if needed, and/or the TV. In any case, I'm doing great for electricity while off grid.

I still need to finish fixing the fresh water system. The tank drain is leaky so I need to replace it. The newer Thetford toilet I was given was seeping from an O-ring, the one and only internal part you can actually replace! I put a new one in (50 cents) that fits really tight so maybe it'll seal, but I have yet to test it under pressure since my fresh water tank is currently empty. I'm still using my two 5 gallon water jugs from the truck camper days. Hopefully that fixed it, otherwise it's gong to be $30 for the whole part. Once I replace the tank drain valve, fill it up and test it again, I'll now if it needs it or not. Or if I just get someplace with a water hookup again.

Finally mobile again, kind of

Well I finally hitched up the trailer a few days ago. This poor ol' truck sure is a slug with it back there, when it comes to trying to get up to highway speed on an incline. That's what I get for buying a non-turbo diesel. It's possible that it could need timing adjusting but it'll have to wait. I don't plan to go across mountains this year, or at least at the very high altitudes I did last year.

I'm still hanging around here for at least another night before I actually hit the road again, trying to stay within a very low budget this month, due to debt I have been bad about reducing, due to paying it down but buying new crap, keeping the overall amount owed the same instead of reducing it. That has been going on for over a year. That has to stop. I plan to go 300 miles or less this month, with a 2 week stay planned at a free camp.

With this new setup, I don't feel so claustrophobic and I picked up my old 5 gallon gas can from my mom's house, so I can have 7 gallons of gas on hand for my little ol' generator. That can easily last me 10-14 days alone, though I'll probably go to town before then for extra groceries and ice.

I got a nice indoor TV antenna, plus I grabbed the old outdoor RV one from the van I removed, but it's not mounted currently. If it seems like it works than the indoor one, I probably will later on.

 I have plenty of space to stretch out inside, I have a desk for my laptop, TV and good antenna(s), stove/oven, sinks and a tub/shower, (cold water only, needs an RV water heater). I need to finish fixing the fresh water lines, however. I'm using 5 gallon water jugs for the moment.

It's more like a real home now!

Another long overdue update

Well over the past nearly 3 months, I have been working on a junky old travel travel trailer I probably shouldn't have bought, but oh well. It is a 1981 Holiday Rambler Aluma-Lite, about 28ft long. (plus tongue)

I am decking it out with solar (100W for now), a good true deep cycle 12V battery (90AH), all new roof vents including a Fan-Tastic model 1200. I really plan to blog more soon once I've hit the road again with the trailer. I will have little excuse this time. I have the space to keep my laptop setup on a daily basis on a desk, namely.

This year I will be touring the Midwest, New England and the east in general. I wanted to last year but I didn't leave until May. This time it's only a month earlier, April, but I will have a much better setup; a mostly insulated trailer (missing a bit in the ceiling, more on that in a future post) unlike May of last year, when I initially only had an non-insulated, fiberglass camper shell on the truck. I got the insulated RV-type one pictured below over in west Texas after a few weeks in place of the fiberglass shell.

A quick picture of the trailer as it was when I bought it.

I'm not dead yet

Unfortunately, my laptop screen died months ago and the Android app is almost totally broken for Blogger now. Google quit updating it, I guess.

I finally got a used one recently that uses the same battery as my old one, but I've gotten so out of the habit of blogging, I have had a hard time bringing myself to take the time to do it since I pretty much have to do it on my laptop.

I have been posting pictures on Facebook, but that doesn't do anyone any good outside of people that I've added on there.

I will try to catch up on my lack of posting by going back and posting noteworthy places and info.