{"id":3854,"date":"2012-02-20T21:11:16","date_gmt":"2012-02-21T05:11:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/?p=3854"},"modified":"2012-02-20T21:14:04","modified_gmt":"2012-02-21T05:14:04","slug":"on-the-road-again-at-least-for-a-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/2012\/02\/20\/on-the-road-again-at-least-for-a-moment\/","title":{"rendered":"On the road again… At least for a moment."},"content":{"rendered":"

Since we got back from our southwest trip last fall to the hot air balloon festival in\u00a0Albuquerque, we have been letting the Mish sit and rot away on the driveway. Not because we didn’t want to hit the road but we just had way too many other things to think about for the time being. But now, the time has come. We are on the road again. Even if it is only for 10 days.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0657\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We started out our trip with a few nights of boon-docking in front of a friend’s house in southern California. After New Mexico, we had the Mish serviced and also had a couple of solar panels installed on the roof. We have been wanting to see just how much it can do to help us stay off grid and this was the perfect time to test it out.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0655\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We left after the girls’ bed time as usual to avoid the insane traffic through Los Angeles. We have reservations for a week at Lake Cahuilla County Park, our favorite Coachella Valley campground.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0740\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course on the way there, we customarily stop and spend a free night at the RV parking lot of Casino Morongo.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0661\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The two 50-watt solar panels did more than I expected them to. Between the 2 nights in front of our friend’s house and the one night at the Casino parking lot, the batteries never dipped into an uncomfortably low level. Even though one of the days was heavily overcast with very low amperage pumping the batteries back up.<\/p>\n

Our relatively small array of solar cells at only 100 watts proves to be sufficient for probably 3-5 nights of boon-docking before the need for hookups or our generator. I think to completely sustain ourselves indefinitely, we would have to double our solar capacity.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0750\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This time of the year is perfect for a trip to the California desert. Low 50s in the evening and high 60s during the day in the middle of February is pretty hard to beat.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0764\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We pulled into Lake Cahuilla and got right back into our road tripping groove.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0772\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The girls made themselves at home at the picnic table and befriended our furry neighbors in no time.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0861\"<\/a><\/p>\n

To celebrate being back on the road, a couple of thin crust pies at Jake’s Pizza in La Quinta felt just about right.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0855\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So did the happy hour $7 pitcher of Fat Tire Ale. I am not sure though of the second pint glass the waiter brought over to the table.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0846\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I guess he didn’t notice the 31-week bump on the Mrs..<\/p>\n

over and out,
\ndan<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since we got back from our southwest trip last fall to the hot air balloon festival in\u00a0Albuquerque, we have been letting the Mish sit and rot away on the driveway. Not because we didn’t want to hit the road but we just had way too many other things to think […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[83,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boon-docking","category-daily"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkBzA-10a","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3854\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}