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So last we met Sara and I were sleeping in a parking lot on Rabbit Ears Pass outside Steamboat, CO. On Thursday morning when we got up we went for a nice XC ski along the many snowmobile trails off the East Summit parking lot.

Thursday afternoon we headed down to Steamboat for a little snowboarding. Despite our very nice morning together, I engineered a dramatic way to end our post-ski bliss so we spent the afternoon snowboarding alone. Who’d a thunk that living in +/- 80 sq. ft. of space might eventually lead to some marital disharmony.  I think riding alone was actually good for both of us as we did some exploring on our own without worrying about what the other wanted to ride. On Thursday night we went back up to the parking lot on Rabbit Ears Pass as Steamboat is quite aggressive in trying to prevent people from sleeping in town unless they pay for it. We managed to talk it out before bed, which is good because I don’t know where else Sara was going to sleep!

On Friday we decided to go for a hike instead of snowboarding. We had seen Rabbit Ears Peak and it seemed like a doable snowshoe hike from the pass. The East Summit is a complete snowmobile playground so we figured that we would be able to walk on mostly packed tracks the whole way. We were right – the tracks led all the way to the summit, though we had to do some minor route-finding to stay on the most direct route.

On Friday afternoon my cousin, Blair, was coming to Steamboat from Kansas. Blair and his buddy, Nabil, were nice enough to get an extra parking pass for their condo so we could sleep in the parking lot and use their condo for a shower. (Only three days if you are still counting.) On Friday night we also went to Strawberry Park Hot Springs. It is a super cool place and I highly recommend a visit if you are ever in the area. Fortunately we took Nabil’s SUV as I’m not sure the van would have made it. If it is snowing you definitely would not want to go without 4wd.

Snowboarding Saturday was as sunny and warm as hiking Friday. The snow went from icy, to soft, to slushy in places as the day wore on. Nabil is a powerhouse and essentially bombs every run top to bottom. He aims for first chair, last chair, and uses the singles line to make the most of the day. I’m not sure how we kept up without blowing out our legs, but we managed. I easily set a personal record for vertical feet in a single day – 34,982′. I did not set a speed PR, but I bet I set a PR for average speed as I just cruised behind Nabil all day. It was a very different feel than when Sara and I lollygag around the mountain together.

(We used the hot tub and took a shower Saturday evening. Only one day!)

Sunday was a much more challenging day. It started sunny, but a decent storm was predicted to hit by the afternoon. The soft snow of Saturday turned into an icy morning and it never warmed up enough to soften up. It was also super windy (gusts to 50 mph) and we had to bounce around as various lifts shut down because of the wind. We found some survivable groomers, but it wasn’t a morning for bombing.

By the afternoon the predicted storm arrived. The temperature dropped about 20 degrees and the snow really came down hard for a while. Somewhere in the range of 4″ fell between 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m.

The wind kept blowing snow back in our tracks and enough people had left the mountain that we had constant runs of nice shallow powder over a groomer. We kept at it hard through the afternoon and managed to shut down 5 lifts at the end of the day. It was wild. We were within a minute of last chair on a lift that closed at 2:30, one that closed at 3:15, one that closed at 3:30, one that closed at 3:45, and then they let us sneak on a chair at 4:02 that was supposed to have closed at 4:00.

I’m quite sure a palindromic 2-day total of 62,026 vertical feet is a personal record. It also matched the total of the 5 other days we snowboarded in CO.

Blair and Nabil had their condo through Monday so we stayed Sunday night and then started back to Oregon Monday morning. We need to get a few things finished and/or modified on the van so we can head north. We learned quite a bit on this trip and we want to make sure we can take care of as many little things as possible before we spend 4-6 weeks on the road. On the way back we stayed in Boise with two of our favorite people in the world, Ken and Jen Perkes. We had a very nice breakfast and chat Tuesday morning before driving back to La Grande.

