Tuesday, February 28, 2017

There and Back and Again

Since our last entry I have put some serious miles on and seen some country, some a repeat and some a little whiter than I like it this time of year. Our last trip out to Bouse was so much fun and seemed to reconnect us with the reason we started RV'ing in the first place. Our LQ was not as comfortable as we would like for a boondocking rig so that got us thinking about a change. Like usual, with me, change happens in a hurry. We found a rig we thought we would like and it just so happens that the dealer we bought the LQ from had one arriving in the next day or two. We made a deal and all that had to be done was the final walk throughs of both our trade and the new toy hauler. I figured we should fly up and have a look at it, but Brenda wasn't up for another flight at this point, so she put her faith in me. Not entirely wisely as it turns out.

Here she (DPA) is in her natural habitat outside Bouse, Arizona
 The new outfit is nice, but as always there are a lot of things that will need to be changed to make it perfect and acceptable as our new Dogpound Anywhere (DPA). From my point of view it needs more batteries, an inverter and some solar capabilities all things we knew going in, surprisingly there are no 12V power points at all, and the water pump sounds like it is being powered by a Harley Davidson engine, so those issues will have to be dealt with. As for things Brenda looks for, it has great storage for clothes, but not so great for dry goods. And not a towel rack or toilet paper hanger in sight so those will have to be added. The fridge seems adequate though. It has a fancy new Furrion Oven and it, at least on our trial run, had issues keeping a constant temperature and it has a fan that runs the whole time the oven is on, so that will take some getting used to.

There is a deck out back that makes getting outdoors pretty easy, but the garage floor, is well a garage floor and we will probably need to fit a carpet to that to make it more easily cleaned.

After a few days of commissioning at DPS we headed for our favourite spot out near Bouse for a shakedown cruise. As usual in the desert these little fellers were around looking to see if we had a handout for them. Sadly we didn't but that didn't seem to discourage them from hanging out with us.


In flight and hard to track

Sunrise over the desert
Unlike most times in the desert, this time we got company. Kim Johnson an old colleague from my working days and his wife Wendy were on a trial run with their motorhome, seeing what all this sunbelt stuff was about and we managed to convince them to stop overnight with us in the desert. Great folks and a lot of fun, so we are hopeful we will see them again before they head back into the Great White North.

Sometimes it the eastern skies that make the best display at Sunset
We are back at DPS now and working on killing weeds, washing the rigs and getting a few other things done here so that we are free to wander if the mood catches us. The last couple of days have been cool and windy so not much getting done on that front, but I have managed to get a couple of swims in anyway.

3 comments:

  1. The New DPA looks pretty sharp. Most of our past RVs we've had to install our own hardware but this one saved us some of that work.
    Looks like you are going to start with keeping busy right off the bat. If your Fridge is not on a slide you can use the Cavity and Roof Vent for running your cables to the roof. If not you will need to find a wall cavity to drop the cables down. Any Questions feel free to ask.
    Welcome to the new way of "Roughing It".
    Be Safe and Enjoy!

    It's about time.

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  2. All our previous RV's have had some solar capabilities culminating with a MH that had an 800 AH Battery Bank and 400 Watts of Power feeding our 2000W inverter so it is a journey we have been on before. Always interested in new ways to do things though.

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  3. I must admit when I guessed why you were flying north I worried about you picking out the rig without Brenda's seeing it first! :))))

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