Colorado One Night Stands: Steamboat Springs

After Leadville, we headed out to the north, over three passes, to Steamboat Springs. Along the way, we passed some major mining operations. Leadville was, of course, a mining town, as was Coaldale (guess what they mined there?) Today, there is still mining - a huge Molybdenum mine is near the summit of one of the passes. They seem to be taking the mountain down - it appears quite destructive compared to other mining operations in the area. And there are large toxic looking lakes as well as tailings.

When we got down to I-70, there was a Starbuck's! So we got coffee and lunch. We headed east on I-70 through several large ski towns that were very developed, then turned north again and were in the country. We saw lots of rivers today - the Blue River, Colorado River, and Yampa River are three large ones.

When we got up to 40, we headed back west over Rabbit Ears Pass and crossed the Continental Divide again and descended into the Yampa Valley where Steamboat Springs town and ski area are. We got the last spot at Steamboat Campground (or maybe just the last spot they deemed big enough for us). It was a pretty nice place - the ONLY place in Steamboat - full hookups, cable, WiFi, laundry, store, and the Yampa River runs right through campground!

We ate dinner at an Italian place in town with a porch. The food was okay, but we enjoyed sitting on the porch overlooking the river and train tracks. We watched a coal train that went by forever and thought about mining and energy - where did the coal come from and where was it going? I once read that 70% of the electricity in this country comes from oil and coal burning power plants! Coming from California, where the perception is that much of our energy comes from hydroelectric dams, this was surprising to me. But we also get power from the Navajo Coal power plant that is dirtying the air at the Grand Canyon, among other fossil fuel burning power plants around the state.

We are really glad we have solar panels on our RV, and when we move into a "stick house" again, we would love to go solar! We are also glad we bought Terra Passes (we bought 3) to offset our carbon emissions and have done what we can, such as adding the Banks Power Pack Exhaust System, watching our speed/acceleration, and keeping our tires inflated with our SmarTire Tire Pressure Monitoring System and our Air Lift Heavy-Duty Air Compressor to increase our gas mileage (even though we have those primarily for safety). Even in a rolling house towing our Jeep, we get better gas mileage than a Hummer (H1, anyway). Of course that's not saying much! I guess we are using up all the "credit" we earned from walking or, in Devin's case, gliding (on his Segway) to work for years. We hope to have a low impact lifestyle after this adventure, but we are glad we are doing this while we still can.

See more photos of Leadville to Steamboat

Inverting Excitement

Inverter

Another "exciting" thing that happened to us in Moab, is our inverter blew. The inverter is what takes the 12 volt DC power from the batteries and makes it into 110 AC power that we can use for charging laptops, phones, running small appliances like the toaster, Bamix mixer, and coffee grinder, watching TV and DVDs, etc, and it does all this when we are NOT plugged in, like out at the north rim, for example. It is also a battery charger, and will charge our batteries when we ARE plugged in, if we aren't getting enough charge from the solar panels (which would only be on occasion, if our site is very shady, or if the weather is very dark and cloudy).

When our inverter, which came with the RV and was probably 8 years old, went out, it took our ability to use "shore power" with it. Shore power is what RVers call plugging in to the 30 or 50 amp power in RV parks (we use 30 amp, but the big monster diesel RVs generally use 50 amp). Devin checked with forum members on RV.net, a source of infinite wisdom, advice, humor, and great stories, and decided it would be okay to bypass our dead inverter and wire the incoming AC wires directly to the outgoing AC wires that normally go through the inverter. When he did this, we could use shore power again, and, hallelujah, turn our air conditioner back on! Fortunately, through all this, we still had 12 volt because of our solar panels, which is all our lights and ceiling fans - which can keep the RV reasonably comfortable - but 95 degree heat and full sun is hard to fight without air conditioning. And for air conditioning, we needed shore power.

So now we at least had 110 and could keep cool, watch Cable TV and movies, use the microwave, air conditioner, charge our laptops, use appliances, etc. But we still had a fried inverter. When it went, there was a thud, and a smell, and when I opened the compartment, smoke came out! No fire, thank goodness, but that unmistakable smell of burnt electrical equipment lingered in the compartment. Devin researched online, and we found a great deal on a new, true sine wave inverter. Our old one was 2500 watts, which is much bigger than we should have needed, and the new one came in 2000 or 3000 watts.

After much research and discussion, we decided on the Xantrex RS-2000 watt inverter/charger model. True sine wave means it is safe for use with fancy electronics - our old one was modified sine wave, and killed the battery charger on Devin's DeWalt cordless drill. (My Makita seemed to do fine with it, though). My laptop is also having power issues, and I think using the modified sine wave inverter probably killed its battery as well. (Or more likely it was leaving it plugged in all the time.) Now I can't use it unless it is plugged in. Anyway...

