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Let’s Refurbish a Van – Part 7: Our Batteries Phase 1 (By Andy)

A Post by Andy

{Note: The work detailed in this part of the post was completed over the summer of 2015, before we moved into the Turtle. I am just getting to writing the post now.}

So, we like to have our computers run, have lights, have the controls for our fridge work, have a charged Wi-Fi hotspot, and have our furnace fan powered to keep us warm. For all this we need electricity, and since we want to be off-grid, we need batteries. We started with this:

If you are familiar with the Turtle, this compartment is behind the largest access door on the passenger side- the door with the vent in it. In the following photo, I put in a dotted line where the plane of the floor on the inside intersects the compartment.

The walls of the compartment above the floor line are plywood, and bump up under the couch inside. The sides and bottom below the line are made of heavy steel. I have deduced the compartment was originally designed for a generator, as there was old 120V AC wiring running to it, an unconnected fuel line that ran into the back, and the door vent.

I had a hard time figuring out what all the wires were hooked to, as it was a bit haphazard in the compartment. In the above picture, (1) is a port that goes outside, below the floor of the Turtle. The wires there threaded out of the box, ran a short distance under the Turtle’s floor, then threaded up through the floor to the old inverter. There is a second hole (2) that the wires from the old 100W solar panel and the wires between the battery and main 12V distribution panel were run. (3) is the unused electrical box that had 120V AC wires run to the compartment where the shore power cable is housed.

Maybe I should back up a bit and throw out a few concepts and definitions and explanations for the terms we will be using.

Battery: A thing that stores electricity in chemical bonds. Here, we are just referring to 12V lead-acid batteries.
12V/12VDC/DC: 12 Volt Direct Current (DC). This is what cars use for their electricity for headlights, the radio, starting, etc. It is the kind of power all the batteries we talk about will produce.
120v: 120V Alternating Current (AC). This is what is in your house and in businesses you know, the typical wall plug Amy and I look for at restaurants to plug our computers into. It’s generally 120, 121, or whatever it takes.
Current: The flow rate of electricity.
Voltage: The force pushing the electricity through the wires.
Inverter: An electrical box that changes 12VDC to 120VAC. It changes car electricity to house-hold electricity. This is so we can plug our AC computer cords into our DC batteries.
Converter: An electrical box that changes 120VAC to 12VDC. The opposite of the above—pretty much a garage battery charger that you use to get your car started after you leave the lights on.
Charge Controller: An electrical box that changes the output of the solar panels into DC voltage, hopefully charging the house batteries.
House Battery: Now, I probably use this too freely. When I talk about house batteries, and I mean batteries dedicated to our living compartment. If I say house (or household) electricity, I mean 120 V AC. Got to figure this out… but, house batteries are 12V batteries separated from the car system, and dedicated to lights and heat and powering the inverter in the house part of a van. One should be able to run these dead flat, and the car will still start, as they are fully independent circuits.
Starting Battery: The batteries under the hood, used for starting the car, sparking the gas when the engine is running, running a radio (if you had a functional one), and lighting the headlights.
Shore power: Kind of a boat term, but a source of 120V AC electricity you can plug into. When you pull up at a friend’s house, and pull out your extension cord, and plug into their electricity, they are your “shore power”. (Thanks Alex and Julie, Kari and David, Connie, Mag and John, Dave and Ryanne, Mike and Becky, Blake and Martha, Roger and Mary, Chris, Dad…)

Now, back to the good stuff! To start the battery box rebuilt and modification, I first labeled the wires and removed the old battery. I then cleaned the compartment with baking soda and water to neutralize the sulfuric acid and prevent further corrosion. Lucky, the metal compartment is super stout, so it was still in great shape. As usual, after a final thorough cleaning, I caulked the seams and painted the compartment with black Rustoleum. I can’t find a picture of the completely empty, cleaned and freshly painted compartment, but trust me, it looked good!

After getting the compartment beautified, I cut and painted a plywood plate to fit into the bottom, bolted and glued it to the metal base of the box, and mounted battery trays to it. I painted up everything with oil-based paint and used stainless steel hardware to affix everything.

Since we had just gotten the Interlux blue boat paint, I practiced the painting technique on the top surface of the plywood base, so it is the same shiny blue as the Turtle exterior. In the following photos, you can see the two new Fullriver 115Ah 12V DC sealed AGM batteries that we started with in there, but just patched into the cleaned up existing wiring we are reusing at this point.

I decided to go with Absorbed Glass Matt (AGM) batteries. They cost a bit more than flooded batteries, but they do not spill, they will not develop corrosion at the terminals, and can be mounted sideways, if that configuration seems important. Additionally, they do not require venting, so they can be safely installed inside the living compartment, if that is necessary. Here is the site. We have been happy with this choice, and as you will find out in future posts, choosing AGM sealed batteries will allow us to make some future cold-weather modifications.

As to wiring, I was just starting to adopt the boat convention for new circuits and runs I would rewire. The convention is as follows: For 12VDC, yellow is ground, and red is positive. For 120V AC, the wires are white, black, and green for ground. Examples of the wires are here:

The reason behind adopting this convention is that at a glance, you can tell which circuit they are supposed to be wired to. Additionally, the boat 120V cable is stranded, as opposed to the household solid copper wire. Stranded wires should always be used in a vibration environment. Logically, then, a van should have no solid copper wires (though most RV builders do actually use cheaper solid copper for the 120V runs). As you might have observed, we have concluded that one should think of their van as a boat, and look to boat paints, wires, latches, and hardware for the upgrades and work. Though the boat cable is a little more expensive, it is paired and tinned for corrosion resistance, and gives a real nice finished look. Additionally, it can be purchased in any gauge.

So, at the end of our Phase 1 battery configuration we had our two new AGM batteries with a combined storage of 230Ah at 12V installed and secured, with the connections cleaned up. With this battery pack, we simply used the old converter to charge them when we were connected to shore power, and the old inverter to make our 120V for our computers when off-grid. At this point in our journey I also had just finished the install of our 300W of solar to charge the batteries (we will cover the panels and solar charging and solar controller in a different post).

