Solar wiring finished?

As anticipated, we did more work on the roof on Saturday (well, Carl did more work, I helped a little!).

Carl working on the wiring...

We *think* we have the wiring finished. We can't totally test it right now because we're plugged in (so the batteries are fully charged), but we think it is all completed.

We also picked up a rental car today -- we're going to be driving the next few days to Indiana. Carl needs to have a medical procedure (surgery) done, and the doctor who is supposed to be the *best* is located near Indianapolis. Carl visited him back in September, and then visited another doctor here in Phoenix thinking that he would have the surgery done here. The Phoenix doctor had actually studied under the Indianapolis doctor, and highly recommended the Indianapolis doctor for the procedure. So, we'd appreciate prayers both for the next days of travel (Sunday-Tuesday), for a negative COVID test on Wednesday, for peace and relief from anxiety over the next several days, for a successful and uneventful surgery on 3/8, and then for an easy recovery (3/9-11) and journey back to Mesa (3/12-14). Thank you for your faithfulness to pray with us!!
 

 

More work on the roof

More work on the solar panels today (Friday):

"The Thinker" - contemplating how to complete the wiring

Carl had done voltage checking all along and the panels were producing the voltage he expected.

All 6 panels (one is mostly hidden behind the rear air conditioning unit)

Carl also got a long pole attachment today -- that we can use for various tasks...

Harvesting from the palm tree? Nah, probably not!

 

Carl also stopped by Solar Penny and talked to the guy there -- he is always so helpful. He recommended a change in the way we have the panels wired on the roof. I see more roof work in our future...

Solar panels

As I mentioned in yesterday's blog, the solar panels that we ordered arrived. We had pretty much determined where we wanted to locate them on the roof, and thus where the mounting brackets should be installed on each panel...

So first order of business was to mount the brackets on the panels. We got that accomplished in the morning. (Does this picture look posed to you?)

We had a "business" phone call in mid morning, so took a break for that and lunch, and then headed back out to get the panels onto the roof.

We only have a 6' ladder here in Mesa (we had an 8' one when we put the panels on the roof when we were in Virginia), but we were able to get them onto the roof (one is upside down on top of an existing panel right next to me as I was taking the picture, and the other is way up toward the front of the rig).

It was a little windy when we were putting the panels up on the roof, so it was a little like carrying a sail on the roof, but we managed!

We had decided to put the panels on in such a way that we could, if needed, in the future, put two more on... Carl attaching the first one -- which is closer to the front of the rig.

The first one in place. We think that if we really want to put another panel in front of that one, we would need to change the TV antenna -- it isn't obvious in this picture, but when it is stowed, it lays back along the roof and we don't think there would be quite enough space for another panel to be installed.

Carl attaching the mounting brackets at the far end (back) of the second new panel - which is as far to the back of the rig that we could put it. There is definitely room in front of it for an additional panel if we decide to go that way.

We got them all attached to the roof and started on wiring to determine how many other pieces or parts we need to acquire. We need just a little more wire, and may need a different gauge wire. More to accomplish on a future day!

Our busy day

We had a busy day... 

First, friends Bob and Kate came over to share lunch with us (we placed orders at the BBQ place across the street and brought it over to eat at our lot). They live way over on the other side of Phoenix, so it was really nice that they came over here to visit us and meet Carl. Unfortunately, we totally forgot to get pictures!

Then, Venture Out had a "Poker Run" this afternoon.

There were 5 lots around the resort where the resident was providing cards in envelopes. We got a map and a list of the 5 addresses at the start time, and then figured out the route we wanted to take to get to all of the pick-up locations.

Each of the folks providing the cards had a little different way to provide them -- this household has a model train on the tables outside their park model, so they would place the envelopes on a train car and allow the participants to pick them up as the train headed around the end of the track!

Carl with his 5 envelopes...

Patti with her 5 envelopes...

At the end, we took our envelopes to a check-in station, and they opened our 5 envelopes to determine what hand we had drawn. Neither of us had a very good hand, so we didn't win... :-(  But, we had fun anyway!

This Porsche was parked next to where we parked our bicycles when we were checking in at the end -- I told Carl I thought it was the prize for the best hand!

Although it was called a Poker Run, we could walk, jog, run, bike, drive a golf cart -- we biked. It seemed about half the folks were in golf carts and half were biking. I think I only saw one person walking. We paid $4 to participate, and $3 of that went into a pot for the winner, and $1 went to the social club. We heard that the pot was $297, so I guess 99 people were participating!

Soon after we got back to the rig, a FedEx truck pulled up and stopped. We had ordered 2 additional solar panels last week, but I had requested that they ship via UPS... and the company had confirmed the order and said they would let us know when the order shipped, but we hadn't heard anything... so we were surprised to find that our 2 new solar panels had arrived!

We got the same brand and form-factor but higher wattage than the panels we currently have -- the wattage that we currently have is no longer available as the solar cells have improved in efficiency.

This illustrates where the optimum voltage and current is for this unit (I don't understand this... so that's all the explanation I can give!).

We headed up to the roof and figured out where we will put the two panels (measuring tape on the right side of the roof). We want to install them in such a way that we could add yet another 2 panels in the future if we need to...

Getting them onto the roof and screwed down is the task for Thursday, we think!

Finally, Carl was finishing up a job he had started on Tuesday -- replacing the light for the rear license plate. He has been doing a job of replacing almost all the bulbs on the exterior of Gracie with LEDs -- both for brightness and energy efficiency -- but I haven't gotten pictures of him doing most of them.

