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WINTER BREAK

What we have been up to all winter

By Time2Geaux Unplugged

May 5^th, 2019

"Cherish your human connections - your relationships with friends and family."

- Barbara Bush

It has been a while since we headed home from out west and a lot of changes have happened. We bounced between East Texas and our childhood home of Baton Rouge. We said goodbye to our faithful traveling companion, Bella but were lucky enough to take her back home. We sold our old Boo (camper) and bough the new Boo. After discovering we had a weight problem (just like all of us at this age), we decided the only way to fix it was to take our beating and change campers. The new Boo looks just like the old Boo with a few floorplan changes but this model is the smallest unit on the larger frame, giving us an extra 1300 lbs. of capacity. After changing campers, we bounced back to Houston to install the solar system we had ordered and then back to Baton Rouge for one last day with our children, grandson before heading north for the summer.

Holidays in our New Home

The holidays were different, not having a big house that can host the family. For Christmas, we put up a small tree with the wrapped packages stacked higher than the tree. We did see family and three of the four children during the holidays but thing always change and it wasn’t like the days when they were young. We were blessed to have our grandson during the holidays, we even took him camping. We didn’t have to do any big cooking, being lucky enough to be invited by family and friends. All and all we were blessed to get a chance to see a lot of our family and friends, just different from the way it was.

Christmas Card from Middendorf's Restaurant in Pass Manchac (outside of New Orleans)

Christmas FaceTime with our son and his girl in Oregon

Dawson and Nana building a gingerbread house at school

Taking Bella Home

After the holidays, we had to say goodbye to our faithful traveling companion, Bella. She was almost 14 years old and had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. She had started to put herself in ‘time-out’ in corners for a minute or so and then progressed to walking in circles. Since we were traveling away from our old home and her regular vet we took her to Banfield Pet Hospital, located in some Pet Smart stores. Discovering a veterinarian that we could access anywhere in the country and shared records solved a problem we had been struggling with.

We were able to make Bella comfortable, now understanding it was a quality of life problem that really didn’t have a cure. She became more cuddly and we indulged her to the end. We were able to take her home to our property in Central where we buried her on an island where some of our other dogs had been buried on puppy island.

Changing Houses, Making it a Home

People change houses all the time so for us to change trailers in less than one year may not be the best financial decision we ever made but was necessary to accomplish our goals and not leave ourselves exposed to a financial obligation that insurance could shift responsibility to us. In a nutshell we were at our trailer weight limit, not the axel limit but the GVWR (gross vehicle weight rating) for the unit. We have plenty of truck to handle the weight but that little sticker on the camper was the problem. To backup a bit, we went to the home we had never been to before, our address in Livingston TX, where Escapees has a campground setup for full-time travelers like us. The mail service we use is why we have an address here. They have a detailed weighing system and we elected to have our camper weighed so we could better plan our solar install. What we learned was that we were overweight and that insurance could deny us if we were in an accident. After doing our best to drop weight and weighing everything in the camper we determined that we couldn’t get to a weight that would allow us to add solar and boondock. JoAnn started working her magic and sold our camper and ordered another one that would allow us to accomplish what we wanted and stay under the GVWR.

We sold the Grand Design 310GK to a wonderful couple in Nashville who wanted the generator but had no plans to boondock off-grid like us. JoAnn actually talked most of the people who called out of the 310 and into the camper we purchased, the Grand Design 344GK. They wanted to do the same thing as we were gearing up to do and would have had the same problems.

We took possession of the new camper and after a quick shakedown trip, we started working on all the modification or mods that make a camper home. One of the first thing we did was order a new bed, giving the new, poor excuse for a mattress that came in our 344 to the couple that purchased our 310. We had discussed upgrading for a while and this seemed like the perfect time! We ordered a Sleep Number R5 (RV version) and it has been much better than what we have been using for the past year. We were Temper Pedic people but this is good for our travel time and weights much less (yes we are still gun-shy of anything that adds weight).

It is amazing all the things you do to a camper when you live in it full time. Amazon Prime was a key part to getting back the functionality we had come to expect. From the toilet seat to containers to keep things in some sort of order while our house endures the regular earth quakes of traveling, we ordered a bunch of stuff.

Happy new owners (Mike and Donna) and relieved former owners (new Boo was across the street)

STEP TOWARDS ENERGY INDEPENDENCE

After getting the rig ready to travel again we headed to Houston and lived inside a friend’s warehouse for almost two weeks while I took it apart, installed solar and put her back together. It was quite a job, with me working 10 to 12+ hours a day. Our son Gabe came up and helped out with JoAnn and I doing the bulk of the work. I plan to do a technical post around the solar install, just email us if you are interested.

The system we installed will run most of the critical components and even give us an hour or two of air conditioning in the bedroom. We installed 400 Ah of lithium batteries that I ordered from China (Winston/Thunder Sky), a 3000 W Victron inverter and 800 W of solar panels on the roof.

The learning curve was steep, I had to learn a lot about LiFePO4 batteries and how to manage them without killing them. Interesting stuff but it absorbed me for a while designing the system, really glad I have an automation/instrumentation background. I was also lucky to have an automation/panel shop at my disposal that really facilitated the install. Origin Automation opened their facility and supplies to me with open arms! Thanks John and Bevin!

