Catching Up

Let’s catch you up on the last few weeks…

• We left OKC on March 28th an drove to Western Oklahoma (Sayre).
• Then to Amarillo, TX. While not the prettiest of towns, it allowed us time to complete our change of residency to Texas by getting our driver’s licenses.
• We got out first “down time” by camping in Eastern New Mexico in Santa Rosa. The State Park was beautiful and it was a welcome change from cramped RV parks.
• Albuquerque was next. It was great to see our friends at one of the newer LifeChurch.tv campuses in Rio Rancho, NM. The museums downtown were great, but we found ourselves over-extending ourselves too much and getting stressed out.
• Santa Fe was a bit more our pace. But once again, we tried to do too much and found ourselves frustrated by cranky kids and crowded RV parks.
• Taos, NM was awesome. And cold. And windy. But awesome. We stayed at a small RV park with only a few other trailers. We finally got into a bit of a work/life rhythm between myself, Erin, and the kids. We did less and began to really enjoy our time together.

…but we needed to get out of town. RV parks are fine (running water and electricity are great!), but I really wanted us to try our hand at “dry camping” (or boondocking) – no hookups, and preferably on some public lands. We’re still dealing with the financial burden of selling our house (delays, termites, etc), so the idea of staying somewhere for free sounded especially nice. :)

For months, I’ve been researching what it would take to live off the grid for a few days. While I’ve camped for longer stints, trying to think through all the details of keeping 5 people fed, warm, and (kinda) clean was a little daunting.

3 days before we were to leave Taos and head up into the mountains, I finally decided to check out our battery and solar setup. Until now, I had completely forgotten about the fact that I was pretty sure I had completely run down our deep-cycle RV/Marine battery while Cora the Caravan was in storage. I unplugged us from shore power and … nothing worked. Crap. I had plans to upgrade us to two, 6V deep cycle golf cart batteries, but wasn’t planning on it so soon. Thankfully, the local Napa Parts store could overnight me a pair from Albuquerque. $360 later (oof!), I brought them home, and got them loaded in and wired up.

The solar panel I had purchased – a cool little 100W Renogy briefcase setup – was next. I got it out from its hiding place behind our couch. I plugged it into the batteries and … nothing happened. Thankfully, I discovered the Renogy people have awesome customer service. The guy on the phone walked me through a few troubleshooting steps and we got it fired up.

The next day, I walked into our bathroom and into a puddle of water. The cold temps in Taos put some extra pressure on our water lines and we were leaking from beneath the sink. I unscrewed some panels to find a complicated web of water lines leading to 1) our outside shower, 2) the bathroom sink, 3) the shower, and 4) the toilet. I spent all day Friday researching how to fix the leak, running into town to buy parts, and hunched over the toilet with a headlamp trying to get the water to stop.

Ok, can we go camping yet?!

We picked out a spot from freecampsites.net and had given it a little scout-out a few days ahead of time to make sure we could fit. We filled our water tanks, and even filled up 3 extra, 6-gallon jugs to take along. We turned off the road and onto a short gravel road. As we pulled our trailer into the meadow and got un-hitched, I turned to Erin and we both smiled big. It was quiet, beautiful, and our kids could roam around without getting hit by a car or getting lured into a windowless van. This is exactly what we had been waiting for.

We’re currently in Alamosa, CO re-charging the batteries, doing laundry, and enjoying hot showers. We’ll head East this weekend for more dry camping and a visit to Great Sand Dunes National Park!