The new light fixture wasn't the exact same form factor as the old one so he had painted the surface which was exposed when the old light was removed (the surface had never been painted from the factory) -- today the paint was dry so he could complete the job of installing the new light.

He has finished updating all of the exterior lights now! What a productive man he is!

Line dancing

On Wednesdays, there are line dancing lessons here at the park. They start with "Absolute Beginner" at 12:15pm, then go to "Beginner" at 12:30pm, and then "High Beginner" at 1:15pm. We first joined back in January, and the instructor went through three dances in the 15 minutes allocated for "Absolute Beginner", and we left! After we got home, we were able to do one of the three and diligently practiced it over the next few weeks.

Last week, we returned to the lessons again. We weren't sure whether they were going to do the one dance that we felt we knew, but it turned out they did, and we kept up!!! Whoo-hoo!!!

When we had come in January, most people were not wearing masks while dancing... but last week, almost everyone was. They moved the time of the lessons to 10am because it is too warm at 12:15pm now. It still seemed awfully warm to have a mask on while we were moving and we saw that a few other folks took their masks down, so we did also.

The second dance that they taught was a waltz -- Carl was doing really well!

The instructor sends out "step sheets" that outline the steps of the dance, and often there are videos of folks doing the dances, and sometimes even lessons being done. So, we can try to practice more at home. The waltz line dance is easy to do in the motorhome because it just goes forward and backward (not to all 4 corners like many line dances). We have room to go forward and backward, but when a dance turns 90 degrees, we don't have as much space that way.

It is funny to me... when I used to go for C&W dance lessons in Dallas, we pretty much learned the same things every week -- and we only did two different line dances at that club. Now it seems that there is a different dance for every song! I guess it keeps your mind and body active!

Another Hike - this time with the hiking club

We went on another hike today (Monday), this time with the hiking club here at Venture Out.

We had been interesting in going on a hike with the hiking club, but each Monday when they posted the destination for the next week, we read it and thought, "that's too much for us!" After our hike last week, when we went to the hot tub, folks from the hiking club happened to come at the same time and were in the hot tub with us. We found out that the "published" hike is the most advanced hike (aka "Jackrabbit" group), but that there are two other groups that also go out on Monday mornings ("Wounded Rabbit" and "Tortoise"). We decided to try going today with one of the less advanced groups -- we were planning to go with the Tortoise group, but when they talked about where they were going, the Wounded Rabbit hike sounded more interesting, so we decided to try it.

We drove to the trail head, at mile 207.5 along Apache Trail (a road in the Superstition Mountains). It turned out that this was a trail that was mapped out / created by a few of the folks in the Venture Out hiking club -- they have marked it (as much as it is marked) by placing cairns along the trail.

Starting the trail from where we parked

There were two leaders (a leader and a "tail gunner" bringing up the rear)

We caught views of Canyon Lake at the early part of the hike.

Brief stop

Another view of Canyon Lake with Four Peaks beyond.

There's an eagle up there (or is it a speck of dust on my monitor?)

No... it's an eagle!

Carl checking what his watch is telling him to this point! Our FitBit watches connect with our phones to have GPS information including distance traveled, and they monitor our heart rate too.

We are heading up in elevation - Canyon Lake is behind us (with Four Peaks beyond)

One of the cairns that some of the folks in the Venture Out hiking club built to mark the trail

It was nice to look at the lake!

Some of the folks in our hiking group

Views around were beautiful!

More of our hiking partners -- a total of 7 folks were in our group.

another cairn

yet another cairn... this one had sunglasses on it!

Keep on heading up!

Four Peaks behind us in the distance

Pictures with people in them give a sense of perspective

One of our fellow hikers took our picture

Fellow hiker Gene explaining something to Carl

Looking over First Water Creek

First Water Creek (dry at this time)

Patti as a hiker!

Looking at Weaver's Needle in the distance

Some of our fellow hikers

We're going up there?

Great views from "up there"

Four Peaks still behind us (but soon to be before us as we head back)

Folks hiking up... (I think Carl took this one because I had an orange backpack so that would be me in the back of the group).

And I think this is Carl and the Tail-Gunner coming up behind.

Views all around...

It was so pretty -- and a beautiful day!

Weaver's Needle -- a good distinctive peak to be able to see and make sure you're going in the right direction!

Another view from the "top"

The video above was the result of trying to take a selfie, realizing that we would have the camera facing into the sun, so deciding to change positions and in the process, pressing the "video" button, and then getting next to each other in such a way that Carl could still press the button to take the picture, and then realizing that the video was recording... so, at the end of the video, you kind of see the selfie we were attempting:

Successful selfie! (relieved smiles at finally figuring out how to work the camera!)

On the way back...

Carl called for me to stop for a moment...

And then he came to where I was and the Tail Gunner took our pictures for us.

Towards the end of the hike, we got to see the views of Canyon Lake again.

Our FitBit watches give us some interesting information on the app that we have on our computers:

It mapped our hike... you can see that we paralleled the road but we were way up higher than the road.

Gave overall statistics...

This view was interesting because I could move the vertical line across and see the specific information for different elevations and times within the hike.

Ultimately, we decided that we would be better off hiking with the Tortoise group! We felt that we might have held the Wounded Rabbits back a little, and we definitely were hiking at the upper range of our capabilities. Maybe if we had been hiking all along during the season we would have been in good enough shape to have kept up well, but, we're thinking that we may be more comfortable with a slower group. We like to have time to stop and look and enjoy, not just hike... and though our group indulged us wanting to take photos, we were really the only ones doing that!