What Went On In 2023?

 February 05, 2024

2023 was an odd year for us. Our pickup needed the transmission rebuilt and the shop I chose and trust was very busy. I took it in to get worked on very early spring, and I was way down the list for my turn to get my pickup in. Then I had a sudden cardiac arrest mid March, and really shouldn't be here. The quick thinking of my wife starting CPR immediately is the reason I am alive.

I got my pickup back in time to take the camper to see my mom for Mothers Day weekend. This is two months later than we usually start camping. That's pretty serious for us. There were no major things done to the 5th wheel last year. We used it, and enjoyed ourselves. That was pretty much it for the year.

We went to some new South Dakota campgrounds last year. South Dakota doesn't have a bad campground out of all the ones that we have been to. By far, the worst that we have been to is Bear Butte campground. It really needs some TLC. More gravel on the camping pads would go a long ways to improve the campground, but still, it's not that bad.

We spent most of the summer using state campgrounds and plugging in. That is very unusual for us. We like to boondock or dry camp most of the time. Plugged in camping feels like cheating, it is so easy. Our solar went pretty much unused last year, so I am hoping the batteries will do good for another year. The solar keeps them charged year round, but they are starting to get some age on them. This will be the seventh year with these AGM batteries, so we will see how they do. I don't want to buy new batteries yet, and I want to switch to lithium batteries. Just not yet.

We are planning some pretty serious upgrades this year. I am going to almost double the solar. We will end up with 780 watts of solar. We have 420 watts right now, but 20 of it will be going away. We are also going to switch to a series/parallel solar system and an MPPT controller. That should allow us to start charging earlier in the day and in more shade than we can now. We will see if that plan works or not. There will be updates with pictures during the upgrade.

Here's to another year!

A Real Road Trip

October 07, 2022 

We decided to assist some family members in Wisconsin over a holiday so we didn't have to take so much time off work. We had one road day on the way there, and found a nice neat campground on Fox Lake Minnesota. It was Cavens Landing Campground. a small full hookup campground that was very rustic, but we really like it. It was $40 for the night.

October 08, 2022

We covered a large majority of the miles on day 1 and we wanted to see the Spam  museum in Austin Minnesota. Yes we did. It was worth it. It's a free museum with a nice gift shop. We bought a case of Spam, some other small items and then ate at the Tendermaid Sandwich Shop very near the museum.  It was a good sandwich and Melanie really liked the idea of the way they made them. They used ground beef that was browned, then added the toppings you wanted.

After we left there we headed to Osseo, Wisconsin for family. We used our very first Harvest Host stay at Fosters Fireside.  They have many micro brews on tap and they make awesome wood fired pizzas. We also stayed for a morning breakfast pizza since we liked the pizza the night before. The camping was free.

October 09, 2022

Today we moved from Fosters Fireside to the Stoney Creek RV Resort. We couldn't get in before Sunday, but we are here for several days now. There's not going to be a lot going on until we leave.

The Stoney Creek RV resort is a very nice very well kept rv park. We have only stayed in a couple rv parks, and they aren't really our type of stay, but this place is nice. I can see why people like to stay in them after staying here.

The pull through full hookup price was $52 per night, we stayed for 4 nights.

October 13, 2022

We left the RV park and didn't have a definite destination. We tried a couple of family members that were on our way home and they had previous plans so we decided to go to Clear Lake City Park campground. Our route took us around the Twin Cities, which we liked. The campground was next to the highway but the highway didn't have much traffic all night. The cost was $20 for the night.

October 14, 2022

We left Clear Lake in the morning and the wind was pretty bad. We headed to Aberdeen to see some more family. Melanie wanted to stay at the City of Aberdeen Melgaard Park campground so we didn't have to drive very far at the end of the day. It was $32 a night for two nights.

October 16, 2022

The drive home was uneventful but very windy. We got an average of 6.8 mpg today. 

