Forced Boondocking at 14 F

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The men of Mercury and Gemini had stones of granite. We lived our program basically publicly. Our failures were broadcast. I could not imagine watching Redstone after Redstone blow up on the pad and then say, "Yeah sure. Strap it to my butt and lets go."

In "The Right Stuff", I hope he actually said it, Shepherd finally said, "OK let's light this candle!"

Apollo 1 could have shut our program down. It's amazing even after the delays for congressional hearings we made the moon before 1970. Probably the best demonstration post war of American doggedness.

In retrospect NASA probably needed their chain jerked. When "engineers run wild" they can get tunnel vision on technology and deadlines and not perceive the safety aspect so much.

I recently was looking at a bunch of the Russian history. They, of course, were very secretive. They actually lost a lot of guys we now know - not surprising based on their culture of the time and maybe to a degree now. We may never know how many they lost. But, for sure, I don't think I would have loved the privilege of being invited to Star City to be a cosmonaut - LOL...
 
I recently was looking at a bunch of the Russian history. They, of course, were very secretive. They actually lost a lot of guys we now know - not surprising based on their culture of the time and maybe to a degree now. We may never know how many they lost. But, for sure, I don't think I would have loved the privilege of being invited to Star City to be a cosmonaut - LOL...
If you're ever near Hutchinson, KS be sure to visit the Cosmosphere. They've accumulated a world class collection of US and Russia space memorabilia from space vehicles to pocket watches and provides great insight into both space programs. The stories behind how they accumulated their collection is as fascinating as the collection itself, like getting the jinxed Apollo 13 capsule no one else wanted and then using the build sheets to track down the missing interior parts. Or talking the Discovery Channel into sponsoring the recovery of Gus Grissom's lost Mercury capsule and finding the rolls of souvenir dimes he smuggled in.

This and the Stratica Underground Salt Mine Museum make Hutchinson worth a day or two. The Kansas State Fairgrounds has a reasonably priced full hookup RV park except for when the State Fair is underway in September.
 
I like to watch the YouTube videos from RVers and get some great ideas from those. For instance, even though my Onan 4000 runs fine, I picked up a 3400 watt Champion generator for back up. It's a little on the loud side, but it is also sizeable enough to use for my house power outages. Living in California, we are getting a substantial amount of those these days. Thank you, Govnor.
 
In regard to engineers, I feel our son is getting a great experience and providing a great service to our country as a civil engineer in the Navy. Has 8 years in at age 29 and it looks like he will be a career CB. He worked on my father's dairy farm some growing up and we still need to install the electrical and interior in a 1971 Buick Skylark restoration project that has some GSX components. He has turned wrenches! He has some practical experience and is getting pushed hard as a company commander in NMCB 4.
 
Interesting enough even parked here in front of my job site (fully functioning multi residential building) we’ve been battling frozen water lines and of course the dump valves. The heati pad for our black water tank decided to not work (yay cheap Amazon products even tested it before installation)! All told we fared decently by managing our wastewater and the on board tank. Luckily no power outages here (though I’m all of 20 feet away from alternative shelter with emergency life systems a nice little benefit to working on retirement facilities).

The interesting lesson I learned that might help others is that my biggest frustration was *where* our water lines froze up! Shore inlet, hot water heater, toilet and bath sink (black) are on one side with the shower and sink (gray) as well as our fresh tank on the opposite. Pipes underneath across froze up!! With the connection using one heated hose and one not we would still get a freeze to the supply.

So even with a supply freeze we have water throughout, as I write this we are experiencing a cold cross connect feed so hot throughout but no cold to the sink or shower without the pump. When both freeze we get cold at the shower / sink side and nothing else. Hah! By closing most of our vents and running the furnace the ducts warm the pipes to an eventual thaw which is what I did at the time of this original post. This morning I think I’m just going to wait until it warms up a bit before I react.

My big takeaway from the past few weeks is that I need to work on insulating the area where my plumbing crosses when time and circumstances allow. Our air skirts did arrive and our space we’ve been paying for but not occupying is at a lower altitude and better protected from the winds, not to mention has much closer connections so with the ability to use the skirts combined with better weather protection throughout I don’t suspect too many issues.

Bottom line, the one place I didn’t think of froze!
 
It was the Hasselblad camera, it is still used today and is a very high-end, expensive camera (some upgrades through the years). It is still very sensitive to temps.
Well, get some of these engineers to work for nasa bc nasa says they cannot duplicate the 1960's technology with modern computing without a lot of time and even more money invested. They also say the computer was less sophisticated than a 1980'2 Casio watch, but that too is lost tech I guess...
 
@IBTripping

Are you getting rain or snow down there today?

I am supposed to get snow for a while, then a bit of ice, then rain here, starting around 3pm.

Yuck
 
I have a honda 2200, will it run the entire trailer (as long as use propane and not space heaters) ?
A 2200W generator puts out about 20amps @110V. Basically one house circuit. Short answer is no. You won't be able to run everything, especially 2 AC units if you have them.

