The Mundane

 When I asked my kids for feedback on the blog one of them suggested including a day in RV life, I was short on material. Well I'm not short on material but I'm not quite motivated to cover material before our Old Stone Fort visit so here comes some daily life coverage.

We had a nice wooded site at Old Stone Fort campground. Nice wooded sites have there drawbacks though: one is the solar doesn't generate much electricity and another is they tend to be cooler. The cooler part isn't actually a drawback in the summer but since it is November the cooler part was made more evident.  It wasn't all that below freezing Thursday night but yesterday (Friday) morning Jane noted the water wasn't running. She thought the hose/pipes froze. I didn't agree but getting back to that cooler wooded idea she was correct. I determined that after running a little bit of an experiment. I squeezed the hose and detected some crunchiness in the line but not enough to completely cut off the flow. Then I took our little electric heater outside and aimed it at the metal campground pipes. Sure enough, the water started flowing after a couple of minutes of heating.

We were packing up Friday morning to move from Old Fort State park to Panther Creek State Park. The frozen pipes just ended up being a minor bump in the plans. After getting packed up our plans included making a couple of stops along the way. One was to stop at an Army Corps of Engineers office to get a Lifetime Senior Pass. The passes are available at many federal locations and often offer significant discounts at federal parks & campgrounds. The Center Hill dam was the Army Corp location we picked. The view we got approaching the dam was the best, unfortunately we missed that one so we settled for the following two pictures. One from on top of the dam and one after crossing over. They were doing construction on the road, that is on top of the dam and going back to the other side didn't seem worth it.

We got to where we were able to get the senior pass at the dam without a hitch. We ended up staying longer than planned because they had nice displays inside the Army Corps of Engineer's office. One display category was stuffed wildlife from the area and the other category was actual photographs of the dam build with somewhat scarce captioning.

The next stops were Walmart and Kroger's (common grocery chain in these parts). The truck's information system was notifying us we were getting low on DEF (diesel exhaust fluid). The fluid is used in the post combustion burning of exhaust gases to reduce or eliminate exhaust particles or soot. Once the truck runs out of DEF the it will go into limp mode. Rather than experiencing what that is like we wanted to pick up some DEF and a couple other things at a Walmart that was right by the Kroger's. 

The last Kroger's grocery stop we made took quite a long while. I think everyone can relate to going to a chain store in a different location from your local one. Even though the local and the store your visiting are both from the same chain, they are laid out differently which makes shopping there more time consuming. To address that issue, we decided to do some of the shopping online except for the meat and produce. That seemed to go well except getting from the Walmart to the Kroger's that were "right next to each other" ended up being more of an adventure than need be. The navigation systems available to us usually works great once you get going but sometimes the getting pointed in the right direction is difficult when you don't really know where you are going in the first place. For example, the navigation system that came with the truck announces "guidance will begin once you start on the route". So here I am in the Walmart parking lot not knowing which way is up, in lunch hour traffic and all the traffic lights are backed up. I try to correctly interpret the funny looking arrow on the navigation screen and have a 50-50 shot of picking the right way to turn, left or right and of course I got it wrong. And if I was just in a little ole car that would be one thing but I'm in this multi-ton behemoth so just turning around isn't an option especially with the traffic. So I start the long turn around process of taking a left at the next light since I was in the left lane. The navigation system decided to start helping me out once I made the incorrect turn onto the route. So after my first left, it picks out the next left for me. I turn onto that road and as I do so Jane points out the no trucks allowed sign. Now, ever since I got the truck, it and I have had an identity crisis. I know if I'm in a little ole quarter ton pickup truck that is not what the no truck sign was referring to. But in my case the lines get a lot fuzzier. You start having to pay attention to low hanging branches and bridges that have 5 ton limits. So I proceeded down the road. Fortunately the road wasn't busy like the main road I had turned off of and I was allowed the luxury of moving from one side to the other depending on how precarious the overhanging branched looked. It wasn't a white knuckle clench of the steering wheel I used, just a slightly gray one.

Once we made it to Kroger we just had to find the pick up location. Was it on the right in the back or the left. This time and guessed right so were able to shop and get on our way. After Jane picked up the fresh veggies and meat.

Now, we have this unwritten goal where we want to get to a campground that we are staying at the first time before dark. With the frozen water, the interesting displays at the Army Corps of Engineers, my subpar navigation and the fact that we were losing an hour crossing times zones from Central to Eastern we started realizing the goal of reaching the campground was in jeopardy. The fuel stop we needed to make and the Knoxville rush hour traffic ended up being the nails in the coffin. It only took two tries to find our campsite. It is a back-in only type and at times like these where you have to back-in in the dark that I am thankful I have my little ole multi-ton behemoth and not one of those fifth wheels or class-A rigs. Here we are at Panther Creek State Park.

After a nice night at the new campground, we were still in the mundane mode. Saturday mornings are slated for an upper body workout routine. Being the gentlemen that I am, Jane gets the inside of the camper to do the routine in. It might also have something to do with the fact that the routine requires some over the head arm movement and I can't quite extend my arms over my head inside the camper even though I have plenty of headroom. So here is me doing one of the push up sets in the area behind the camper.

We had a slow start with the exercise routine so the next thing was lunch and then some truck/camper tasks: me putting the DEF in the truck for the first time (after checking YouTube to figure out how use the fill nozzle that comes with the container).

And here is Jane insulating our battery compartment. We are using Lifepo4 batteries (lithium iron phosphate) that we assembled ourselves (YouTube and DIYSolar forum to the rescue for the battery assembly). One of the nice things about Lifepo4 batteries is they don't need venting but a downside is they have some cold temperature limitations. Those are the reasons for insulating the battery compartment and we actually have a few holes on the inside of the battery compartment for warm air in the living space to reach the compartment.

After those tasks were completed we showered and Jane did the laundry (and didn't have enough quarters to dry said laundry). Then Jane took care of dinner and I worked on the post you are reading now. Cheers