Category: Montana

Bakers Hole Campground – Sunday June 4, 2017

One of my big house projects was to add this solar panel: Go-Power 120 watt portable panel with built in controller. 

It is working really well and supplying all the power we need for lights, changing iPads, phones; running WeBoost, TV, satellite TV etc.  Will still run generator for microwave and A/C.  Glad I got the 30 foot extension cable we have had to use it here and at Yellowstone. 

It does have several weak points:

There is no way of locking it up so it doesn’t walk away, I drilled holes in the frame to attach a lock and cable. At home I had set it up to make sure it worked and set the controller to flooded batteries. I thought the handle was held on with rivets like the closing clasps but I was wrong, the handle is screwed on.  I was going to hook the lock to the handle. 

The panels fold in half for storage however the locking clasps are just a half a step above worthless. I will keep my eye out for replacements. 

The controller is on the under side of the panel with a nice hinge so it will tip out and it can be read. The controller is held up against the the panels for storage and to keep it out of the rain with Velcro.  The problem is the quality of the glue on the Velcro. It works just fine until the panel is set out in the sun, for some reason the panel gets hot and the glue releases from the panel and controller.  Richard gave me some good double back tape to retape the Velcro. This tape works fine on the back of the panel but releases from the Velcro. When we get to the big house I will use JB Weld to glue the Velcro to the double back tape, I did this with the strap I put on the generator door to keep it from vibrating open.

Lewis and Clark Caverns, MT – May 20, 2017

We went back into Missoula today, Richard and Vickie were having problems with their motor home.  It sounded like the catalytic converter had gone bad.  Richard found a shop who would look at it, after working on it for half a day they finally decided to do a reboot on the engines computer.  For some reason the computer had put itself into limp mode.  They didn’t know why however rebooting fixed the problem. Very nice of this independent show to spend so much time working on it on a Saturday with NO notice.

We are ar Lewis and Clark Caverns for a couple of days, in site E001.

 

Missoula, MT – Saturday May 19, 2017

While we were at the big house I got a few things done to the motorhome.
Added a 120W GoPower portable solar panel.

Trimetric TM-2030-RV Battery Monitor System, this will give me more information about what is happening to the house batteries. It has a shunt so it can calculate the power go into and out of the batteries.

Installed a 2 gallon water accumulator so the water pump does not run so much and uses less power. The pump uses most of the power when it first starts up.

Motorhome got a new engine battery, replaced one purchased in 2010. Looks like I will need to replace the house batteries soon, they were purchased in October of 2012.

Added a WeBoost Cell Booster to improve cell reception.
I think I fixed the furnace.

Last spring ( 2016 ) we had a little trouble with it not lighting sometimes. It would go for long periods of time when it would work just fine. It did not work for a couple of days before we got to Yellowstone and then while at Yellowstone it would only work about half the time. When we got home to the big house it worked just fine. It also worked this spring all the way to Phoenix and back. This afternoon while loading the motorhome I started the furnace to take the chill of the motorhome and ensure the furnace was still working just fine. It would not light.

Did a little google and YouTube searching and figured out it wasn’t the circuit board, but it might be the sail switch which ensures enough air flow from the fan. I was able to pull a cover off the fan. The sail switch is located on the inside of this fan housing/cover. There was a fair amount of dust on the fan blades. Got the compressor out and blew the dust off of each fan blade. Put everything back together and the furnace fired right up. Checked it again 2 hours later and this time I let the furnace run for a while to burn the dust out of the heat exchange.

New CO carbon monoxide detector, replaced a hard wired unit with battery powered.

Air Tabs to help with coach stability in the wind.

We are in Missoula while Richard and Vickie are having their motor home worked on, it doesn’t have much power and is getting bad mileage (worse than normal).

Beavertail Hill State Park, MT – Thursday May 18, 2017

Today’s drive
Across Northern Idaho into Montana. 
We are just east of Missoula for tonight and tomorrow. The forest service campground I wanted to stay in up in the mountains is not open. 

The camp host said they had 2-3 inches of snow here yesterday. They spent most of the morning picking up downed tree branches. 
We are a half mile south of I-90. This is real camping, we are under a large tree and can not get satellite radio or TV.  I could move the TV dish off the motor home but Jean said to skip it because the only show she watches tonight is on CBS and we wouldn’t get CBS any way.  Here Friday night and move to Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park for Saturday and Sunday. 

Tanya sent us a video of Jack taking his first steps today. 

Yellowstone National Park, Second Trip In 2000 and Beavertail Hill State, MT – Monday June 6, 2016

Our second trip to Yellowstone was September 8, 2000 to September 17, 2000.  This trip was Tanya, Brian, Jean and myself.  Left at 2:30 p.m. on Friday Sept 8 and got home at 2:30 a.m. Sunday Sept 17, 2000.  This trip was a little faster pace.

Saturday – got to the park at 5:00 p.m., camped at Mammoth
Sunday – Mammoth, Tower Falls, Grand Canyon of Yellowstone , camped at Norris Campground
Monday – Norris Geyser Basin, Old Faithful, camped at Grant Village
Tuesday – Fountain Paint Pots, Firehole Lake, Midway Basin, Biscuit Basin, Black Sand Basin, back to Grant Village
Wednesday – Geyser Basin by Yellowstone Lake, Mud Pots, Mud Volcano,
Thursday – Don’t know what we did
Friday – at 2:40 left the North Entrance for home, 10:30 p.m. drank beer with Tanya at a Montana Rest Stop campground.

Monday  June 6, 2016
We are spending the night at Beavertail Hill State Park, site 24, just east of Missoula.

This is the warmest we have been for a while.  The weather report said it was 91 in Missoula today.  During the two weeks we were in Yellowstone we used 13.6 gallons of propane, I think that is the MOST we have ever used and every day when we ran the generator we had the electric heat on.   We had a great time, might go back next year.

Lewis and Clark Caverns, MT – Friday May 20, 2016

We go up and were on the road by 7:00 a.m.  360 miles but several stops which didn’t get us to camp until 7:10 p.m.  Walmart and lunch stop took two hours because we could not find anything in the store.  The store had a very unique floor plan and they were out many items, i.e. 1157 tail light bulbs.  Getting checked out was also a major under taking.  We wanted to use our own reuse able bags and the cashier did not like that idea but did it anyway, very slowly. I then got in trouble for putting the two loaves of bread on the checkout belt first and for getting an extension cord which did not have a pricing barcode on it. Oh, by the way the store didn’t have many cashiers working for Friday afternoon. 

Next stop was propane.  I had done an Internet and Google earth search for propane and found two possible places in Missoula. One didn’t have any propane now and other one had the tank in a location where I could not get close too.  We started looking for another option. Richard found one however the person at work did not know how to operate the equipment. I found a place on Deer Lodge an hour east of Missoula note it is currently 3:30.  He said he closes at 4:30 but he’d be more than happy to wait for us.  We got moving and arrived at the propane place at 4:37.  We had to unhook our cars to get close enough to the propane and we were not out of his yard until after 5:00.  A really nice guy running a local business. 

Lewis and Clark Caverns site P 08.

We where here in September of 2001 in site D2. I have a picture on my camera and I will add it once I get it off the camera.

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