Overall it was an excellent test run. We had a bunch of great days snowboarding, saw some friends, met some new people, did some winter hiking, and learned a lot about living in the van. We can’t wait to do it all again very soon!

 

Our house in NH is finally sold so we are officially homeless! On our trip to NH to clean out we had a conversation about where we now call home and decided that home is where the dogs are. As long as we are all together, we are home.

Back to our trip update since Copper. We haven’t had cell service the last couple nights so this is going to be a long post. I am not going to get the pictures up until tomorrow so check back if they aren’t up.

Home was parked in Frisco, CO Saturday night. Sunday was again fairly cold and windy and we had no interest in enduring more weekend crowds at Copper. We did some shopping in Silverthorne, CO for things we discovered we needed (e.g. “lingerie” wash bags from Walmart make great mesh bags to hang various things in the closet). With no particular destination in mind we decided to go back to the Frisco parking lot.

When we got back I had to do some work on the van. As I mentioned, in the bitter cold of Vail Pass our water froze. The water line runs from the tank in the basement (what we call the area under the bed) under the toilet cabinet, and through the bottom of the galley then up to the pump. I suspected the freezing was happening under the toilet cabinet. Unfortunately, that area was completely inaccessible because we put a crosswise brace under the toilet. Fortunately, we brought a drill and a hole saw in our very limited tool kit. I took the hole saw and drilled four holes along the brace under the toilet so we could at least get some air in there.

I had planned to get a hair dryer on our shopping trip but I didn’t really want to burn battery for that if I could avoid it. Instead, I took the air tube off the heater intake and put it on the blower end. The tube was actually intended as a hot air tube so it can handle the heat. I then snaked the tube under the toilet to blow through my new holes. It only took a few minutes and the water was flowing again. Problem solved for now.

After that project we headed out for a hike. The trail next to our parking spot leads to a trail up Mt. Royal, which we figured would have a beautiful view down to Frisco and the surrounding area. We were not entirely sure Tanzi would be up for it as it was described as a very hard and steep hike (2 miles and 1400′ up), but we decided to start up and see how she did. She was amazing. No matter how tired she sometimes acts lounging around the house or van she always comes alive out in the mountains. When we hit the top ridge the wind was howling (gusts up to 40 mph) and with temps around 10 degrees I was starting to get frostbite while taking pictures. It was getting late in the afternoon but the sun still hit the ridge and we had a gorgeous view of the surrounding mountains.

 

 

We spent Sunday night again in the Frisco parking lot. I put the heater air tube under the toilet again and even though it was -2 deg. outside when I checked, the water was fine.

On Monday morning we stopped at an auto glass place because when we were driving through Glenwood Canyon a rock thrown from the upper westbound deck chipped the window. It was right up in the top corner and we did not even see it until it started cracking with the hot/cold cycles in the van. Unfortunately the guys said the crack had already grown too much to repair. The poor Hund is less than 6 months old and already needs a new windshield!

After that bit of bad news we headed over to Winter Park. As we had a late start we just spent a bunch of time lapping Parsenn Bowl. We managed to find some decent snow left over from the last storms or blown in by the winds and had a great afternoon.

On Monday night we drove up a road just out of Winter Park along Vasquez Creek. The road turns to Nat. Forest land just outside of town and they keep it plowed for a few miles. They even plow out spots along the way for parking/camping, though on a Monday night we were the only ones around. We enjoyed a nice moonlight hike with the hunds before bed. We saw a lot of moose sign, but fortunately we did not run into a moose in the dark.

The next morning Sara and Kenai went for a cross country ski on the snowmobile trail at the end of the road. Boy does that dog like to run. Sara took some video of them coming down and he stays a step ahead even as she skis down. Back at Winter Park we knew we wanted to head out to Vasquez Cirque (presumably at the top of Vasquez Creek where we camped) for at least a run. They run a cat service as a shuttle or you can walk. We walked.