When we got home we noticed that our hanging clothes were on the floor of the slide out compartment. Upon close inspection, we broke the clothes hanging bar by overloading it. OK, now there is something else to fix improve. I just need a plan.

Neither of us really wanted to go home, but we still have jobs so we did not have a choice. Someday we will get to live like this and we are both looking forward to it.

Summer Heat and more changes to the 5er.

 We have been busy with both work and play. We have spent several weeks staying at campgrounds and driving in to work. A few things have come up that I wanted to write about, but was too tired or had to get to bed for work.

One important change I have made was to the output side of the air conditioner. I had considered buying one of these to improve the airflow, but when I started looking on YouTube I found that several people had made a not as pretty version for under $20. Since neither of us like to throw money away (we're cheap!) I thought it would be worth a couple hours to try it. (I get nothing for these links, they are only informational.)

I started using the idea I saw on this YouTube channel. I varied the design slightly by not using a teepee on top of a flat piece of foam. I just used the angled part and left the bottom open to improve airflow through the entire filter instead of only half of it. I am pretty sure I saw the idea on the video here from Big Truck Big RV.

The results were as good as the videos say they are. The airflow was improved very much! We only have one air conditioner, but in the 95 degree plus days we have had so far the rv temp has only gotten to the mid to upper 70s.

Another small modification was to the kitchen utensil drawer. We had tried the plastic dividers that can be found online but they wouldn't stay in place. I decided to go with wood and aluminum channel. I was able to get everything at our local hardware store. I do try to buy local whenever possible if it makes sense.

I got the idea from this video. It was one of the best ideas for drawer dividers I had seen. One thing I did a bit different was to use 1/4 inch plywood so we didn't lose so much drawer space. Play around with the dimensions you have to work with and then lay things out to make sure it will work for you. Here's a quick demonstration of how quickly it can be removed for cleaning.

Another thing I have just been putting off and finally did was to mount the display for the Progressive Industries hardwired surge protector. This unit will watch for high or low voltage and also monitors for surges on the incoming power. It will disconnect the power before it can do any damage to the electrical components in the 5th wheel. I also needed to mount the Charge Wizard controller for the power converter.

I was going to drill a hole in the wall to route the cables, but when I took the outlet out to make sure I didn't drill into any wires I saw that I didn't need to. Since it is a common rv style outlet, it just uses two screws that tighten a plastic piece against the inside of the wall. That meant that I could slide it over enough to run the wires next to the outlet. All I had to do was notch out a bit of the outlet cover. 

This won't work for every rv, but it worked great for ours. There was an easily accessible space between the wall and the cupboard behind the wall that is in the picture. The way they are mounted it won't be distracting to the rest of the area, but the controls are now easily accessible. I had them stuck in a drawer before.

We are on our 5th summer using this 5th wheel. I have been very lax on washing and waxing it this year, and I figured it was time.

I still cheated though, I used Wash Wax All. The shine I got when I was done reminded me that I really do need to do it more often. Our 5th wheel is 30 feet long tip to tail, and I don't think I can get the whole thing done with one 16 oz spray bottle. I might be using a little too much, I'm not sure.

One thing I am not doing is using their overpriced mop. I bought two of these instead. I just use one to wash and the other to dry. It worked as good as I had hoped, and I still saved about half the cost of the ones from Wash Wax All. Again, I don't get anything for mentioning these products, they are just things I have found that work well for us.

We are getting ready to go for a week and a half trip to our hometown, so I am tying up some loose ends before we go. Everything we are doing is preparing for full timing in a few years. It's something we are both looking forward to very much. We joke that sometimes we wonder if we are prepping the 5th wheel, or trying to wear it out!