That’s Phase 1 for you!

Our New Favorite Places: The Million Dollar Highway & Ouray, CO

We left Durango the next day and drove toward Silverton, CO which was a very exciting drive considering the elevation was greater than the Turtle had ever attempted.

We passed the 10,000′ elevation sign and cheered!

Then we got to the 10,640′ elevation sign and cheered!

Then we got to the 10,910′ elevation sign and cheered!

We made it all the way up with no issues, but there were definitely some “Little Engine That Could” moments. Especially once it started to snow.

That’s right, everyone who doesn’t live in Montana—snow in May!

We were not prepared to see it, but it was very lovely up there in the mountains. As the road got more windy and the snow fell harder, I was glad Andy was in the driver’s seat. Especially considering the previous post about our break-downs! 🙂

We made it to Silverton, which I pronounced The Cutest Town I’ve Seen All Year, and then on to the Million Dollar Highway. Our friend Rob told us about this route, which is the reason we went this way. It’s a very twisty-turny road at high elevations and sheer drop-offs on the side with no guard rails. Rocks fall from the cliffs above regularly, and when it’s rainy, the road gets fully washed out. Andy was sold.

So we traversed the Million Dollar Highway, and toward the end of the trek we saw why this route got its nickname. Holy moly.

Oh, and we just upgraded the WordPress account, so now we can post videos! This just got twice as fun.

Our surprise to encounter snow and freezing temps is evidenced in this photo of Andy changing from flip flops to boots at the viewpoint.

At the end of the Million Dollar Highway sits the new title-holder for Cutest Town I’ve Seen All Year, and also my top pick for a town to live for a little while in the future. It’s Ouray, CO and it’s so charming that words can’t describe it. It reminds me of my other favorite little town, Wallace, ID, in that it’s a sweet little town tucked into the mountains, but the mountains surrounding Ouray are even closer on all sides and so dramatic. It was even cold, foggy and overcast and still I was fully in love.

And dirt roads downtown, you guys.

Also dramatic? The weather. As we sat at the brewery our first day there, we looked outside to see the snow storm had reached us down in Ouray! (If you’re wondering about pronunciation, all I can tell you is that we heard locals say both “yer-ay” and “oo-ray” and we landed on “yer-ay” as our favorite. I think I like it best because it rhymes with “hurray” and that’s how I felt the whole time we were there.)

We camped out for the next few days out a Forest Service road by a river. We found the spot with a new app recommended to us by our new friends Gary and Kiki, called iOverlander. A great new tool in our arsenal! Everyone had a lovely time. All our winterizing gear was up in the attic, so we buttoned up the Turtle against the cold the best we could and got cozy!

We also spent a fair amount of time working away on our computers at Mouse’s cafe and sweets shop downtown, which is how I finally got caught up on our adventures here on the blog.

We’d planned on staying just two days in Ouray, as we were waiting to have some ballots sent to us from Andy’s mom in Montana.

By the way, fellow full-time travelers, we’ve discovered how easy it is to receive mail on the road—just have the sender address it to Your Name, General Delivery, Town, State, Zipcode, and the mail will make it to the main branch of the Post Office in the town you’ll be in! You just go to the post office and tell them you have mail waiting in General Delivery and there it is! Andy’s mom has sent us mail twice now, and we’re pleased that we can receive important letters even while on the move.

The delivery was delayed this time, though we couldn’t have been more excited to have an excuse to stick around town. Ouray is so darling, and everyone we met was welcoming and friendly that we felt right at home there for four days.

The morning of our third day there, the sun came out in full force, and we played outside and then spent the day in town.

On the fourth day, our mail arrived and it was time to continue down the road. We would have loved to stay longer (and get jobs and become locals), but our goal to make it to see family in Portland in a few weeks and then make it to Alaska by July compels us to move a little more quickly than our usual Turtle Time dictates. So on to Salt Lake City.

But we’ll see you again soon, Ouray!

A Busy Few Weeks: The VLA, ABQ, Boise, The Bisti Badlands, Four Corners, & Mesa Verde NP

Our current location is generally a mystery to anyone trying to keep track of us—including us—mostly due to the fact that we’re so busy having fun that I forget how long it’s been since I last updated the blog or Instagram! I promise that by the end of the next post both you and I will be completely caught up.

As I type this, I’m sitting at an adorable cafe and sweets shop in a town that, I announced immediately before consulting anyone else in the Turtle, we will one day live, even if just for a season. This place is a dream. But we’ll get to that next time. We have so much to cover right now!

We left our last story outside the Very Large Array near Socorro, NM, having a delicious evening treat of a pie sampler from Pie Town. We found a great pull-out to stay the night just a few minutes from the VLA. That night before bed, we watched Contact with a view of the VLA right outside our window! It was awesome. In the movie, the VLA plays a prominent role in Jodie Foster’s research and makes a really dramatic background. And it’s just as impressive in person.

The VLA is an astronomical radio observatory made up of 27 antennas that are each 82′ in diameter. They’ve helped with the investigation of black holes, quasars, pulsars, planets, and loads more. It’s astonishing to see them up close.

(Not quite sure what I was up to in this photo, but it’s the only one I’ve got, so you’re stuck with my unexplainable dance number.)

After getting our science on, we made our way back to Albuquerque where I had a flight to catch in a few days to Boise to visit my girlfriends Beth and Lexie.

But first, Andy and I had a mission: to get poolside as soon as possible. I’m not sure how we got the idea in our heads, but suddenly we couldn’t live without a swim. So we headed to the only RV park in Albuquerque that had their pool open before Memorial Day—American RV Park.

We came for the pool and stayed for the lovely park, yummy continental breakfast, clean showers and laundromat, and beyond-friendly staff. We really did stay another day. It’s a great park that I can’t recommend highly enough! We realized that it had been over a year since we had stayed in an RV park, which was fun because we’ve really gotten the hang of boondocking and have saved lots of money by not going to parks unless we need to take advantage of their amenities. Turtle power!