I think I posted in this thread that I initially plugged my RV into a 20amp house circuit with adapters. I could run the DC stuff and my one (smaller) AC unit. If I ran anything 110V that had a significant draw (micro, toaster) at the same time the circuit breaker would pop.

I also noticed over time that the cord and adapter joints would get fairly hot and started to blacken. I upgraded to a 30 amp capable extension cord and those problems are eased. Each joint in the cord setup causes a resistance point so the fewer joints the better.

Then I installed a 30amp socket in my house but still ran the 30 amp cord with extensions - ideally I would make up a 30 amp cord with 30 amp male/female ends and do away with the adapters.

My coach has a 4000W generator on board - this in theory gives 40 amps @110V and runs the whole RV with caveats - I can now run all the DC and 2 higher draw 110V appliances - If I have the AC going and the coffee brewing and then throw something in the micro, I will blow the breaker.

I could add a lot more detail and others might but this is the simpler explanation.
 
I have a honda 2200, will it run the entire trailer (as long as use propane and not space heaters) ?
The 2200 will run a 9200BTU air cond, but not a 13.5 or bigger. Some have had success getting these 2200's to run a 13.5 by using a soft-start device however.
The next item is your fridge. Usually when you have AC power the fridge uses AC power not propane. The fridge will pull most of the gen power, so not a lot left over for other things.
Generally RVs can do everything except the roof a/c without 120v AC power, so technically, if you only use the gen for air/con then it will run your whole RV, and leave a little bit for laptop and other small 120 items - that is if your gen will run the roof a/c.
Without a/c in the equation then you might have to manually select what big device will use gen power. Turn fridge to gas when you want to heat water with electricity so they both are not demanding high wattage from generator. Microwave ovens, hair driers, electric cooktops etc are all high draw, so use one at a time and you are fine.
 
I’ve thought about finding a small dual fuel generator for emergencies as we have the 4k onboard which powers the house with ac no problem. It would be nice to have an lp alternative for when we don’t need so many amps.
 
A 2200W generator puts out about 20amps @110V. Basically one house circuit. Short answer is no. You won't be able to run everything, especially 2 AC units if you have them.

I think I posted in this thread that I initially plugged my RV into a 20amp house circuit with adapters. I could run the DC stuff and my one (smaller) AC unit. If I ran anything 110V that had a significant draw (micro, toaster) at the same time the circuit breaker would pop.

I also noticed over time that the cord and adapter joints would get fairly hot and started to blacken. I upgraded to a 30 amp capable extension cord and those problems are eased. Each joint in the cord setup causes a resistance point so the fewer joints the better.

Then I installed a 30amp socket in my house but still ran the 30 amp cord with extensions - ideally I would make up a 30 amp cord with 30 amp male/female ends and do away with the adapters.

My coach has a 4000W generator on board - this in theory gives 40 amps @110V and runs the whole RV with caveats - I can now run all the DC and 2 higher draw 110V appliances - If I have the AC going and the coffee brewing and then throw something in the micro, I will blow the breaker.

I could add a lot more detail and others might but this is the simpler explanation.
In our circumstances I'm not worried about AC (well for now anyway). The plug for my unit wont fit into the female adapters on the generator. I assume I have a 50a plug and its a 30 on the generator. My main question would be if I put an adapter on the 50 a cord to reduce to a 120 plug, will this generator run the furnace ? I assume it will because its only running the fan but I dont want to do too much experimenting right now until I'm sure I wont fry something
 
In our circumstances I'm not worried about AC (well for now anyway). The plug for my unit wont fit into the female adapters on the generator. I assume I have a 50a plug and its a 30 on the generator. My main question would be if I put an adapter on the 50 a cord to reduce to a 120 plug, will this generator run the furnace ? I assume it will because its only running the fan but I dont want to do too much experimenting right now until I'm sure I wont fry something
I am a little out of my depth not knowing the generator specs completely but...

If you got an adapter like this -


It should work. I am also attaching a picture of the EU2200i
 

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Running all of your circuits off a small generator will not work because your bigger RVs have a two-phase electrical system. You need 240 volts from a generator that can be split into 120 and 120, one for each phase (side). The split all happens at the plug, nothing you need to do special.
With a 120v gen you will only power one side.

**edit
if you use an adapter to go from 50 amp to 30 or to 15 (weird plug to the normal one like your TV uses) then only half the circuits in your circuit breaker box will work. Literally ones on one side will work and ones on the other side will not work. The adapter I am describing would have a regular looking electrical plug on one end that you plug into your genny, and the other end has the 4 slots that your camper plugs into.
Not true, 50 to 30 amp or 50 amp to 15 amp adapters parallel the two 50 amp hot legs to the single hot leg in a 15 or 30 amp socket. All 120 volt circuits work normally but 240 volt circuits do not. This is usually OK because few RVs have 240 volt appliances, precisely because they won't work when plugged into 120 volt (15 or 30 amp) service.
 
sure glad to hear from you! @IBTripping

We got a little bit of everything, and this morning the wind has been promising to show off, but I think it is the calm before the wind.

Will you still be able to get to your further south campground this week?

Good luck, hubby and I are thinking of you.
 
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