Day 268: Leaving Las Vegas!

Posted on May 2, 2014 by Ben

This morning we stopped at Lowes for some last minute hardware. If you ever go shopping with kids, ditch ’em at the lighting display, they won’t notice for some time :

Our grocery bill at Smith’s was so large today that it tripped anti-fraud protections on both of our credit cards. Grrr!

We drove through Death Valley where we dumped tanks next to the visitor center. It was 105 degrees in the shade.

We continued out of Death Valley over Townes pass, our first real test of the new truck and RV. We climbed the 5000 feet of vertical at about 50 miles an hour, not bad I thought. We then continued down into the Panamint Sink and up another dicey climb to the Darrin Plateau, where we stopped on BLM land near the turnoff for Darwin. We’re at 5200 feet here, so it should be quite a bit cooler here than it was in Las Vegas.

Good Shabbos from the foothills of the Eastern Sierra! See the trip map for today’s route.

Day 267: Leaving Las Vegas (almost)

Posted on May 1, 2014 by Ben

This morning I finished mounting the bike rack to the rear bumper. Unfortunately, the new RV’s bumper is so close to the rear wall that our extra wheels won’t fit it their places on the rack, so for now they’re in the truck bed.

We don’t have a good way to carry the kayaks on the roof of the truck, so we left them at my parent’s storage unit and took the racks off the SUV. We are considering purchasing a pair of inflatable kayaks, but we used the kayaks so rarely that we may just make do without them. My parents are now the proud owners our storied Kia:

Trish stained the kids’ new tables to match the RV’s trim:

Tomorrow we’ll head West out of Las Vegas. We can’t wait to get back on the road!

Day 266: So long, old friend

Posted on April 30, 2014 by Ben

Today we said goodbye to our old RV. Jesse and Angela are excited to start making their own RV memories with their new RV! Here’s Jesse after the hand-off was completed:

When I returned home (to BLM land) after finalizing the sale, I got to work on mounting the bike rack onto the new RV:

We’re still hoping to get on the road by Friday, as Saturday’s highs are expected to be just shy of 100 degrees.

Day 265: Ranges and Ovens

Posted on April 29, 2014 by Ben

This morning I took my angle grinder to the Suburban-brand oven grate from the old RV and modified it to fit our new Atwood oven. Now we once again have a grate for meat and a grate for dairy:

This time around, we’re a little more reluctant build a second oven into the kitchen like last time, at least for now, so I built a quick and dirty slide mechanism for the second oven to emerge from one of our basement doors, so it can be used as a kind of outdoor kitchen:

It uses the same propane connection that is used for the generator:

Here it is retracted.

Tomorrow we hope to complete the sale of the RV and move the bike rack over to the new RV. We hope to leave Las Vegas on Friday.

Day 264: Pillows and inverters

Posted on April 28, 2014 by Ben

Grandma DiAnn and Barry stopped by to see the new RV. We had a nice time visiting, especially the part where we gave Grandma DiAnn her birthday present and M’s guess of her age overshot by over a decade.

Oops.

Grandma DiAnn gave B a pair of pillowcases that her mother had embroidered:

The new inverter arrived today. I bought a slightly smaller and cheaper one in case Camping World blows up this one as well. I took this opportunity to modify the wiring so that I can disconnect the solar controller or the inverter or both from the battery using the selector switch. Before, the solar controller was downstream of the inverter, so when the inverter’s 150 amp fuse blew, we temporarily lost solar as well.

We’re trying to wrap up what must be done here in town as temperatures are expected to be in the high 90s this weekend. We also really want to get back on the road!