You Should Always Be Ready To Learn

We have been rving in fifth wheels for over 12 years. Before that we had two pickup campers and like many rvers we tented for years before any of those. We aren't newbies. It seems that lately many of the Youtubers and people on forums have just bought their first rv and are heading out to start full time living in their new camper. With no experience. We enjoy watching and reading about their experiences and also chuckle at the newbie mistakes that they make. Then they pass along the solutions as if they were the first to experience them. The good thing about them passing along these experiences is many of us have been rving long enough to forget to pass along some of these little things that we take for granted. They can help other newcomers with those reminders.

This weekend turned out to be a good learning experience and we should have known better. We had a 4 day weekend for Easter and decided to go to the lake to do some fishing. The temperature was 23 degrees when we started to do our normal de-winterizing procedure and filling the fresh water tank with filtered water from the campground at the lake. We like our water filtered through our Camco 20 micron water filter. What should have been a clue of things to come is how we found the filter frozen and wouldn't allow any water through it. I always drain as much water out of it as I can when I am finished using it, but it was frozen solid. We had bought a new filter for this season but hadn't started using it yet, so it was time to get it out, and worry about thawing out the old one later. It hasn't been used that much, so I was going to use it for a while longer. 

When we had enough water in the tank to start the pump so we could start flushing the water lines we couldn't get any water. Since the water filter was frozen, I wondered if our waterline had frozen and cracked and was now sucking air. Looking underneath the camper, there was no water dripping. That's a good sign. We decided to finish filling the tank, and  I hauled some in a bucket to make sure I hadn't frozen the pump or pre-pump filter. It is simply a wire mesh filter to keep the bigger chunks out of the pump. Ok, the winterizing valve worked and so did the pump so everything was ok there. Now I wasn't worried, we can get water out of the tank drain valve and use the winterizing hose to get water to the toilet which was my biggest concern.

We proceeded to go find a camp site at a dry camping area in a small bay on the lake. Once we were leveled and had the slides out we got the furnace going to warm things up. I thought that we would have water in an hour or two. After two hours, and the outside temperature rising to 31 degrees F, I tried the pump again, and still nothing. Now I was worried again. What could have gone wrong? I cut the intake hose at the winterizing valve and tried to blow in it so see if I could here air bubbles. Nope, it was blocked solid. Darn. Now I have to worry that I had wrecked the crimp on hose clamp. I searched through all of my tool totes thinking I had a small assortment of hose clamps and I didn't find anything. I thought I would go to town in the morning and get a new clamp.

Now it was on to plan B. I took a bucket under the camper to get some water from the tank drain valve and just use a bucket for the toilet. After getting the bucket in position and me getting ready to get wet from the 1 1/2" valve, I gave it a tug, nope, so I tug a little harder and still nothing. This valve works very easy, so, it was frozen also. Crap. On to plan C. We take our new minnow bucket which is a five gallon pail, and another 5 gallon bucket back to the campground which was totally empty when we filled the camper with water.  There were now two other people camping in this weather besides just us. The difference is the campground has electric hookups, so they have power. I hope their weekend was going smoother than ours was now going.

With the buckets filled and in the shower beside the toilet, we will be good for the night. We will be warm, and we have water for the toilet so things are getting better. In the morning I tried the pump again thinking that the furnace would put enough warm air into the tank area to thaw the line from the tank. Still nothing. I look things over again and I can feel the fill hose that goes directly into the tank. I figure I can drill a hole in the tank fill hose and stuff a smaller hose inside it to get to my 75 gallons of water. I make a small list of things I need and head to town. I find the length of new hose, a couple of clamps and a splice connector so I can connect the new hose to my winterizing hose and now I can get to our water.

When I get back to the camper after a stop for fresh donuts I get ready to get to work. It shouldn't take very long and we can finally get our water heater filled also. Maybe I should try the pump again so I will try it one more time. Wouldn't you know it, yep, we get water. I just needed to be more patient. Now I can fill the water heater and life returned to normal.

