Housebound From Dust-Storm, How Converters & Inverters Work, and Late Day Water Run.

Our Location today is La Posa South L.T.V.A., Quartzsite, Arizona, U.S.A.

Something was seriously wrong when after getting a good night’s sleep we both managed to sleep in this morning. as soon as we got downstairs and opened the Window Shades we knew that we weren’t going to be doing much outside. Looking in the distance you could barely see the shadows of the mountains through the clouds of dust. 

At times you could not see the outline of the mountains.

We made certain that we read all Blogs we follow (which is everyone on our sidebar) and didn’t miss any because we still can’t get to our G-mails. Any other site we opened including our Blog were slow but Google just won’t connect us to our G-mail. 

Our Mat was doing the Wave. Lucky it's pegged down.

With all our normal chores done Kathy settled in reading a book while I tried getting our electronics going. Even though I didn’t believe what Wayne was telling me about needing the Converter on to have power to our 12 Volt Plug but you never know anymore. The only way that could happen was to first turn on our Main Inverter. When that was accomplished it was a matter of turning the Breaker for the Converter to the “On” position. Using the Weboost and Multi Meter both we could not get any power to that Plug. The Converter Breaker was immediately returned to the “Off” position. 

There's no vehicles in that cloud.

The reason for shutting the Converter is because it uses Power to Charge the Batteries. While it is using Power created by the Inverter (Not a Power Pole because we are “Off the Grid”) which is getting the Power from the Batteries. I call this the “Dog Chasing Its Tail” and it will drain your Batteries. The reason I waited to do this test until this morning is because even with the wind we still had lots of Sunshine that was being collected by our Solar Panels that the Charge Controller was storing in our Batteries for our use. Any Power Loss this morning was quickly replaced. 

Toasted Egg Sandwich, Chicken and Rice Soup for lunch
Also a Fruit Cup for dessert. 

Another thing I wanted to do was to get our Television up and running. We purchased the Antenna last winter but never tried it being quite content not watching it. It took nearly a Half Hour to reprogram the Television and the picture was crystal clear but I would spend the next Hour and a Half trying unsuccessfully to get the Audio to work. Have you noticed that most of our problems are Electrical or Electronic and most of them were Factory Installed by Jayco. 

That truck often disappeared in that cloud of dust.

Not being able to get that to work I attempted to go On-Line to research the problem. With the Sandstorm keeping everyone inside their RVs the Airwaves were filled with people On-Line so I couldn’t find out what I needed. 

North Wind 21 MPH gusting to 32 today.
A few Gusts shook the trailer.

After having been Housebound all day because of the Dust, Kathy was starting to feel the onset of Cabin Fever and suggested we go out for supper around 4:30. There were only a few local residents inside when we arrive at McDonalds where we both enjoyed their Chicken Nuggets for supper. We had just sat down when it seemed a lot of people we’ve seen in the LTVAs started showing up. Our time away helped us to relax with a change of scenery and let us do some People Watching. 

Hours later it still looked the same.

When we had arrived at McDonalds the Flags at the Vendor next door were all sticking straight out from the Wind. Thirty Minutes later they were all just hanging there as if someone had just turned a fan off. With the high winds we had today I didn’t get take chance to fill our Fresh Water Barrel figuring that it would have had extra dirt thrown in. When we got back Home at La Posa South LTVA I loaded our Fresh Water Barrel into the Truck and drove over to the Water Fill Stations. Strange there wasn’t anyone else there. With no Dust blowing it wasn’t a problem getting clean warm water. Back at the Trailer after I got Kathy safely in the door I transferred half the Barrel of Warm Water over to our Fresh Water Tank. We both had warm showers this evening and hardly ran the Water Heater.

Tomorrow we’ve got to run an errand and then we’ll see what we can do. Thanks for following along, feel free to leave a comment and click on the pictures to enlarge them. Be Safe and Enjoy!

It’s about time.

Krackers

Words of Inspiration

Scratching is one of nature's sweetest gratifications, and the nearest at hand.

Michel de Montaigne, French Essayist