The sign says it is about a mile. At 12,000′ a mile in the snow is a pretty good walk, but we managed fine. The cirque still held some great snow from the week before, and, even though the main head wall is fairly short, the walk was well worth it. I found a steep line right on the shoulder of a rock outcropping with a solid 12″ of completely untouched snow for some of my best turns of the year. Sara went further along the cirque and ended up on a line that had more traffic so the snow was nearly moguled out. The run out of the cirque is a long gully that winds though the trees. To get back to the top is another two lift rides. Our options were to just keep lapping runs on the front side or walk our asses back out to the cirque for another run. It was worth it. We went.

This time I convinced Sara to follow me and we both got to rip the steeper powder line. Despite seeing a lot of traffic heading out to the cirque no one was dropping the same line so we still had amazing snow. Yep, it was definitely worth it!

Last night, Tuesday night, we stopped in Idaho Springs at the Indian Springs Resort for a shower and hot tub. Five days for those of you scoring at home. After our soak we drove to the east portal of the Moffet Tunnel where the railroad goes under the Continental Divide. We camped in the parking lot right next to the tracks. Only two trains went by in the night and we went right back to sleep.

I’m going to add a blog post specifically about the Moffet Tunnel because we had a fun experience this morning that I want to share. Check back for that soon.

Today we rode at Eldora. They are definitely still suffering from the low snow year here and it was obvious they needed more coverage. We just cruised a bunch of groomers today and practiced riding switch.

Tonight we are camped alone in the Medicine Bow-Routt Nat. Forest at the top of Rabbit Ears Pass near Steamboat. The moon is nearly full, the air is cold, and the heater is running. #vanlife

I left off our last post on the Idaho/Utah border in a snowstorm. The snow continued all the way to Salt Lake City, where we found a train station parking lot on www.freecampsites.net at about 2:00 a.m. We were tired and it was fine, sufficiently quiet, dark, and level. At some point during the night our heater turned off. We all woke up to low 40’s in the van but we were under a down comforter and the dogs have fur. I’m not sure why the heater crapped out and I was worried it presaged something serious. We checked the gas tank and it should have had enough gas. The next morning after we got started I gave it a test and it worked fine so we continued on.

I have always loved the drive from Salt Lake City to Green River, Utah, and this was no exception. South of Price, Utah on Highway 191 you start getting into the edge of canyon country. As you drive through wide open sage brush range with some spotted juniper forests, the bluffs start rising around you and you can see cool rock formations and the edges of canyons just out of sight.

We stopped in New Castle, CO, to have dinner with Sara’s cousin, Caitlin, and had a nice visit at the Black Dog Saloon where Caitlin works before heading on. We planned to stay at a trailhead on the top of Vail Pass. When we hit Vail signs on the interstate said traction laws were in effect and commercial vehicles were require to chain up. Our tires qualify as snow tires so we passed the line of truckers chaining up and headed up the pass. It was totally fine. They must have started using salt out here because the road was only wet with a little slush. We got to the top of the pass and used the rest area (we still have not tested the full functionality of our compost toilet) and found the overnight lot.

I turned on the heater and blub blub blub. Damn. It was going to be a cold night at 10,662′ and we needed a heater. Our backup plan was to keep the remote starter with us in bed and just fire up the van every hour or so. At this point, Sara reminded me we had not gotten gas and the tank was low. (She was driving!) The heater can’t draw gas when the tank is low so we were just running it dry. Sigh. Back down the pass to a gas station in Vail and back up to the parking lot.

It was a cold night, but we were toasty on the elevated bed. We ran the vent fan on low to prevent moisture from building up in here. The floor was not so warm. The dog water near the door froze and our water froze. I think the spot it froze is in the galley cabinet, but obviously we will have to figure out a way to insulate it better. Tonight we are going to try using our vent fan as a recirculating ceiling fan and see if that works better to even the heat between the ceiling and floor.