We stayed two nights, and the next day I left this guy:

To hang out with these guys:

It was a bunch of fun. We painted the town red, and even got dressed up to go watch the Kentucky Derby.

After a whirlwind few days, I was back in Albuquerque and the four of us were back on the road. Andy and I went to a fantastic mining museum in Grants called the New Mexico Mining Museum, which has a replica uranium mine underground. The man at the front desk had worked in mining for about 35 years, and had worked his way up from the bottom to be the head of his mine and even got an award for safety, with the longest time without a death in the mine or serious injuries. He had lots of information, was adorable, and gave me a goldstone to remember the mine by.

Outside of Grants, we stayed at the Joe Skeen campground near El Malpais.

I was happy to be reunited with this guy:

And this guy:

We drove to the Bisti Badlands wilderness, where you can stay overnight in the parking area for free! It was especially appreciated that we got to stay after we climbed for hours over the crazy hills that changed in appearance every few minutes. It felt like a walking tour of 10 different planets.

It was a hot day, and when we got back to the parking lot, we relaxed in our chairs and read books with Scout and Gracie. Gracie has become a real champ with her harness and leash these days. I think she’s figured out that sometimes it’s her only ticket outside, so she wears it without any problem, and even comes to my feet meowing when she hears me get it out.

The next day we made it to Four Corners with beautiful skies above us.

Then we drove on toward Mesa Verde National Park. The landscape on the way to the park was a destination unto itself. I swear this is not a painting.

In the last year, we’ve been to two other cliff dwellings sites: Bandelier NM and Gila Cliff Dwellings NM. We really enjoyed both, but agreed once we made it to Mesa Verde that this is our favorite site so far.

In the park are 600 beautifully preserved cliff dwellings of the Ancestral Pueblo people, many of which you can tour or see clearly from various vistas. Depending on the site, the tours are just $5 or $10 each, which gets you 1-2 hours of information and a walk right through the dwellings. You can see petroglyphs and pictographs, the different styles of construction each group used, and the actual tools they used to grind corn and make food. And the views are so vast and unreal that we both said more than once that we’d pay just to hike the trails on the mesa! There are also self-guided tours you can take, so we did all of those too.

Our second day there, as we parked at Balcony House for our tour we noticed another van that could be the Turtle’s long-lost cousin, so we parked by it as we often do when we see a van we like. After traveling around for the last year and a half, we’ve found that we can usually tell by someone’s van if they are kindred spirits, and our track record is pretty good so far. This time was no exception! We ran into Gary and Kiki as we returned from our tour, and found out that they’re just starting out on their full-time vandwelling adventure (though they’ve already been on many, many adventures of other sorts). We’d all already purchased tickets for the same tour the following day, so we got to hang out even more during the Long House tour.

We super enjoyed getting to know you guys, and I’m certain that our paths will cross down the road. (When they do, we’ll let you know what Turtle theme song we came up with; hopefully one as cool as Birdy’s.) You guys were a pleasure to hang out with. Stay in touch! 🙂

After the tour, we did a quick 6-mile loop on top of the mesa to check out the other cliff dwelling overlooks.

We would have loved to stay and visit (both the park and the new friends) longer, but the storm clouds were rolling in and the skies were getting darker. Our first rule of overlanding is “Never Drive at Night”, which is comparable to driving in terrible weather, so we hit the road to make it to Durango, CO to find a spot before the weather hit.

We hung out in Durango for the evening, a town that I already loved and knew Andy would too. The weather was unfortunate, with frigid winds and constant cloud cover, but we had a great time anyway. If you can involve pizza in the plans, Andy is a happy camper.

If you can also include a free trip to the coolest railroad museum ever, Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum, he will be even happier.

And if you really want to make his day, cap it all off with a little performance testing at the highest altitudes the Turtle has ever attempted. . .

Which, unbeknownst to us, was the next leg of the trip. And one that would bring us to where I sit now, in my new very favorite town of all time! But that’s up next.

We Love NPS: Carlsbad Caverns, Guadalupe Mountains, White Sands & Gila Cliff Dwellings

It’s no secret that we love the National Parks System. In fact, part of our five-year plan (or as close as full-time wanderers get to a plan) involves taking occasional breaks from the road to work at National Parks and Monuments as we travel around. Not only will it be soooo fun to live at a park, but we can also make a little extra travel money while giving back to the Parks System that has basically been our landlord for a good portion of the last year and a half. We’ve boondocked on NPS land at National Parks, campgrounds, and dispersed camping areas. And not only to we get access to astonishingly beautiful and unique gems around the United States, we’ve also been provided at many sites with potable water, RV dump stations, showers, bathrooms, and garbage services. Oh, and a surprise favorite—ranger talks around campfires under the stars! At Wind Cave the fireflies were flying around us as we walked to the amphitheater to hear a ranger tell us all about the history of bison in South Dakota, and another ranger sang us a song on her ukulele that she wrote about Native American folklore. Pretty fancy, right?

Immediately after hitting the road, we got our NPS annual Interagency Pass and it’s no surprise that we’ve gotten our $80 worth and feel pretty happy about it! The last few weeks have been especially National Parks-y.

We began the streak at Carlsbad Caverns National Park, hiking down to the Big Room from the Natural Entrance.

There were some beautiful intricate formations on the way down, but the real thrill was the 1.25 mile loop around the Big Room at the bottom. We’ve been in a bunch of caves, but never anything like this! The photos do it no justice, but the scale of these stalactites and stalagmites is staggering.

We were thankful for the railings along the path, which made it possible to just stare upward with our mouths hanging open, pinballing our way down the walkway. It’s Andy’s Favorite Cave To Date, and for me it’s Tied For First with all the other caves I’ve explored. (I just really like being in caves.)

We stayed the night somewhere outside the park, and then the following day—Easter Sunday!—we arrived at Guadalupe Mountains National Park for a holiday hike.