We found the best deal and ordered the new inverter from DonRowe.com and it got there in two days, with free shipping (thank goodness, since the package weighed over 80 pounds!)

Devin decided to install it himself (a sure sign he is all better), and I helped. We ran RJ11 ("ethernet") cable up through the floor and behind the fridge to wire in the new monitor, figured out how to fit the new, larger inverter in the old one's spot, and got it all hooked up. We spent one afternoon installing it, and upon the moment of truth, discovered that it worked - sort of! We hadn't realized that the huge slow burn fuse ("Class T") had gone out with the old inverter. These types of fuses are used primarily with solar power systems and inverters, and also with car audio for those "hiking boot in a dryer" sound systems we all know and hate. So we again had shore power, but couldn't invert or charge. It was a great learning experience, actually, and now we both know much more and understand more about how our RV's electrical systems work.

The next day, Devin decided that we should have taken out the old charger that was just taking up space in the back of the cabinet where we installed the new inverter. Since our inverter is also a charger, and the old charger was unplugged anyway, we didn't need it, and had never used it. We guess the previous owners used it as a back up, if the inverter went out, they could still charge their batteries. We don't need it for that since we installed solar panels and our batteries get charged from the sun (yay!). And besides, in doing research on the rv.net forum on whether or not it should go, the most common suggestion of what to do with the old converter was "trash it!" So we spent another afternoon unhooking and taking the new inverter back out (remember it weighs about 70 pounds!), unhooking and taking out the charger, and hooking up and re-installing the inverter - this time much farther into the compartment, making it easier to reach the fuses that are on the side of the same shelf. It was, all in all, in spite of the fuse problem, a satisfying job well done!

More on the inverter later, when we got the fuse shipped to us in Ouray, Colorado! To be continued...

Solar Dreams

We've done quite a bit of research on putting a full solar charging system on our MoHo. It will allow us to stay in out-of-the-way places, dry camp and "boon-dock" without needing to hook up or run our generator, pretty much ever. This appeals to us, as we never liked being near RVs with generators ourselves, and those RV parks with hook-ups are generally pretty fancy, crowded and expensive - not the kind of experience we are really looking for.

So we've been doing lots of research and think we've figured out what we need in order to live off the sun. Here are some great websites that helped us figure it out, and three companies we are considering for the work (who also had lots of help and information about solar on their websites):

• Phred's Poop Sheets,
• Electricity from the Sun - Is it for You?
• The 12 Volt side of Life, and
• 12 Volt Side of Life, part 2
• RV Solar [NOTE: RV Solar has since gone out of business and taken down their website, but if you want to use their information sheets, you can use The Wayback Machine to view archived pages],
• RV Solar Electric,
• Discount Solar

With all these great resources, and the fact that our RV already came with an inverter and 4 house batteries, we are ready to go solar!

Now, where to get it done? We had pretty much decided on RV Solar who are located in Bend, Oregon. We didn't necessarily want to make a trip to Bend, but on their website they say they go to Quartzite every winter!

Now, Quartzite is an RV Mecca. It has a population of about 5,000 in the summer, which swells to around 500,000 (omg!) in the winter - all from RVs!!! And of course, the businesses that follow them, like RV Solar. There is apparently a lot of BLM land designated as Long Term Visitor Use Areas there. You can buy a permit for staying the whole winter for $140!

Wall-to-wall RVs is something we would have avoided like the plague before... but now, it seems kind of interesting to just check out. Most of the people there are full-timers, or at least "snowbirds" - people who "fly south" for the winters and stay long term in warm, sunny climates, like Quartzite. But the thing that is interesting is the community - all that knowledge of long-time RVers - there are seminars and classes, workshops, and all sorts of services aimed directly at RVers, and especially long term RVers. So there are lots of solar installation companies there, and other types of businesses.

So we were planning to go to Quartzite to have RV Solar do our system, but they aren't going to Quartzite this year!! I liked them best because of their website - excellent information, fun, and when you click on the about us page, they look like a bunch of hippie outdoor types - my kind of people!! Sigh. Either we will have to make a trip to Bend (where we can visit my ex - how convenient!) or settle for another installer in Quartzite.

RV Solar mentioned Discount Solar, and also said there are an awful lot of installers down there every year that are pretty fly-by-night, so to be careful. We may go with Discount Solar - they spoke highly of the owner, which is nice.