Today we met up with a friend from NH and snowboarded at Copper. It’s been 20 years since we have been there and it’s developed quite a lot. The mountain was still fun and the conditions were okay. It was rather cold and quite windy. Nothing special but at least they’ve finally gotten some decent snow over the last couple weeks. We just took at easy on our first day back at Rocky Mountain altitudes.

The high altitude sun that came out gave our solar panels and batteries some serious love. It was really cranking there for a while. We visited the hunds a couple times and made sure they got some time to run and enjoy the sun.

Tonight we are camped in a parking lot in Frisco where overnight camping is permitted. Sara and the hunds were very excited to find this lot is the start of an eleven mile trail that runs all the way to Breckinridge. They went for a nice walk and plan to do the same tomorrow. We are finally going to enjoy an early night now curled up with Netflix and a White Russian (Sara) and a Dark and Stormy (me).

#vanlife

February 22, 2018. The day we finally hit the road for a test run. The van is not nearly done, but the electrical is essentially done, the galley is essentially done, the water system is essentially done, the heater is essentially done, the wardrobe is functional, the bed is in, it’s time to get out and find some snow. I’m typing this post during a snowstorm from the SE corner of Idaho heading into Utah as we are on our way to visit friends and snowboard in Colorado.

I didn’t post anything yesterday because we have put in a couple long days to get ready to leave. Here is how it all went down.

On Tuesday I mentioned the problems with the driver’s seat swivel hitting the electrical cabinet. Here’s the photos.

In any event, I finally got the seat back around so we could finish the electrical cabinet.

The next morning it was fun to see the solar panels doing their things in some solid sun and nice cold air. As a reminder, we have 3 x 180W panels on the roof.

Yesterday, we put in the galley. It was always a challenge to take it in and out and we had to do it a couple times in order to fit it in. Once we had it where we wanted, we wanted to make sure it was well secured. As it sticks quite a ways into the doorway there is only a little wall onto which we can bolt the cabinet so we wanted to make sure it was also screwed down solidly into the floor joists. Of course, we have covered those joists so we had to find them again.

With the galley in, we had to install the water system and wiring. The water pipe leads from the tank into the galley to the pump and then the sink. We have also installed an accumulator tank to maintain some pressure and a t-valve that leads to another pipe running back to the back of the van where we will eventually install a dog/bike/people wash. The galley also has a regular AC outlet on it and the pump gets DC wiring and a switch.

Our initial attempts to force the fittings into the 1/2″ tubes, even with a hair dryer to heat the tubes, was miserable. I was twisting and pushing and hammering (with a rubber mallet) and they still didn’t want to go together well. Fortunately I realized I could put a little dish soap on the barbed fittings and then they started sliding right in. Amazing what a little lubricant will do.

This morning I still had to finish plumbing the sink and working out a drain. Two trips to Ace before 9:15 a.m. mostly got that done!

Let the water flow!

With the water done, we have no reason not to get out of town so we finished packing it all up and hit the road.

We have already learned a couple important things about the van. First, we have to find a good way to secure the drawers beyond the small pull of the drawer slide. We made it all the way to the end of the driveway before the drawers slid open! We also learned that both dogs can eat out of the dog food bowls in the drawer. (Sara was confident it would work. I was skeptical.)

 

 

So we hoped that if everything went perfectly we might be ready to leave tomorrow. Yeah, right. Some things did go fine. I fixed the problem that came up yesterday with the fuse box and got the passenger side wired up. (Of course, if nothing went wrong yesterday I would have been done with this last night.)

I did a little more work on the electrical box because one last circuit breaker came in the mail. A quick trip to NAPA to divide one of my wires, install the circuit breaker, cut a vent hole in the box, and it was essentially done except for the lid.. Somewhere after that things started to go downhill.