Of course we had to investigate the potable water situation, and they had a nice spigot near the RV camping area, so we made a note of it and hiked on into the hills. This park is home to El Capitan, which is a celebrity rock, and Guadalupe Peak, which is the highest mountain in Texas. We didn’t hike either of them; it was 90 degrees with full sunshine, so neither of us felt bad about choosing a less strenuous trail.

After the hike and a water fill, we proceeded to El Paso for a Costco run and then on to Alamogordo and saw. . . well, look.

That’s right; it’s the World’s Largest Pistachio! It’s a sculpture at the McGinn’s Pistachio Tree Ranch, which is a really fun stop if you’re in the area. There’s a lot to see and eat there. We sampled dozens of flavored pistachios and pistachio candy, bought some bags to take home, and got some pistachio ice cream to eat under a pistachio tree by the huge pistachio sculpture.

I’ve never written the word “pistachio” so many times in my life combined.

Then another stop in Alamogordo at the Alameda Park Zoo, recommended to me by my buddy Daren who used to live in the area. And I’m so glad he did; we wouldn’t have thought to stop by this tiny zoo in a park in the middle of town, but it was one of the coolest zoos either of us has ever visited! It’s only $2.50 to get in, the grounds are lovely and nicely manicured, and the animals are happy and well-cared for in their clean and green enclosures.

We left the zoo while we still had plenty of light so that we could make the big climb up to Cloudcroft, an adorable town 19 miles outside of and 4,000 feet higher than Alamogordo. And our little Turtle made it! We may have been going 2 mph, but we made it! We stopped at the scenic train trestle outside of Cloudcroft, and then found a cool dispersed campsite nearby to stay for the night.

We stayed two days, and drove back down.

. . .Don’t get me wrong, lots of fun things happened in Cloudcroft, but I promised you a National Parks post so I’m going to try to stay on topic here. 🙂

A lot of National Parks that we go to feel like being on another planet, which is a shared characteristic of all the parks I’ve liked best. So you can probably guess my approval rating for White Sands National Monument! This place was bizarre in the very best way.

It was magical. Hills and hills as far as the eye can see of gypsum sand.

It played tricks on our minds, as hills of white usually mean snow and winter, but it was 85 degrees and we were roasting! I made a sand angel anyway. Also strange was the sensation that we were walking on sand in that heat, but it wasn’t hot on our feet at all.

Before we began walking back to the Turtle, Andy joked that we should fill our bucket with water and make a white sand castle. We both got quiet and looked at each other, and then went to get the bucket.

The next day we went to Hatch, NM to get ourselves the epic green chile cheeseburger at Sparky’s that some hot springs friends had told us about a few months ago.

It was legitimately one of the best burgers I’ve ever had. Thanks for the recommendation, guys! On our way out of Hatch, we got some green chiles from a roadside market, Andy hassled one of the locals, and then we hit the road for Spaceport America.

Spaceport America is incredible to see, even though it’s not open to the public right now. We’d read that there was a visitor’s center, but it’s in nearby Truth or Consequences (actual town name) so we just got a long-distance view of “the world’s first purpose-built commercial spaceport” and some really neat info from the hospitable guard at the gate. The sci-fi nerd in me was already picturing the next time I drive out there, this time with my flight ticket in hand. To infinity and beyond!

That night and the next we stayed at Elephant Butte Dam in Truth or Consequences. We swam, read by the water, got some sun, and threw Scout’s frisbee into the water a thousand times before continuing onto the next leg of our journey.

Which was Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument! Another new favorite, and another great NPS spot to visit at the top of a very windy road that tops out at about 8,300 ft. The Turtle was wheezing, but we made it up this one too! And the reward was worth it.

There are free campsites all around the monument, as well as an oasis just right outside—a privately-owned hot springs with three pools and camping available. If they hadn’t been booked up, we would have gladly stayed the night too!

But we already had a site we’d found the night before that we loved, so we were happy to return to our little house by the river.

It was a great place to relax and catch our breath before moving on to the next National Park! It was also a great place for catching other things too.

After returning our new friend to his home by the river, we returned to the road—the Turtle’s natural habitat! And on to the next National Park—the Turtle’s second home.

A Month-Long Detour: Oklahoma City, OK

In our last post, I alluded to a detour we were embarking upon to visit some friends in OKC. I couldn’t have imagined that when I finally had time to write about it, we’d have also moved the party to Texas and extended the trip by two weeks! But with old friends, it’s hard not to want the good times to keep rolling, and by the end of it both Beth and I were convinced that we’d talked the other into prolonging the fun. So it was a win-win.

A quick history: Beth and I were randomly-assigned roommates our freshman year of college at University of Montana in Missoula. Because all of our pictures are in storage right now, the best I can give you is this little gem that I found slipped between the pages of a sketch book while organizing the Turtle one day. Please note the high-res quality of a photo taken on a first generation web cam and printed on a 90’s era printer. Also, that we were as cheesy then as we are now.

After moving into that tiny shoebox together, Beth and I gradually became friends, cracked each other up, invented games, stayed up until the sun came up, moved to Juneau, and caused some trouble together in the years to follow. Now, just a few short years later (Right? That’s what it’s been, right?) we still see each other every year, but still that’s not enough. So when Beth pointed out to me that we were only 7 hours from Oklahoma City, much closer than I’d realized, we put a pin in the New Mexico plans and turned that steering wheel east to go hang out with her and her family for a week or two.

Needless to say, we had all the fun. Unfortunately Beth and Johnny still had to do real life in the meantime, so we hung out with them while we could and then explored the city on our own while they worked.

Highlights of the trip included:

The Thunder game! They were playing the Portland Trailblazers, coincidentally. So after living over a decade in Portland, I saw my second Blazers game in OKC. I’m a baseball fan, all right? 😉

The Horse Thief show at the newly-renovated and super-cool Tower Theater.

Taking Scout to the field near their house to play frisbee in the middle of the city.

Taking our picture in front of the wall of their building, which Beth says everybody does, so we had to do it too. We like to fit in with the locals. 🙂

Playing with Asher, then continuing to play with his toys long after he lost interest.

