YCGL - The New Adventure - The Trinity Campout - August 31 - Sept 1, 2022

 OK, the solar panel can wait.  Probably indefinitely at this point.  Bottom line, After three orders from Amazon, I was able to make the final connection and its working fine....

About a month ago, Denise and Martin at our Trinity Lutheran church proposed having a church campout at the end of August.   Not knowing the size of the group, Denise just said we’ll select a site that is big enough before we get there. Sounded gutsy enough knowing the campgrounds around here.  She said we’ll locate a dispersed site at the Pole Mountain Unit of the Medicine Bow National Forest about 15-20 miles east of Laramie. In all, about 5 families signed up.  

Last Sunday, she said she was going to go up the day before and scout a couple of sites she knew and I volunteered to go with her.  The idea was that we would drive up, find a site, drive back down to Laramie, hitch up our campers and go back up to establish camp and stake our claim. 

Denise picked me up this morning (Wednesday) at 10:00 (yes, I was awake and dressed and had eaten and was actually functioning, carrying clothes to the trailer when she drove up!).  We drove up to Blair-Wallace road to a site she had been to with a group some weeks before.  There was one camper about 150 yards down the road with a horse trailer, three horses and a rope coral.  But they were far enough away to not be a problem.  So  back down we drove, I throw some cold food in the refrigerator and headed up.  I got there, leveled up, unhitched and drove until I could find some cell phone coverage.  I texted Denise that I had the spot, she wrote up the directions, sent them to the church secretary and she sent the invite out to the congregation to come up on Friday for a potluck.

Of course, it wasn’t all quite that easy.  Yesterday (Tuesday), I had forgotten to turn on the refrigerator so it was 7:00 pm when I remembered.  I went out, pushed the happy button on the refrigerator panel and everything lit up like it was supposed to.  I put some stuff away in the trailer and as I was leaving, I checked the panel light and it was red and not green. I went out and opened the propane tank.  I restarted it and the same thing.  Restarted it again and same thing.  (The definition of an optimist is to repeat a failed operation several times and expect a different outcome.)  I tried the stove and the same thing.  I was out of propane.  It was now 7:30.  I loaded the 30 pound propane tank in the car and made a dash to Ace hardware that closed at 8:00.  I made it in time and then picked up some groceries.  I replaced the tank by the light of my phone and both the refrigerator and the stove worked.  

I got the trailer up there at 2:30 on Wednesday.  It was warm out, 86 degrees, but in the shade and with a gentle (yes, a gentle) breeze, I had my awning down, at least part way because a  pesky tree branch hopped out and blocked me going any further.  Stretching out on my chair, I read and dozed, until Denise showed up with her trailer about 2 hours later.  

She had more problems than I did, but she can write about it in her own blog....

It really was a quiet, peaceful evening.  I fixed tacos for dinner and then took a hike around the area.  

    

My trailer on the right in the trees. 

  

A weed!

I like the combination of the mountains, 

the forest and the plains and the depth that the road gives.

I really wish you could see the wide scope of the landscapes. 

One of the joys and the problems of camping like this is that there is no internet or phone connection. (The dark side of the moon.  Like much of Wyoming.)   Therefore, this is spotty (partially written on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday).  Which is no problem.  I can't work at night like usual, until I come down from the mountain during the day.  (BTW, we're at 8250 ft, exactly 1000 feet higher than my house.)  Don't worry, I'm reading at night.  

Quickly, back to the solar panels and the batteries.  I have two 100 Amp-Hours Lithium batteries. I have a 2000 watt inverter (to convert 12V DC to 115V AC).  I can't run my air conditioner, but it is enough to run the microwave over.  It ends up that I lose one percent of capacity with each minute on the microwave.  It works great.  And with the current two solar panels, it recharges back up to full in about 3 hours.  And I can run my electric mattress pad without much effect.  Its all working!  One of the people on the campout said he runs his oxygen concentrator without any problem, so I'll try that too.  End of technical.

Thursday and Friday mornings have been quiet, beautiful.  While Denise had said Thursday to Sunday, no one came up on Thursday, so it was another quiet day of reading and walking.  

Today, Friday, I'm home making an appetizer for the potluck.  I'm smoking a salmon.  It was still frozen while I was marinating it, so it is not warming up very fast.  We may have salmon for desert.  Ehhh, could be worse.  It's all ok.   It will be fun tonight.  I'm taking up my guitars, which of course, there is a side story to that.  It's been several years since I have played, so I hope that I can type again tomorrow!