We put in the toilet and the galley. The galley hangs slightly over the passenger step, which means it rests on the metal floor trim. This shim throws it out of square with respect to the toilet cabinet. Our option was to trim the toilet cabinet crooked to fit the galley, or shim the rest of the galley floor to about the same height as the floor trim. We opted to shim in. Of course, this took quite a while and then we have to wait for the glue to dry (and we want to polyurethane the shims) to install it. Now we have to wait until tomorrow to get it in so we lose more than just a couple hours to make/install the shims. Once it is in, I still have to do the water and electric in that cabinet before we can leave.

Then I went to put the lid on the electrical cabinet. I needed to rotate the driver’s seat back to do it. When I went to turn it….jam. I knew it was going to slightly scrape the cabinet, but this was way more than that. Apparently when we did all our tests before it was bolted/screwed in tight there was enough play in the cabinet that it would turn with only a scrape. Now the corner of the swivel was digging solidly into the edge of the cabinet. I slammed it back and forth multiple times but it wouldn’t go. I got it really good and stuck and in trying to unstick it things started to break and bleed. Ugh. We ended up having to completely remove the driver’s seat and then I took the angle grinder to the offending corner of the swivel to straight chop it off. The end of the cabinet is a splintery mess so at some point I will have to sand that up. This debacle was easily an hour wasted, probably more. I didn’t take any pictures of this process because I was not taking it well and I didn’t want to get blood all over my phone.

Amazingly, putting the lid on the cabinet went super well. I put the piano hinge on the lid first, that’s easy. Holding the lid up and trying to install the hinge on the cabinet part is a bit of a trick. I put in a couple screws and tested our alignment and it was perfect! Easy then to just drill the rest of the screw holes.

Finally, we did a little work on the back panel of the wardrobe. Sara had previously cut and finished them so it was a matter of getting them around all the wiring. It required quite a bit of extra measuring and cutting, but the top small panel is in. Pictures of that tomorrow.

Today was my father’s 75th birthday. I think now I can finally out hike him, so we went for a short hike in the Mount Emily Recreation Area. The dogs have not been getting enough exercise so there were very happy to get out. This evening we went to the Haines Steak House for Dad’s birthday dinner. The Haines Steak House is a classic western restaurant with a legit old west vibe, lots of heads on the wall and great cuts of steak. I don’t think I’ve been there for 25years or so. I suspect that last time I went there was before a formal dance – probably not prom but maybe the Fall Ball! Ahhh, the memories.

Anyway, the rest of my day was spent continuing work on the wiring and organization of the electrical cabinet. My first trip to NAPA took about an hour and a half to build up a bunch of wires I would need. I can’t crimp anything larger than about a 10 gauge wire and I don’t have some of the larger wires I need, but NAPA will put things together for you. When I got back and started arranging things, I needed to make some changes, and I remembered a couple wires I needed that I had forgotten on the first trip, so back to NAPA for some changes. When I got back I finally started committing to the location of a bunch of the pieces. I don’t know why I take so long, but I tend to sit and look and things and think about it quite a bit. It’s not like it prevents all my mistakes because when I thought I was done and screwed everything down I found another component I had forgotten to wire in. I had to rig up an extra little shelf for the additional piece that I can insert tomorrow.

With one more trip to NAPA for a couple more wires I will be ready to fire up the system except for the connection to the van batteries. I’m not sure if I will dive into that tomorrow or wait until after our first trip, which we hope is coming up very soon.

Stay tuned!

 

I feel good about the progress today on the electrical cabinet, but it doesn’t translate too much into photos.

The day started with the decision that we are not going to be removing either the wardrobe or the electrical cabinet so it was time to lock things down. I put in the final cabinet bolts to attach them to the wall and then screwed all the cabinets together. Nothing is moving now!