What went wrong? Well the last time we winterized we drained the tank but didn't run the pump to pull all the water through the intake line. I didn't worry about it because we were going to be back in the camper in a couple of weeks when we winterized last time we were out. This was also the first time we have de-winterized and set up in below freezing weather. This is a lesson that I won't forget in the future.

Back in the camper. Finally!

 It is the end of March, 2022.

Yes we consider our 5th wheel a camper. We also called our two pickup campers campers. Some people get heartburn over that, so I thought I would just state this now. I understand why they feel that way, I get that way when people call staying at a Cracker Barrel or a Walmart boondocking. Boondocking is, you know, out in the boondocks. Everything else is dry camping or overnighting. As long as I am venting, in my opinion there is no such thing as "moochdocking" It is dry camping in someones driveway. Not everything has to be some sort of "docking". Along those lines, our 5th wheel has a kitchen, not a galley. Galleys are on boats. We have an RV, that we call our camper.

This really isn't what I started this entry to be about, so I will get back on track. It is the end of March and the weather is warmer than average so as we usually do, we jump at the chance to get out of the house and into the camper. Since we are currently in the camper, I thought it would be a good time to expand on the modifications we have done since we bought this 5th wheel new April 13th 2018.

One of the first things I changed was the thermostat. It came with a very simple thermostat from Airxcel, and I switched it out to a Honeywell 7 day programmable thermostat. It is the same thermostat we use in our house so there was no learning curve to it at all. The temperature is programmed to go to 60 at night during heating season, and then it goes to 69 in the morning before we get out of bed. That way neither of us has to get up and turn the temperature up. This thermostat operates on two AA batteries, and they will easily last over a year.

I also added some RGB led lights under the cupboards for counter lights. Those were listed as one of Melanies favorite things when I asked her. I also added an led light over the kitchen sink. It is a 13" light strip from Superbright LEDs. No we aren't sponsored by them,  I just like their product offerings. I installed the same style light in a 9" light over the bathroom sink.

Another early addition was a cold weather power cord. I was putting our power cord away in below freezing weather, and the factory cord did not want to bend. The new one is very flexible down to near zero temps. Maybe below that, but I don't really want to find out.  I don't remember where I got it from but it is an SJOOW cord, and many places have it available.

Our Arctic Fox came with a Progressive Dynamics 9260 power converter, and I added the charge wizard to be able to bump up the voltage if I wanted to. That really helps if I am running the generator so I can push more amps in to the batteries in a much shorter period of time. If I am running the generator, I want to take advantage of it. We don't often need to run it with our solar though.

Along the lines of making things more efficient power wise, we use a Mr. Heater Portable Buddy that I use 1 lb. refillable propane bottles with. The Flame King bottles have a bleeder valve and a refill adapter that makes filling the bottles much faster than using a homemade hose that I used to use. The bleeder valve helps vent pressure off the bottle, and is also a full indicator. Once the bottle starts spitting liquid instead of gas, just let go of the handle on the adapter. They can fill in as little as 45 seconds in my experience, so holding the handle on the adapter is not a big deal.

A small and simple addition was magnetic catches on our outside compartment doors. I got tired of getting hit by the doors when I would do something in the wind. The magnetic catches were bought from Amazon for under twenty bucks for a two pack. Since I had two doors to put these on it was perfect, and they work perfect.

I have also added many different shelves to compartments and opened up some storage areas, but most of these are rv specific. If you start looking around, there are usually several places that you can find or free up more areas for storage to help with making these more liveable longer term. Like I stated earlier, we are both still working full time, but we have gone as long as three weeks living in our camper and commuting to work. It helps to have an rv with big tanks. 

One limiting factor to spending that much time in a camper is fresh water. To take care of that we bought a 60 gallon water bladder that folds up to take up very little space. We got an AquaTank from Amazon to be able to extend our time out. With the tank sizes of our fifth wheel, we figure we can go through two fresh water tanks before we need to worry about filling our bathroom grey or our black tanks. If you haven't tested that out by pumping water into your tanks you should.  Of course if you don't want to boondock or dry camp and always have hookups, then it really doesn't matter.

