17th Anniversary Camping Trip & Some Thoughts on Marriage

Camping,
Sitting outside waiting for the full moon to rise. I turned on the interior camper lights to take the picture. We normally enjoy sitting outside without any lights or a campfire.

We recently returned from an extended camping trip in the Southern Sierra Nevada. It was our almost annual marriage anniversary camping trip. We have gone camping to celebrate our anniversary every year except twice, when Joyce wanted to go on a cruise instead.

Joyce had never been camping before we met and has become an avid camper. In fact, starting next year (after I finish remodeling the house) she wants to go camping several months each year. If you are a frequent reader of our blog, you know we prefer to camp where there aren’t many people and of course where there is no electricity, cell phone service, Wi-Fi and all the other “amenities” of civilization.

Continue reading 17th Anniversary Camping Trip & Some Thoughts on Marriage →

R.I.P Corky (2003-2019)

Backpacking

Corky passed away almost a month ago on June 3, 2019, at 12:05am. He was born on August 11, 2003. I have been in kind of a funk for the past couple of months. He really started to decline at the beginning of May. The past month I have been generally unmotivated to complete tasks, especially to work on our house.

I am writing this for me, but you, the reader, are welcome to read along. 

Continue reading R.I.P Corky (2003-2019) →

Where has Nick Been? I’ve Been Stuck in an Hourglass!

House Remodel,

There hasn’t been much camping or backpacking this year, nor has there been much activity on this website. That’s because I’ve been stuck in an hourglass, or more precisely, I’ve been trying to dig myself out of debt. Not monetary debt, but trying to overcome a deficit in my time bank. I didn’t do anything wrong, the debt was planned – sort of – and now my time bank account has become overdrawn.

Continue reading Where has Nick Been? I’ve Been Stuck in an Hourglass! →

Senior Moments in Backpacking

Senior Moments

I’ve decided to create a new category for the blog called Senior Moments for backpackers. Anything related to becoming older that impacts, changes, limits, or forces me to make changes as I get older may become something to write about.

Showing off as a youthful 67 year old

2018 is now “in the books.” It’s a new year and I can’t change the past. Many outdoor bloggers summarize the previous year with their favorite gear (an opportunity to insert ads of said gear to generate income) or summarize the highlights of their year. I’ll do neither in this post.

2018 was the year I became a senior citizen. There really isn’t a set age when one becomes a “senior.” For some it is a state of mind and they start acting like old people in their ‘40s or ‘50s. The reality is that at some point in time all of us will be unable to do what we could do in our youth. Walking (my definition of backpacking) is something most of us can do for most of our lives. Last year I turned 68 and on a couple trips with younger people I couldn’t maintain my normal pace. I was fine on fairly level terrain and going down the hills. But on moderately long elevation gains there were times I fell behind my younger walking partners, although I could still keep up with some of them. I also found that during the year I could still keep up with my friends if I trained ahead of time for a hike that entailed lots of elevation gains.

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“Falling” into Old Age and Backpacking

Backpacking

This month I’ll turn 68. Is that old? Are these sayings true?

“Age is just a number.”

“You’re as young [or old] as you feel.”

“Mind of matter.”

To me, these make for good “motivational” or “inspirational” posters — those posters often seen in offices to supposedly get under-achieving people become super stars — I’ve never seen them work however.

I prefer posters like this one but have never seen on in an office 🙂

The past couple of years I’ve fallen several times while backpacking and perhaps this is due to getting older; so the question might be asked,

“Should I do something differently or is it time to consider giving up backpacking, especially since I usually hike alone.” Continue reading “Falling” into Old Age and Backpacking →

Honda Generator Maintenance and Storage

Camper Upgrades, General Talk,

As we near the end of October, many campers are “winterizing” their campers and putting them into storage. Given our location and easy access to year round camping we “winterize” differently. 

This summer we bought a pair of Honda generators as I shared a while back. These were purchased only for use in summer when temperatures are in triple digits (meaning we won’t have any camping neighbors). They also can be used for backup electricity in case of a power outage. We won’t need them for at least 6 months, so it was time to winterize them – meaning to do any required maintenance and prep them for storage. Just in case you have Honda EU 2000 series generators and haven’t read the manual, other than the Quick Reference Guide, here is the maintenance schedule.

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Battery Water Filler

Camper Upgrades

Adding water to flooded RV batteries can be somewhat difficult as the above picture shows on our 2014 Milan 26RLS. The battery bank is behind the propane tanks and the front of the trailer slopes forward over the batteries. This isn’t a problem if you have sealed batteries that do not require topping of the water. I prefer flooded batteries that can be tested with a battery hydrometer as I shared in this post with instructions on using a battery hydrometer. The downside of these flooded batteries is they periodically need to be topped of with distilled water. As with most things in life, there is a proper tool to add distilled water to a flooded battery — the battery water filler. Continue reading Battery Water Filler →