On to Phoenix and so much more

States where we have camped

After leaving family and Yucca Valley behind, we headed for the BIG city of Phoenix.  

We had hoped to see another cousin (on my dad's side) and his wife  there, but due to a work related accident they were not able to meet us.  We will get to see another cousin (mom's side) and her family next week, however.




We traveled east on hwy 62 to 177 – past the Marine base at 29 Palms and through some of the most exquisitely desolate, yet beautiful desert we have seen.  A sign warned us there were no more services for the next 100 miles.  But there were people living out there!

Exquisitely desolate, yet beautiful desert

The Phoenix suburb of Glendale was a destination because we had solar panels to be installed there.

We had equipped our rig with 4 golf cart batteries and a 2000 watt inverter last fall.  The batteries, of course, store electricity – 440 amp-hours worth. (If you burned a 120 watt light bulb for 1 hour you would used 1 amp-hour of electricity)

The batteries (duh)

The inverter changes 12 volt battery DC electricity (like in your car) into 120 volt AC electricity like in your house.  Basically, this lets us use our coffee maker, microwave, etc just like at home, even when we are not plugged into 120 volt power.

The inverter (bottom) and charge controller (right)

But the batteries are like a water storage tank.  You can use up what's in the tank, but then you have to put more back in.  With batteries, it's called recharging, like you do with your cell phone every night.

The three 160 watt solar panels on the roof of our RV turn sunshine into about 9 amps of electricity per hour (by magic?) and then store it in the aforementioned batteries every day (refilling the tank). A “charge controller” senses when the “tank”is full and shuts off the electricity so the batteries don't get overcharged.

This system allows us to Dry Camp or Boondock without plugging in. We have 90 gallons of water storage and 120 gallons of waste storage in the RV so we can sit for 7-14 days comfortably, depending on how we conserve water.







After we had the solar panels installed, we moved to some BLM (Bureau of Land Management) property (public land owned by the US of A).  The place was a trail-head  for a trail leading the Vulture Creek Mine.  We sat, quite contentedly for the next 5 days letting the sun provide our electricity.

Sunset in the desert from our camp site

The rig with Vulture Mt in the background 

On Sunday morning we attended Redeemer Lutheran Church in Wickenbburg, AZ.  There we met someone there who drastically changed the next 2 weeks of our life.  Then on Monday we met some folks who may drastically change many years of our lives in the future.

Come back and read my next post to find out how.