When we took delivery of our Arctic Fox from the dealer over 500 miles from home, we spent the first night in a full hookup site so we could test everything. We did pump the water from our fresh tank into the black tank first. About the time the black tank was full the  pump started getting air from the fresh tank. We repeated the same test with the grey tanks so we would know how much they held, that the drains worked, and that there were no leaks anywhere.

There has to be a way to move the water from the water bladder to the campers tank. I use a Sureflo water pump that I replaced in our older 5th wheel. There is a story behind that. One day I was draining the water out of our previous fifth wheel and I used the pump to push the last of the water out of the tank and lines. When I was finished, I accidentally left the pump running. For a day and a half. I was convinced I ruined the pump so I bought a replacement. Well, that original pump is still working. Those pumps are very durable and reliable. To this day I am using it to pump water from the water bladder to our tank. I am also pumping it through a water filter, so it isn't just a simple transfer.

Speaking of water filters, whenever I fill my water tank the water goes through a Camco 20 micron filter. I use the larger diameter filter to hopefully reduce the restriction when using it. I don't know if it makes a difference, but it should allow more filter area at the very least. The reason we use a filter even when filling at home is one time we were at a South Dakota state campground and the water had a very bad odor to it. Everyone who filled their tank there ended up with gastrointestinal issues. We always leave home with a full water tank. We stayed at that campground for over a week, so we needed to get our fresh water tank topped off, and noticed the smell even though we only took a relatively small amount. Less than a quarter of a tank. Luckily we didn't have the same issues. Since then many of us that were there that weekend filter our water.

We will use the water out of our fresh water tank to make coffee, brush our teeth etc. but one of us is kind of a water snob. But then neither of us like to use plastic bottles so we carry water from home or we get RO water from a grocery store dispenser. We carry the water in collapsible water bags from WaterStorageCube website. We actually got them from Amazon as that is where their buy it now link took us.

We dump the water from the bags into a 2 gallon water bottle. Then we use a air pump to dispense the water. It isn't necessary to do it this way, you can just pour it from the bag to use it, but we like it this way. The water bottle fits nicely in our sink when we travel.

If you plan on spending much time in your camper, you might like to hang some pictures. We usually keep the pictures in the 4X6 range, and hang them with Command strips that are double sided, similar to hook and loop. The Command strips pull off the walls very easily and don't leave a mess behind.

The End Of 2021

 It is now the day after Christmas, and the temperatures are not going to let us have another stay in the fifth wheel this year. It has been a fun year again. We have a lot of good times in the camper. We enjoy the people we camp with and that helps us have more fun.

We started the year with our normal time shore fishing for walleye and get some fish in the freezer for winter when we can't get fresh fish. We have to restrain from eating what we catch. There isn't much better than fresh fish. After the weather and water warm up we tend to switch to kayak fishing. We will target both walleye and small mouth bass.  A lot of people look down on eating smallies, but when we feed them fresh fish no one has been able to tell which piece is walleye and which is small mouth.

Our camper lets all us do all these things. The solar lets us camp off grid early in the year when the fishing is better. This year we decided to switch things up and spend some time in campgrounds. It turned out to be a hot summer so the air conditioning was nice. A lot of people say you need two air conditioners when the temperature get to triple digits. We can get by with a single 13,500 btu ac unit. When the outside temps get that high the internal temps get to the mid to upper 70s, which is not bad at all. That is the advantage of having a well insulated rig. They make both ends of the thermometer comfortable.