Beth’s top-tier crown-making skills.

Going to the Oklahoma City bombing memorial and museum. (If you’re in town, GO to this remarkably well-curated museum, but be prepared to be emotionally fried afterward. It was extremely moving and we were spent by the time we left.)

Exploring Brick Town, Deep Deuce, Midtown, the Plaza District, and Automobile Alley on our bikes. Again, we like to feel like locals so I’m showing off our OKC knowledge here.

Riding our bikes by the baseball field and seeing that there was a free high school baseball game going on! We’d admired the stadium from outside a few days prior, so we were thrilled to get to see it inside.

Taking a walking tour of all of Beth and Johnny’s favorite spots with their friends Mike and Sandy (taking the pictures).

Watching Andy reach peak stress levels playing PacMan.

This.

We had SO MUCH FUN. Beth and Johnny were great hosts, and great sports. 🙂 Oklahoma City has changed a lot since the last time I visited about 5 years ago. We were going nonstop and still didn’t see everything!

One weekend, we decided to go camping at a wildlife refuge a few hours outside of town. We saw bison and wild turkeys.

Scout and Gracie had to be leashed, but were just happy to be outside smelling all those great animal smells.

Gracie’s a pro at tangling that leash up.

One day it was so windy that we drove into a little town nearby to go get huge hamburgers at a place that Beth and Johnny often frequent when they’re in the area, and still don’t know whether they love the spot or despise it. On this trip, we all agreed it was awesome, but we could also see that it had the potential to swing wildly from charming to exasperating.

Beth and I attempted a Boxcar Children photo.

Here is Asher’s recreation of the trip, including the Turtle, him in his tent, the fire, and the lines on the top left show the howling of the coyotes we heard in the distance. It’s perfect.

When our planned two weeks were up, we still weren’t ready to stop having fun. So we decided to get a week’s head start on Beth and Johnny while they worked through the week, and then we’d all meet up at Lake Meredith, north of Amarillo. It’s a free NPS site with lots of fishing, boat and swimming access, plus spectacular views of the lake from the camp sites perched on top of the cliffs.

The first night, Andy and I stayed on the Cedar Canyon beach.

The next day, we scouted out the myriad sites surrounding the lake. Many of them have bathrooms, potable water, and even hot clean showers. We still can’t believe this place is free! It’s better maintained than some sites where we’ve paid to stay.

We decided on a site at the Sanford-Yake campground.

Because we had no neighbors and the sites were so far apart, the animals got some freedom. Scout still loves his stuffed worm, so thank you again Eric and Willow! 🙂

Beth and Johnny arrived a few days later, and we continued the fun! We had a few gorgeous days and a few windy/chilly days.

There aren’t enough superlatives to express how much fun it was to spend so much time with Beth and her family, for the boys to get to know each other better, and to create new memories and inside jokes like we did in the old days.

After they left, I sat by the fire for a little bit and tried not to mourn too hard.

We went back down to the beach to lift our spirits, and the weather was so perfect we both got a little bit tan. Scout swam while Gracie watched Scout swim, perplexed.

We had another fire that evening and cooked up some hot dogs, knowing that the forecast was going to change drastically the next day!

Aaaaaaaaand, it did. We woke up to blasting wind rocking the Turtle and rain pounding the roof. When I opened the door to let Scout out, he jumped down into a river rushing under us!

After all the fun we had over the last month, we decided that we were ok with a stormy day and that it would actually be quite cozy to cuddle up in the turtle, have some coffee, read some books, write this post. . .

But first, we had to take advantage of the rainfall and give the Turtle a bath! (When you live on the road, you’ve got to take advantage of opportunities when they arise.)

Albuquerque to the Ojito Wilderness, New Mexico

Before a month ago, neither of us had ever been to New Mexico, and both of us were super excited to explore the state. It certainly never disappointed! (Except Taos; that city didn’t live up to the hype at all.) We loved Santa Fe and Diablo Canyon, and next on the list was a night in Albuquerque on the way to the Ojito Wilderness.

We went to Old Town in Albuquerque and walked around the shops, had tacos for lunch, chatted with some charming locals, and visited the historic church in the middle of Old Town.

While we were in one of the touristy shops, I noticed a whole wall full of Breaking Bad paraphernalia. We remembered that the show was set in Albuquerque, and as we walked through Old Town, I saw a flier for a Breaking Bad tour that takes you to a dozen or so places from the show. Andy wasn’t a fan of the series, so he watched me curiously as I frantically found a post from Lonely Planet with a map of a do-it-yourself Breaking Bad tour and ran for the Turtle.

I didn’t want to take over Andy’s day with my Breaking Bad fandom, so I picked a few of the locations I most wanted to see, and luckily (for Andy) they happened to be fairly close to one another.

First, we went to the park where Mike always went with his granddaughter.

And of course we had to go to Walt and Skyler’s house, which has been painted and gated.

And the A1A Car Wash!

In the far end of the car wash parking lot, we ran into a familiar-looking RV. It’s not the same one, but close, and we guessed that it’s part of the $75 tour we saw advertised, which was arriving at the car wash as we were pulling out.

We also ran by Gus’ Laundromat, but the sun had almost set so we just looked and then went and grabbed a beer at the Red Door Brewery, just a few doors down.

The next day, we got supplies and drove to the Ojito Wilderness, about 45 minutes outside of Albuquerque.

It’s a gorgeous desert spot on BLM land just west of San Ysidro. Lots of people go there to ride bikes on the White Mesa Bike Trails outside of the wilderness area, and to shoot guns various places just inside the entrance.

We kept driving in until we got to the Hoodoo trailhead, on the west side of the wilderness, where we made camp—a.k.a. parked the Turtle and opened the door.

Ojito is a great spot because you have access to over 11,000 acres of wilderness! You have to park on the edge of the actual wilderness area, but it’s all BLM land so you can hike in and camp anywhere you like. There are two marked hiking trails that get you out into the wilderness, or you can just blaze your own trail. We did both, and loved both equally.

