Today promises to be a normal weather day here in Las Vegas, which is about ten degrees hotter than Cottonwood. So long as we keep the slides in, the neighborhood watch doesn’t bother us:
We are considering replacing our 3 burner, 1ish cubic foot RV range with a four burner, 5 cubic foot residential gas range. This would involve tearing out cabinetry, adding electrical service behind the range, and modifying the range to run on propane rather than natural gas. We visited a few stores to see what’s available in black and stainless:
Trish has been wanting to replace the RV sofa with a living room set that takes up less space. This set has ottomans that come out from under the chairs. L’Chaim!
Bubbe and Zayde took us out to dinner at Sababa’s. I’m not sure what’s going on here:
On the way home we purchased the furniture set and set it up where the sofa used to be:
No doubt so our RV manufacturer could save money by using lighter duty suspension components, our RV only has a 45 gallon fresh water tank, which is on the small side for an RV of this size. Most RVs used by fulltimers have at least 100 gallons of fresh water on board. In turns out to not be that big of a deal for us, as we can last about 5 days on 45 gallons of water, and we tend to go out on trips or to do errands frequently enough that we fill up our 45 gallon water bag in the bed of our pickup and bring the water back to the RV. A few times, though, we’ve run out of water and have been forced to make a special trip just to get more water.
Water in the RV is pumped from the fresh water tank into the plumbing to create water pressure at the sink and shower. Cold water is also pumped into the 12 gallon water heater. The pressure on the cold side pushes the heated water out of the water heater into the hot water lines. When there’s no more water in the fresh water tank, hot water no longer gets pushed out of the water heater, so it just sits there.
I realized we could use this 12 gallons of water heater water if we could access it. I removed the anode rod from the tank and added a T fitting which allowed me to screw the anode rod back into the T fitting and install a garden hose attachment on the side:
I then attached the other end of the hose to the fresh water fill attachment on the RV, and set the fill mode to “winterize”, which uses the onboard pump to draw from the fill attachment, not from the fresh water tank. This is normally used to draw anti-freeze into the RV’s plumbing for winter storage, but in this case I’m sucking water out of the water heater and making it available for use! We now have 12 gallons of water we can use in a pinch if we empty our fresh water tank.
For this to work, I have to open the pressure valve at the top of the water heater so that air can enter the tank to replace the water removed. I installed a screen over the valve to prevent bugs from crawling into the water heater through the vent. I also installed a screen between the hose and the RV pump so that any scale or other particles from the water heater aren’t ingested by the pump.
Just for fun, we lived on water heater water for the whole day!
This afternoon, B and I went for a ride “around the block”. Much of the Forest Service road was quite rough, and we passed a dead rattlesnake on the road! At one point, there were cows all over the road, which made B nervous, so I rode ahead and encouraged them to move along.
We had a nice Day 500 Shabbos in Las Vegas! Last night we had a Chanukah party with our parents, which was nice.
Today I tried to salvage the staircase the was damaged in Alaska by cutting off the bottom-most stair. This allowed me to at least get the staircase to unfold, but after 30 minutes of sledgehammer lovin’, I still couldn’t get the staircase back to a shape that would allow me to mount it back on the RV, so I gave up on it.
The RV’s battery charger, which is powered by our generator on those rare occasions when we strike out with solar, is wired with 6 gauge wire, and is about 20 feet from the battery, which I believe adds enough of a voltage drop (1.19 volts according to the math) to dramatically reduce the ability of the charger to actually charge the battery. I moved the battery charger about 2 feet by wire away from the battery, and used much thicker 2 gauge wire. Voltage drop should now be 0.047 volts. The charger is the silver box in the photo:
Tomorrow I’ll break out the A/C plug for the charger so it pops out near the propane quick release for the generator. This will save me from having to run an extension cord from the generator all the way to the chassis A/C input on the rear of the RV, like I’ve been doing so far.
This had been on the todo list for months, so I’m happy to finally get to it.
While I was rewiring the RV, Trish went boot shopping with Grandma DiAnn. Sounds like they had a lot of fun!
Tonight we’re overnighting at Camping World, as we have to do a couple more errands in town tomorrow before we can head out to Jean Lake.
We started the day by practicing for M’s bar mitzvah Torah reading portion. We use Kol Koren software to practice:
We headed East today, seeing great views along the road:
When new reached the junction of the Sterling Highway and the Seward Highway, we followed the Seward Highway south to the end of the road, at Seward, Alaska. Seward is the access point for Kenai Fjords National Park, which is mostly reached by water, so the town has an extensive marina:
Not a bad view from our parking spot while in Seward:
We stopped in at the Kenai Fjords visitor center in Seward, then headed back up the Seward Highway to the Exit Glacier Visitor Center. Here, visitors can hike up to the Exit Glacier. We received our Junior Ranger workbooks and headed up the trail. We had also checked out a green “discovery backpack”, which had as one of its activities to measure the water temperature of the creek flowing from the toe of the glacier. We measured the temperature at 35 degrees, which makes sense:
The kids pulled this chunk of ice out of the water as it floated by:
We continued up the trail:
Eventually, we reached the toe of Exit Glacier. The glacier is four miles long, and is hundreds of feet thick along its center line. It’s amazing to think that this massive flow of ice is made up of snow that fell on the Harding Icefield long, long ago. This viewpoint was adjacent to the glacier a few years ago, but the glacier recedes hundreds of feet a year, so the glacier is no longer accessible from this point:
The hike down was beautiful as well:
Back at the visitor center, the kids completed their Junior Ranger workbooks:
They also did additional activities from the discovery backpack:
The ranger insisted on swearing the kids in outside next to the flagpole, much to M’s chagrin:
The kids received their badge, as well as a “Junior Glacier Ranger” patch for their discovery backpack work:
It was getting late, so we decided to overnight at a pullout on the access road to Exit Glacier. Not a bad view!
More views from the pullout:
M and I did some math on his wall, which is floor to ceiling whiteboard:
I finally finished the wall by diving the bookcase in the rear of the bunkhouse:
True to its reputation, Mt. McKinley was not easy to spot. It’s hiding somewhere in the clouds:
We saw it clearly while driving down the highway, but by the time we pulled over it was concealed again. This the best I could do, it’s the large white mass in the center of the photograph:
Continuing South, we arrived in Wasilla and visited the Iditarod headquarters. Sled dogs pull tourists on a wheeled cart around a short track in the summer:
Tonight we’re overnighting at the Walmart of Wasilla. I found some time to diagnose and fix our rear stabilizers, which refuse to come down with either the motor drive or the manual override. I suspected the motor was seized, and indeed that was the case. The solution was to remove the motor entirely, which at least allows the screw drive to spin freely so the stabilizers can be raised and lowered manually:
Yup, she’s done:
See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.
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