Last year camping got difficult with the huge influx of new campers. We used to be able to get a campsite about a week in advance. Last year the campsites were booked for the entire summer with almost no last minute openings. We decided to make reservations well ahead of time so we would have places to go.  We started with Memorial Day weekend on the Missouri River, and then spent a lot of the summer at Belle Fourche reservoir using our ebikes, kayaks and air conditioning. Then we spent a little more time at various campgrounds on the Missouri river again. This included a fun, hot 4th of July with the ebikes getting included in the 4th of July golf cart parade. The bikes were decorated! We kind of finished the year with a stay at Wind Cave NP, and then a stop for a couple of weeks at Bear Butte SP while we were on our way home from Wind Cave.

One of the biggest additions to our camping was the purchase of a 60 gallon water bladder to help extend our stays without having to break camp except for our stay at Bear Butte. I added a plug to use the 7 pin plug to plug in the spare water pump to transfer water. The problem with that was the power isn't supplied to the plug without the key being on. I will have to change how I power the pump. Right now I am thinking I will use the external solar plug on the fifth wheel. Another addition was a removable flag pole so I can fly a flag while camping

This was our fourth season in this camper, and we still love it. We spent 112 nights in the camper this year, while working full time. I commented that next summer I want to spend more time at places we haven't been to before so we have put a list together of places we want to go next summer. We are still getting this ready for off grid camping when we retire, if we don't wear it out first. :)

What have I done?

 Ok, there is nothing negative here, it's just a catchy title. It did make you think though, didn't it? Or maybe you were thinking of not reading this because it seems to be the fashion lately to post a disastrous title, and in the end not much really happened. When that happens to me, I always feel a little cheated. I promise to not cheat on you. Unless the payday is big, then all bets are off!

As I am publishing this on Veterans Day, we would like to thank all the veterans who have sacrificed part or all of their lives so that we may have this life we have chosen. Thank you.

I actually wanted to mention some of the modifications we have done to our 5th wheel so far. I will of course mention more when we do more, but we haven't done them yet, so...... .

This part will be added on to as I remember some of the things we have added or changed. We have been doing this for over 4 years as of right now and some of our modifications are taken for granted so we don't think of them until we actually use them.

The modification that has probably made our 5th wheel the easiest to live in is undoubtedly the addition of solar panels. Right now we have 420 watts of solar on the roof. They are mostly flat, but they are all tilted slightly to allow rain to run off.

After the solar, the next in line would be the remotely switched pure sine wave inverter. The switch to turn the inverter on is right next to the tv, and it feeds an outlet that the tv is plugged in to. I also have a couple relays that will switch the line and neutral from being fed from the power cord, or from the inverter.

Another change we made was to our batteries. Our 5th wheel was supplied with two group 24 deep cycle batteries. I wanted BATTERIES, so I put two group 31 AGM batteries, and have never looked back. 

To keep track of the batteries, We installed a Victron BM-702. It does a good job of keeping track of our power. I purposely didn't get the 712 because as much as I like tech stuff, when I am in the 5th wheel I don't want it to be like my job.

Another favorite addition is the sliding sewer hose tube. I mounted it right next to the sewer drain hookup, so everything is in arms reach when I have to dump.

Episode IV, A New Blog

 Hi, my name is Jamey. My wife Melanie and I love to spend time in our RV.

We have a 2018 Arctic Fox 27-5L 29' fifth wheel trailer and have done and are doing many modifications to it as we are getting ready to travel when we retire. Some of the modifications are to make it easier to use when we are not plugged in to electric, water and sewer. Some modifications are just because I wanted to try something. We have some good friends that we like to camp with, and we like to share our modification ideas with each other.

I have kept a written journal of our rv travels for over 11 years as of today. I find myself taking more pictures and videos of places we go and I can't include those in a paper journal, so I thought I would try this. I still plan on keeping my written journal, but it will be as much for keeping notes to add to this blog as I don't always write things down as they happen. I like to live life, and I don't see myself carrying a video camera around to document everything that happens.

I kind of wanted to start this blog with this:

Quite a while ago, in a place far, far away....

But I decided to keep it relevant, and seriously, we are both working full time as I start this, so we can't really go far, far away.

Yet.