The rocks and formations out there are diverse and lovely. There is an abundance of sandstone, gypsum, quartz, volcanic rock, and even fossils, which of course you can’t take but are really fun to find!

I’m beginning to suspect that the desert is Andy’s natural habitat.

Gracie loves it because she gets to run and roll in the dirt all day, nap in the sun when we leave for hikes, and ever since she learned to climb the ladder at Diablo Canyon, she’s made the top of the Turtle her personal patio.

Check out this enormous sliced cucumber rock!

Both animals were so happy here that they were even more sweet with each other than usual. This is what I woke up to on my stomach one morning:

Gracie was so pleased that we finally found sunshine that she did her best to soak it all up, and I think she succeeded.

On our last day there, we got a day without wind, which was exciting because the previous two days we were hit so hard that Gracie and I opted to stay inside and read all day! We celebrated the sunny day by taking our favorite four-hour hike for a final picnic and rock-collecting mission.

We left this idyllic site only because we saw rain in the forecast, and the dirt roads would be nearly impossible to drive on for a Turtle if we were caught in wet weather! So we began our journey south to Roswell, not knowing that halfway there we’d decide to make a last-minute detour to Oklahoma City to see our friends Beth and Jonathan!

Which is why as I write this, we are in Elk City, Oklahoma. We found a great free spot for RV’s just south of town on a lake, and it even has water, electric, and lot of nice red dirt for Gracie to roll in! So everyone’s happy.

Bandelier National Monument: Freakin’ Awesome

We LOVE Bandelier National Monument. And a day before we went there, we didn’t even know it existed! We happened to see it in our New Mexico Atlas while we planned our route to Los Alamos, and were very pleasantly surprised when we arrived. Even the Visitor’s Center is awesome.

Here you can see the abandoned cave dwellings of the Pueblo people, who lived here for hundreds of years in Frijoles Canyon.

You even get to climb into a number of the dwellings. It’s incredible.

The ring you see down below is the ruins of other dwellings, in what was basically the town square.

I’ve been known to surreptitiously piggyback on nearby tours, and here we were lucky enough to be right behind a small group with a very knowledgable tour guide. I’m pretty sure once we started asking her questions they were on to us, but the whole group was nice enough to let us follow them around and learn a bunch more than we would have from the brochure alone. I was especially amazed when she told us that the smallest indentations in the rock were carved to serve as ladders! These 3″ round holds would go straight up a vertical rock to reach other ledges. In the above photo, you can see the littlest dents running up the left side of the furthest-back rock wall, which gave access to the upper shelf, where a number of petroglyphs were carved into the rock. Crazy!

You can also continue past the main trail to the Alcove House, where you climb three ladders and some stone stairs up 140′ to a cave that houses a kiva and has a great view of the canyon.

We loved it.

Afterwards, we stayed a few nights in Los Alamos, where we went to museums and took tours, learning about the Manhattan Project and the old Ranch School in Los Alamos.

On our way to Albuquerque, we stopped at Spence Hot Springs for a soak, which is an easy hike to a not-hot-but-warm natural springs with a gorgeous view of the valley.

The weather began to get chilly, and the springs felt just all right enough to stay. The source of the springs is in the cave, so when the sun went behind the clouds, we crawled in and warmed up a bit in the cozy sauna.

Then right before sunset, we stopped at the Jemez Historic Site to check out the old mission ruins.

We drove through the red rocks of Jemez Valley into Albuquerque at sunset, right past the sign pointing us to the Ojito Wilderness, where we’d return to spend a week just a few days later.

Two Weeks in Diablo Canyon, New Mexico

One of our favorite places to “live” is on BLM land, and if they didn’t have a rule that you can only stay a maximum of 14 days, we would likely still be in Diablo Canyon right now.

We were looking for some sunshine, and we got it! This spot is great. It has four primitive camp sites, which is our favorite since we come equipped with everything we need, and we get far fewer neighbors.

We did see loads of people, though, as it’s a really popular spot for climbers. The edge of the canyon is a really clean vertical, and we saw climbers up there every day.

The weather was warm and sunny, and we all got to do our favorite things outside.

Andy got to work on the Turtle.

Scout got to go for 3-hour walks and hikes almost every day.

Gracie got to roll in the dirt, climb things, and explore outside. She just learned how to climb the ladder to get on top of the Turtle, and now we’ve gotten used to hearing the thumping of paws on the roof!

And I was in rock-collecting heaven. Everywhere we walked there was an endless array of beautiful rocks, and my pockets were constantly full. I couldn’t help it!

Over the course of our time there, we hiked to the top of the canyon, around the opposite edge of it and up and over, and all the way through to the Rio Grande.

We played all day, and earned our naps.

After a day of exploring, we were happy to put our feet up and watch the desert sunsets, around the fire or under the awning wrapped in blankets.

We also met our neighbors, full-time travelers Eric and his darling dog Willow, and spent some time with them swapping travel stories. They’ve been all around, and also blog about their time on the road here. Go say hello! 🙂

They even gifted a squeaky stuffed worm to Scout, which he loves and has been dropped into our lap many, many, many times. Thanks guys!

On our last day there, we woke up to a bizarre surprise:

Snow!

We thought that was pretty well timed, since we’d reached our 14-day limit! So we traveled back into Santa Fe to plan our next desert destination.

Great Sand Dunes National Park: Climbing Up & Sliding Down

With our compass pointed south we continued our quest for some sunshine, and found it as we neared Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado. Andy was happy to channel The Dude with his sweet Lebowski shades as we pursued the sunny weather.

We were a little surprised to see how much snow was covering the ground, but it made for some dramatic views of the Greenhorn Mountains as we approached the entrance.

We found a little pullout along the road into the park, and stopped to admire the view. We noted that it would make a great spot to stay the night, in case the campground was closed for the season. We had found conflicting information about whether or not any campsites would be available this time of year, so we had our feelers out in search of potential real estate in the event that we couldn’t stay in the park.