After that I again focused on the electrical system. To start we unhooked all the batteries from the inverter to make space. I wanted to install the solar controller, but I realized that it has a massive heat sink on the back and it is probably not advisable to mount it directly to plywood. I checked the manual and it clearly said to not mount it on a combustible surface so I headed to the store for a piece of 1/4″ cement board. I cut a decent size square and glued/screwed that to the side of the cabinet. Hopefully that layer is sufficient insurance to protect the van from going up in flames. During this process I also decided to move the DC fuse box to give the solar controller a better mounting location. It might not have been necessary but I like the end result.

After moving the DC fuse box I wired it all up and cleaned up the wires nicely. The AC panel, DC fuse box, and solar controller are all set and mounted. Now it is just a matter of putting in all the smaller pieces like switches, busbars, acouple catastrophic fuses, and circuit breakers. The real challenge will be getting the proper wires for all of it. I cannot realistically crimp anything smaller than a 10 gauge wire and the various connections in here will either be 8, 6, or 1/0 wires. I talked with the local NAPA store today and I think they can build everything I need so hopefully that solution will work.

Sara helped with the electrical, did some more wood finishing, and worked on her boot dryer. Plus she had to some “real” work on her consulting job. Someone has to make some money to pay for me to ship perfectly good inverters around the country!

Just before we left for NH I shipped the inverter back to AIMS to see if I had blown it up for good. The thing weighs 55 lbs. so it was almost $60 to ship it to Reno. Still, if they could fix it or replace it, it would still be better than buying a new one at nearly $700.

While we were in NH, I got the following email from AIMS: “After testing the merchandise that you returned for RMA# RMA-20076 , we have found that the product(s) is working correctly.  Aims Power is not responsible for the return shipping.” Not only did I not blow it up, it was totally undamaged. Soooooo…here is the kicker. The reason I had not damaged it when I incorrectly wired the AC was because it only works if both AC and DC are connected. I thought I could use it with only the AC hooked up to test out solely the AC pass-through function, but apparently that’s not how it works. I was a complete moron and the reason I thought it was blown up and not working was simply because I had never hooked it up properly in the first place as I had not yet hooked up the batteries. The reason the lights did not turn on even after I corrected the AC wiring was because I still hadn’t hooked it up correctly! I sent a perfectly good unit to Reno just to have them explain to me that I didn’t know how to use it. I guess this lesson is better than having fried it, but the result is still a $100 stupid tax as I also had to pay their shipping cost to send it back to me. In the end this is a good thing, right?

Anyway, it came back today and I decided to hook it up *correctly*. It worked! These connections are still temporary because I have to add some fuses and wire in all the other components, but at least now I know better how it works.

The other project we have worked on since returning to Oregon while we awaited the return of the inverter is the wardrobe. The wardrobe is a floor to ceiling closet between the refrigerator and the electrical cabinet. We had a bunch more cutting and adjusting to get everything fitting, but I think that work is done. We still have to install a back and eventually we have to install a door, but for now we at least have it in the space it belongs.

As most of you who read this blog know, we spent the last week in New Hampshire packing up our house and moving everything into storage. Closing is still on for 2/26 so we wanted to get the packing/cleaning done so we could get back and finish the van enough to hit the road.

We arrived late Thursday to a fresh snowstorm. A friend dropped us at the end of the driveway and we hiked the 200 yards or so through 8″-10″ of snow. The house was cold and lonely because there were no dogs to greet us. It felt almost like being in someone else’s house on vacation. Friday we had to spend much of the day clearing the snow. Good thing we had not sold the tractor yet! We also got a few things packed and ready and checked out our storage unit.

On Saturday we were so fortunate to have some friends help us pack and move. Special thanks to Z and Michelle, Kim, and Mary and Allison for all their help. Sara’s parents were also very helpful and we could not have done any of it without her brother, Keith. You all likely saved us from a domestic if we had to do it alone. By Monday evening everything was in storage and the house was cleaner than when we bought it.

For everyone we did not see on our quick visit, I’m sorry we missed you. We will be back this summer to sort out all the stuff in storage and will have more time to visit.