New Tricks

 It was another night of uncomfortable tuxedos, this time made better by the changing of the pants.  Sort of like the changing of the guard, but better.  The men's tuxedo pants are not the least bit comfortable, let alone flattering.  Women apparently are not supposed to wear such things since they don't MAKE those pants for women, at least not that I can find in this little country town ... or on the internet for that matter.

So I switched them out for a pair of nice black slacks.  As all you women know, black is not necessarily black, but these matched good enough.  No one even noticed!!  Success!!

The memorial was a really nice celebration of the lives of Elks lost this past two years.  I think there were about 50 people in attendance.  It did take a little time to quiet down the bar next door.  It must have been a good football game.  

In no time I was back home looking up the blue flame propane heater.  I tried to purchase one several years ago, but they always seemed to be sold out.  I really didn't need it since I was always plugged in or had six AGM household batteries to keep me going all night long.

Here's the main problem with me dry camping.  I have this parrot that has to be kept warm.  Cooper and I can snuggle up, but the bird has to be kept at least close to 70 degrees.  Since you cannot run the generator all night long, meaning there's no 110 plugs to heat up the ceramic lamp, Jonathan will be shivering in his boots.  

Mr. Chance said that I have two AGM batteries, enough to keep the heater going for at least 8 hours.  So night before last, I tried it.  I set the thermostat, then flipped off the breaker.  It only got down to 50 degrees, but sure enough, I had five red lights, meaning 12.4 on the power scale the next morning.  But wait ... how can that be if the heater kept it warm all night??

So last night I tried it again, this time raising the temperature to 66 degrees and kicking the circuit breaker off.  I even checked the light to be sure there was no power to the rig.  What the heck?  Again this morning, it's 66 degrees inside and the batteries are still fully charged.  Am I going crazy??  So tonight I'm going to physically UNPLUG the cord to the rig and turn the heater up to 70 degrees.  Maybe I'll even sleep there to see if the heater is even working.

In the meantime, I contacted RV Lifestyles in Quartzsite who is going to call me as soon as their shipment of blue flame heaters comes in, probably in January.  I may be able to find it somewhere sooner, but shipping it here is a problem.  That will completely solve my heat-the-bird problem.  The generator will take care of watching TV for the time being.  No AC and no microwave.  I'll survive, I just have to figure out how to heat up those frozen lean cuisine dinners.

As for the inverter which I definitely need, Doug has graciously offered me his 1500 watt to try out.  I'm thinking however that I will just have a 2000 watt pure sine wave inverter installed when I get to Quartzsite in January and maybe one more battery.  

My main problem is figuring all this stuff out.  In the other RV, it was just all there and doing it's thing automatically.  Now I have to actually figure out why and how everything works manually ... and electricity is not my forte!!  Besides that, it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks!!