Thought I’d share an upgrade to our truck. This isn’t a review; just some thoughts on why we bought it.
A Slide for Our F-250 Super Duty Truck
2022 Camping and the High Price of Gas
Today the average price of regular unleaded gas in California is $6.32 per gallon
The national average is $4.90 per gallon for regular unleaded.
What’s Up With That?
Will this stop us from camping this year? Why is gas so high?
No, we will continue camping.
Why gas is so expensive is a complicated matter, which I will delve into towards the end of this post.
PopUpBackpacker Attacked by Russia !!
What’s Up With That?
This email was sent from your website “PopUpBackpacker” by the Wordfence plugin at Tuesday 19th of April 2022 at 09:34:35 PM
The Wordfence Web Application Firewall has blocked 197 attacks over the last 10 minutes. Below is a sample of these recent attacks:April 20, 2022 4:30am 81.177.175.244 (Russian Federation) Blocked for Known malicious User-Agents
April 20, 2022 4:30am 81.177.175.244 (Russian Federation) Blocked for Known malicious User-Agents
April 20, 2022 4:30am 81.177.175.244 (Russian Federation) Blocked for Known malicious User-Agents
April 20, 2022 4:30am 81.177.175.244 (Russian Federation) Blocked for Known malicious User-Agents
April 20, 2022 4:30am 81.177.175.244 (Russian Federation) Blocked for Known malicious User-Agents
April 20, 2022 4:30am 81.177.175.244 (Russian Federation) Blocked for Known malicious User-Agents
April 20, 2022 4:30am 81.177.175.244 (Russian Federation) Blocked for Known malicious User-Agents
April 20, 2022 4:30am 81.177.175.244 (Russian Federation) Blocked for Known malicious User-Agents
April 20, 2022 4:30am 81.177.175.244 (Russian Federation) Blocked for Known malicious User-Agents
April 20, 2022 4:30am 81.177.175.244 (Russian Federation) Blocked for Known malicious User-Agents
House Solar Update
Back in June of 2020 we installed a solar system to combat the drastically increasing rate hikes. How has it worked out? Pretty good.
Trailer Fender Skirt Replacement
Today most travel trailers and 5th wheel trailers come with plastic fender skirts. Over time, they break, as the picture above shows. Often, you can’t order new skirts from the manufacturer or their dealer network. This was the case for our 2014 Milan 26RLS. Continue reading Trailer Fender Skirt Replacement
Upgrading an RV Battery Bank with Lithium (LiFePo4) Batteries
I upgraded our travel trailer’s 225AH (amp hour) battery bank with a 300AH lithium iron phosphate (LiFePo4) battery. This post will share why I made this decision, what I have learned about lithium batteries, some challenges of installation (it wasn’t a simple battery replacement), the significant differences between lithium and flooded lead-acid batteries, and the changes one may have to make to their own systems to maximize their installation.
The conversation is about large batteries (capacity greater than 100 amp hours) that are appropriate for RV use.
Continue reading Upgrading an RV Battery Bank with Lithium (LiFePo4) Batteries
A 4-day Backpacking Trip in the Anza Borrego Desert
A couple weeks ago I did a wonderful little desert trip.
Something that I haven’t done in years is share a backpacking trip report gear list. This post will break that trend.
I want to share how I planned this trip, what gear I took, and why I selected each piece of equipment.
Continue reading A 4-day Backpacking Trip in the Anza Borrego Desert
4 Million: What’s in a Number?
Today I received a message that this website’s software needed to be updated with a couple new versions.
Typical stuff. Software updates are supposed fix bugs, and more importantly to me, patch security vulnerabilities. So I installed the updates. As I usually do, I took a quick tour to ensure everything was working. At the bottom of the sidebar, I saw the Page View statistics.
RV Maintenance: Holding Tank Monitor Replacement
Our travel trailer came with the typical, not very good, holding tank monitor system.
RV manufacturers install holding tank monitor systems, built by a handful of different vendors, but most don’t work well.
With ours, the Fresh Water Tank was always accurate, the Grey Water usually okay, and the Black Water tank very hit and miss. Normally, I could guess how much was in the Black Tank, by comparing the fresh water remaining, versus the level of the grey.
Given we often camp for a couple of weeks at a time in remote places, it is important for us to know how much water we have, and how much waste water is in the Black and the Grey Water tanks. If one gets full, and we are not ready to go home, we might have to drive 100 miles to find a sanitary dump station.
Anyway the Fresh Water readings went bonkers on our monitor panel. Time to diagnose.
But first, a conversation about RV maintenance. Continue reading RV Maintenance: Holding Tank Monitor Replacement
RV Maintenance: Zip Dee Chair Fabric Replacement
At 29 years and 6 months one of my Zip Dee Folding Camping Chairs had a fabric (actually a seam) failure. What a bummer! A few years ago I posted this review of the chair. I figured the second chair might suffer the same demise. It was decision time.
I could buy a couple new Zip Dee chairs for $160 each. Given a 30 year life expectancy, based on the current chairs, that would be a dollar cost average of $5.33 per year. Keep in mind my two chairs have seen thousands of days in use.
Or I could buy a different brand of chair, which probably wouldn’t last as long, and wouldn’t fold down as compactly.
Or?
Continue reading RV Maintenance: Zip Dee Chair Fabric Replacement