As we drove on, the snow-covered dunes came into view, and every direction we looked was just stunning.

A quick stop at the Visitor’s Center saw our water filled and our questions answered about where we could stay the night in the park (nowhere). We had to assuage the concerns of the rangers who told us it was going to get “reeeal cold” that night if we were staying in our “car,” and we felt pretty pleased with our setup as we reassured him that we had heat, a warm bed, and a stove to cook a hot meal for the night. Ah, Turtle life.

We decided we’d return to our pullout to spend the night, but in the meantime we had an hour to two to run around on the dunes! Dogs are even invited, and Scout was so happy. His two favorite landscapes are sand and snow, and he couldn’t believe his luck in getting to play on both at once. A great day for everyone! (Gracie was sleeping in a sunbeam back in the Turtle, so she was happy too.)

I think Scout inherited my posture.

That’s better.

Pictures could never quite capture it, but as the sun shone on the snow it created an explosion of rainbow fragments flickering across the surface as we walked along. I’ve never seen anything like it.

We parked near the amphitheater to explore a bit, then had to head back to our overnight spot as the sun was beginning to set. (We have a list of rules we’ve compiled for successful overlanding, and the first rule is Never Drive At Night. We break it now and then, but life is much easier when we don’t.) One obvious benefit to traveling only during daylight is that we don’t miss the scenery, and I was very pleased we made it in time for sunset so we could admire the view.

The next morning we woke up and drove right back to the parking lot outside the dunes for a long hike to the top. We packed a lunch and set out, and as we walked across the snowy dunes, Andy reminded me of a conversation we’d had earlier this year. . .

When we were visiting the Badlands, I was in such awe as we walked across Door Trail; I’d never been in such an incredible place before. It seemed so otherworldly and dreamlike, aside from the distraction of those other humans roaming around. I told Andy that I wished I could have the Badlands all to myself, for my birthday or some special day—just once. Always the voice of reason, Andy responded, “Well. . . I think that restricting public use would kind of defeat the whole point of the National Park System.”

Ok, ok, I know. But it would be SO COOL, right?

Well as we ascended the first rise at Sand Dunes National Park, Andy pointed out that there had been no cars in the parking lot, and that there was not a soul anywhere. My birthday was a just a few days away, and he asked, “Is this close enough?” Yes, it was.

For over an hour, we were the only people on the dunes. It’s pretty exciting to accidentally have a wish granted.

I’d like to point out here that these pictures give no sense of depth; I was actually so high up on this dune that I was a little nervous to be standing that close to the edge!

We hiked up, up up, at an elevation of about 8,000 feet. I’m telling you, that air is thin. And the last dune was a real doozy! There was some vertical hands-and-knees climbing there at the last ascent.

So we were thrilled to reach the top!

There we ate our well-earned cheese and crackers, with olives for me and onions for Andy.

After our picnic, I had a surprise waiting for Andy: a trick up my sleeve that I borrowed from my dad, who was endlessly creative when it came to having fun. When I was a kid, on a family outing in the mountains of Montana, we happened upon a steep valley covered in snow. My dad grabbed some trash bags out of the car, and we had instant makeshift sleds to fly down that mountainside. So when I saw the dunes covered in snow, I squirreled a few black garbage backs into my pack before we left the Turtle, and once we were at the top, I handed one to Andy.

After a few trials, we learned that they worked brilliantly on the snow, and when we’d hit the sand it would slow us down quickly and stop us. So we stuck to the good patches of snow, and rode those garbage bags all the way down the dunes.

It was a short two days at Great Sand Dunes, but by the time we left we felt like we had really made the most of it. As we travel from one National Park to another, it never fails to amaze me how diverse and beautiful this country is. We can’t wait to see more!

Let’s Refurbish a Van – Part 6: Roof Rack (by Andy)

A post by Andy

{Note: The work detailed in this post was completed over the summer of 2015, before we moved into the Turtle. I am just getting the time to write the post now.}

So, we have stuff to carry. And we want a place to store our solar panels. And we want to stay cool. And, if possible, look cool. So, we need to put together a roof rack…

Here are a few pictures of the old RV when we got it. It had an aluminum ladder that was old and worn, along with the typical RV aluminum tube luggage rack at the back- all bits with some of the mounts loose. We also had a big plastic storage box bolted to the top, but it was cracked and would certainly leak. As you can see, there was also one solar panel and a mount for what I’m pretty sure was a TV antenna. Good stuff, but it was all pretty worn, as it had all traveled for close to 30 years and more than 250 thousand miles.

We wanted our rack and top equipment to do a few things for us:

Have a dry and accessible place to store camping and fishing and other fun gear, out-of-season clothing, and some spare parts and equipment.
Have the rack removable, so we can maintain and fix the roof when the need arises.
Have a location to mount the planned solar panels.
Design the rack to provide us shade.
Have a system that we can change, add more solar to, move things around, etc.
Be able to fill and seal up all the holes prior people made when mounting things to the roof, and have a system where moving forward we will not be drilling into the roof any more.

Anyway, roof racks look great! I hear they can be useful too. In truth, we have pretty limited room and storage inside, so having a bit of room up top for our extra supplies and garage-like stuff was essential for a successful voyage.

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So, to the step of getting the old stuff off and sealing up the holes. Pretty much unbolt the bolts and pry everything else off. I then used fiberglass impregnated epoxy body filler for all the big holes (I love epoxy!), maybe adding wire to support it as it cured. I then added Geocel Proflex on the seams. I read about and tried a few things, but to date, it is my go-to for exterior sealing. Here is a link.

For the (many) smaller holes, I would first clean and fill with the Geocel, then screw in a stainless steel screw the size of the hole, then cover the head of the screw with another layer of Geocel. It is a technique I read about on the internet, and it seems to have worked well so far. Again, it is not worth buying any hardware but stainless or grade 8. It does cost a little bit more, but use the savings you get for doing this yourself to get the good hardware. Plus, you don’t have to worry about some interior rust and redoing the work down the road. After sealing the holes, I put down Rustoleum on all the modified spots. The following pictures show the antenna hole through the roof, and some of the removed parts scattered in the yard.