We also have the option of having our local RV Service/Repair company, J&L do the solar - and they get their supplies from RV Solar Electric, which is in Scottsdale, but doesn't do their own installation. But we like the idea of having it done AT the company that specializes in solar, so they can give us a more thorough orientation and we can be sure we are getting the best setup for us.

So now it's down to a trip to Bend and RV Solar, or a trip to Quartzite and Discount Solar.

Decisions, decisions!!

Environmental Footprint, Global Warming, and My Rationalizations

You know, pretty much everyone we've told about our trip has been very positive and excited about it, but I feel the need to share my thoughts about taking to the road in these times of oil wars and global warming and environmental degradation that is a direct result of the internal combustion engine and our highly consumptive lifestyles...

I prefer to practice what I preach, and I prefer not to preach too much, but just to do what I believe is right. But perfection is unattainable, and frailty is human...

We recycle everything that we can, but we don't reuse as much as we should. We try not to buy thngs we don't need, but end up with too much stuff anyway. We prefer to live where we don't have to commute to work daily - Devin glides to work on his Segway and rarely drives, and for years, I lived only a few blocks from my work and I walked... but we have a big SUV now. What's up with that? We don't drive it much, but I got rid of my old Subaru because we didn't need two cars, and so now when we do drive, we drive the Toyota Sequoia. But we use it for 4wd camping excursions - we've had some wonderful trips into remote places with it. At least we don't just have a big SUV for status, like a lot of people in LA. Well, that's my rationalization, anyway.

I still like what Jeff Goldblum's character in The Big Chill said about rationalizations:

Michael: I don't know anyone who could get through the day without two or three juicy rationalizations. They're more important than sex.
Sam Weber: Ah, come on. Nothing's more important than sex.
Michael: Oh yeah? Ever gone a week without a rationalization?

Too true, too true.

So, on with the rationalization about our environmental footprint in the MoHo:

• I ~think~ we will likely have a smaller environmental footprint living in the MoHo than most people do living in a "stick house." We will be self-contained and "off the grid" - we are getting full solar installed (more on that in a later post), so we don't have to hook up.
• And when you have a limited supply of water and waste holding capacity, you conserve even more than normal - we have a 6 gallon water heater - you can bet we'll take short showers! We will have 75 gallons of fresh water - we hope to spend fairly long periods out "dry camping" so we have to learn to make that last.
• Our waste water tanks won't hold too much, so we have to be careful with how much (and what - don't want to kill off the good bacteria that digest our waste) goes down the drains.
• Even with solar panels, we won't want to waste electricity, because we'll be living off 4 batteries - if we discharge them all in one day, we'll have to wait till they are recharged the next day to use them. So we will be turning off lights, only using appliances as needed for short periods, trying to heat and cool as naturally as possible with the sun, windows, vents and our choices of clothing.

What about driving - what kind of MPG does that big ole MoHo get? Well, you probably guessed it, it's pretty bad. Probably no better than 10MPG (ironically, about what some Hummers get - ha). But, considering it's our house... not too shabby, really. Ideally, I would have liked to get a diesel so we could run bio-diesel and be a Veggie-Mobile! But that's not very realistic for now (for US) for a couple reasons:

• Diesel motorhomes are WAY more expensive than gas burners. We got a great deal on ours, and it is what we can afford.
• Bio-diesel is not yet widely commercially available, though we've seen it at the Exxon in Durango, Colorado... that's about it. And the stuff that IS commercially available is only a small percent bio-diesel and the rest regular petro-diesel. Having to find places to get used veggie oil, strain and treat it for use on the road isn't really practical for us at this time. If we lived in one place, could get regular access to good bio-diesel, or even set up a system to make our own, that would be so cool. But for now that is just a dream - though the thought of driving a veggie-moho goes nicely with the paisley and peace sign paint scheme I was considering! I would paint vines and flowers on the outside and have 'powered by veggies!" written on it somewhere proudly... :-)

So we have a gas beast that gets 8-10 MPG. So we won't be driving it very much - even spending a year travelling, we certainly don't want to spend most of that year driving! We won't drive every day, in fact, the idea is to drive relatively short distances to the next place we set up housekeeping, and stay there a week or two before moving on.

So now you can see why I think we may just have a smaller ecological footprint that someone living in a stick house and driving to work every day. Unless they have a Prius...

When we come in for a landing after our trip, I promise we will do everything we can to make up for it! Get a hybrid car, find a place to live where we can walk or glide to work, get solar panels on our house, and continue the good habits of conservation from motorhome life!

Maybe we'll buy some carbon offsets, too.