Just by coincidence, we pulled the camper out of the warehouse and captured 1.2kW of solar energy on Earth Day! We happened to be driving back to Louisiana so our efficiency may not have been as good as it could have been in a more ideal situation but we recharged our batteries.

Jeff wiring the solar panels on the roof

PROPERTY EQUALS WORK

When you own something, you always have work that needs to be done! We have some property back in North Baton Rouge (Central to be more exact) and a barn where we store some of the larger items that can take exposure to the elements. The barn is old, being build by my father with some help from me when I was in high school. When we build it, to save money we cut hardwood post from the property and used them for some of the poles in the barn. That was in the 70’s so they are past their usefulness and my project this winter was to replace one of the walls and post. I was luck to have my brother-in-law come help me on the final part of the project, getting the barn sealed back up.

We also have some inherited property in Mississippi that we planted in pine trees about 25 years ago. While checking some of the property boarders, we discovered that some pine beetles had killed about ¾ of an acre of trees and they needed to be cut down to keep the beetles from spreading. It took several trips to accomplish this, chain sawing down hundreds of dead trees.

COURIR DE MARDI GRAS IN CAJUN COUNTRY

Courir de Mardi Gras in Cajun Country

We normally head to New Orleans for Mardi Gras but this year we decided to do things a bit different… Experience Mardi Gras in the heart of Acadian Country is a bit different than other celebrations and more family focused. While you can find a family aspect at almost any Mardi Gras celebration except for the drunken debauchery of Bourbon Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans, family is central to the Cajuns and it shows. From throws being given to children to everyone making sure the kids catch more than they can carry.

We went to Church Point, Louisiana on Sunday to watch the c, riders who go through the countryside on horseback or on foot to collect ingredients for a community wide gumbo. The prize is chickens which they beg for then chase until caught and then are paraded by the Courir in costumes through the street on the way back to where the cooking will take place. The costumes are traditional for the area and much different than other costumes from other Marid Gras celebrations.

Link: https://www.louisianatravel.com/articles/cajun-mardi-gras

Slower chickens that will be gumbo in a few hours

Courir rider in traditional dress, not so traditional riding technique!

Church Point, Louisiana parade following the Courir riders

Natchez in spring

We headed up to Natchez for most of a week to visit with some friends we meet at one of the Grand Design RV Rallies. They and one of their friends were going to travel the Natchez Trace, spending a week in Natchez during the Spring Pilgrimage. We joined them enjoyed the exploring Natchez and the surrounding area.

Each day all or some would meetup and explore the area or work on camper projects. Each night one of the three couples would host the others, preparing a simple meal. We did have dinner in town at a historic venue, Kings Tavern on Jefferson Street in Natchez. Being one of the oldest building still standing in Natchez and believed to be haunted! The story goes that the Mrs. King, the tavern owner’s wife hired two men to kill Madeline, Mr. Kings employee and mistress. Mr. King discovered them after Madeline was dead and killed them. They were all three bricked in the wall behind the fireplace, only to be discovered in the 1930’s. Most of the paranormal activities at the tavern are blamed on Madeline.

Natchez is beautiful in the spring, with everything in bloom and this is when historical homes are opened up for the Pilgrimage, each house has historical interpreters who are dressed in period costumes and bring the homes history to life.

Rodney ghost town, flooding by Mississippi River

Jeff & JoAnn, Don & Renee, Paul & Vickie

Turning Angle overlooks graves for employees killed in an explosion at Natchez Drug Company

GRAND TIME

With our only grandchild being in Baton Rouge we took Dawson camping every chance we could. He is starting kindergarten next year so we know that taking him whenever we are in town for a day or two is coming to an end. We were able to get a few camping trips in before we headed north for the summer.

Dawson was able to make several camping trips with us during our off-season travels. One notable trip was to Fontainebleau State Park on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. We got up one morning and introduced Master Dawson to beignets, which he naturally loved. We tried our luck fishing but he really wanted to play in the sand so our focus changed and we build castles in the sand leaving the trout for another day.

Wet trail conditions at Fontainebleau State Park

Louisiana lizard at Fontainebleau State Park

Dawson trying to get Papa to play chase...

Dawson trying the Mardi Gras King Cake he and Nana made

What we Learned:

· You don’t know what you don’t know… we spend over a year researching the perfect camper and it was. The 310GK was perfect for us except that it has a GVWR of 15K and we needed more for our full-time life and solar.

· You take a beating when you sell a one-year old camper to a dealership. We made one future full-time couple very happy and gained some new friends. We just had dinner at their house (before they retire and head out).

· It was fun to be able to do the solar install, designing and installing a system like that reminded me why I enjoyed my job at Dow Chemical R&D in the automation department. My old I&E lead tech came by and said it looked pretty good, he would hire me…

Next Stop:

We are leaving out, heading for Michigan where I will join my newly found brother and travel to Italy for a few weeks… a vacation from our vacation so to speak. When we return, we will keep heading north into Canada and then west. When it starts to cool off, we will head back south again in the fall.