We were lucky enough to have a friend who worked for Yakima who gave us a VIP discount card for one purchase. With the card, we got 12 A1 rain gutter towers, 6 78″ crossbars, 12 wide body rain gutters, end caps, two 12-peice lock core sets, a Loadwarrior basket, and some cargo nets. A truly impressive amount of wonderful Yakima pieces at a great savings. Boxes and boxes of sweet components!

From REI, Amy and I used our one-item 20% member discount and each of us bought a Skybox Pro 12, shipped to the Portland REI for free. We got the long and narrow boxes to configure end-to-end, and not take up too much roof area width-wise. We effectively have the roof racks for 4 vehicles, all to put up top the Turtle. It added up to a lot of initial investment, but it has been working well, and added an important comfort to be able to store a reasonable amount of things to make our small world flexible, and I think it actually has a sleeker look being made from components—as opposed to a custom-fitted rack. Since we were doing all the work ourselves, we decided to invest a bit more on some nice new hardware. After popping down to REI and loading our new Skyboxes (in their own boxes) onto the top of the old Scout, we stopped for a bite in downtown Portland. Seems fairly reasonable to me, but I imagine to some people we made a sight…

The sky boxes, along with the other hardware, sat in the house for quite awhile. After stripping and sealing the roof, it was only logical to finish painting the Tutle blue, then do the white roof paint, and then finally get to the point where we could install the new roof rack. Consequently, this is what our place looked like for quite an amount of time. (As you can see, our front room was used to store a number of Turtle parts until they were ready to install.)

The pictures are few here, but after most of the painting was finished, I mounted the wide body mounts. I measured, marked, measured again, checked, and had the geometry figured out. On the corner of the Turtle roof, I would drill my two holes, fill with Geocel, cover the mounting surface with Geocel, align the bracket, screw in two (you guessed it) stainless steel lag bolts, then cover the seam and outside with Geocel. After it all cured, we repainted with the Interlux. It looked nicer with the black brackets and shinny bolts before the sealant and paint, but I didn’t want to risk it. And, just so you know, the asymmetric spacing along the length of the roof is due to needing to align the crossbars so they will not interfere with a roof vent when open, but also allow for the mounting points of the skyboxes. Here are the brackets installed:

It is a nice feeling to know that at any point we could unlock (all keyed alike, now) the 12 towers, unscrew, and remove the whole rack if we had to do some maintainence on the topside. Anyway, the pictures are limited at this point, but following are some involving the tower, crossbar, and rack install.

You might notice that the Yakima basket lost out to the solar panels. The basket is in the storage unit presently, and it would be great to get it up there at some point. When we were building and installing the rack, though, the geometric logistics were far too difficult for the time allocated. Anyway, to install the solar panels, I bolted two pieces of 12′ 6061 T6 aluminum square tubing to the crossbars with stainless steel carriage bolts and nuts fitted through the Yakima Universal Snaparounds.

I picked up used ones super cheap here. By the way, ReRack in Portland are nice people and can save you some money on roof racks, so check them out if you are in the area. Back to topic, after getting the aluminum properly spaced and installed, I then drilled and screwed the solar panel brackets to the the aluminum. That step was a breeze. Solar panels installed, photo taken probably a month in.

As to keeping it all cool. We planned on (and did), paint the roof surface with a couple of coats of Interlux topsides white boat paint. We actually painted the roof vent covers white as well. The assumption is that paint will reflect much of the sun’s heat, and be able to withstand the UV rays. So far, everything looks pretty good up there. We have some cracks in the paint where the caulking we used was not completely cured before we painted (I don’t blame the paint, we had time constraints), so we have some washing and fixing of some seams to do. Otherwise, all looks pretty good. A common approach for keeping a bit cooler is to have a couple of roofs, effectively carrying your own shade along with you.

The above old-school Rovers have a second roof with an airgap for passive cooling in the hot sun. (Side note, did anyone notice the tall skinny tyres the rovers are running on?) With the spacing added from the rack towers, and mounting the solar panels and boxes above the crossbars, we have a impressive air gap and continous shade on over 50% of the roof.

Currently, there is a middle strip free for walking, in which I will fit an additional panel at some point, then simply make some cheap synthetic or plywood panels and paint them white to increase our shade to close to 100%. So far, though, we have been to the Badlands of South Dakota in the summer, and have stayed with the ambient temperature with thoughtful venting and minimal electric fans.

To me, the goal is not to be cooler than the outside, all we need to do is not be hotter than the ambient temperature in all kinds of weather.

Oh, almost forgot, we want to access the roof! We need to clean the solar panels, get stuff into and take stuff out of the boxes, check on all the paint and seals, and most importantly, be able to climb up and yell with arms outstretched like you are in a movie! Anyway, the ladder…

We actually bought a car roof rack ladder as a start. The almost $200 ladder (seems crazy) was well worth the money, in the time saved. It always feels pretty weird to buy something new, remove it from the box, then start cutting it right away. So, the ladder, welding, adding more rungs for the proper length, and fixing the folding function.

Some close-to-final pictures here. We started with a 9-rung foldable ladder, and ended with a 12-rung rigid ladder that bolts to the bumper and the top rack. Again, it was designed to bolt to the bumper and rack, so it is removable…

I’m pleased with the removability of the ladder, because we crushed it a bit when we backed into a tree one day, about a week after it was finished and installed. The ladder was subsequently unbolted, straightened, and remounted. From the side, it now does have a bit of ripple (below the designed joint and by the spare tire)—this is what we call life.

To sum up a bit, up in the boxes right now we have a few fishing poles, extra wire and parts and unfinished projects, cloth for sewing projects, extra window insulation, snow shoes and masks and fins, river tubes, my old tent. A pair of driving lights I have yet to wire up. Some cheap speakers I plan on installing in the doors. You get the picture. We call it our attic.

We have a completed rack now. It holds our solar panels, is our attic, and still has room to exapand.

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