One last word about Slab City*: Freedom

My final answer to those who may question a stop at Slab City based solely on it’s outward appearance is that the whole scene is all about the people, and the freedom they choose to experience – and share – with others.

Boondocking on the Slabs is free, in many more ways than cost. You can’t beat the price, but then it’s free of any services whatsoever too. Life on the Slabs is free of that sense of urgency which has polluted society. It is free of any rules, really, and it’s the people who are truly free.

One could easily drop out of society with residence at Slab City, as I’m sure many have. But we’ve never felt unsafe At the Slabs, and we have met some very fun and interesting folks.

Freedom can be seen in the smiles of anyone at The Range on a Saturday night. Genuine happy faces and permagrins alike share the good vibes and great music. While minding their own business, each person we meet there is always welcoming and warmhearted.

Chance from Airracket sums it up best …

yeah freedom, i’m free to love you.
i’m free to care for you.
i’m free to fly …

Watch the video for our neighbor Dakota who frequently took flight in his self-propelled parasail. He succinctly summarized his own freedom when he answered our question of where he was headed next with, “Wherever the wind takes me.”

We’re thinking the wind wants to blow us North soon to check in at Jerry’s Acres, but Crystal Lakes received another foot of snow last time we checked. So, there’s no rush to get “home” and we are free to take our time. Freedom is a good thing.

A big shout out to Chance for his mind-bending guitar work and lyrics. He’s got some great sounds and will always get ya thinkin’ … Freedom has always been a personal favorite, thanks.

* Until next year.

When you RV, you always learn something new. Whether it’s about how to avoid dropping weird stuff down the toilet,  or learning new boondocking tips, you’re always growing.

When we met Kelly and Al last winter in New Mexico, I couldn’t believe we had been on the road almost two years and didn’t know about the Escapees Day’s End Directory. We were on our way to Texas to join Escapees because we knew about all of their perks, but we didn’t know about this one until Al and Kelly (aka The Bayfield Bunch) told us about it.

The Day’s End Directory is a comprehensive collection of practically every low cost and free boondocking spot in North America, compiled by the folks who know best, Escapees members. For just $5, you can join this private Escapees group, the Day’s End Yahoo Group, and gain access to the directory. It has literally thousands of locations of free and cheap campsites, and members update the information regularly.

The only downside to the Day’s End Directory is that it’s created in oldschool format. The book is available as a CD or .rtf file only, and you need to rifle through about 500 pages to find locations by state and city. It’s laborious and time consuming, and cost-prohibitive to print. To get around that, I created a PDF of the Western states we are visiting this year, and sent the file to Kinkos for printing. It cost me $12 to print CA, AZ, NM and TX.

I hope some day the Escapees powers that be will pay a young geek to  take over the project and convert the listings to some kind of searchable database like our friend’s Jenn and Johnny’s FreeCampsites.net.

But until then, this behemoth book is still the best money you’ll spend if you like to get out into the wild, or just need an approved, safe place to crash for the night.

How fitting it is that I’ve put this post off long enough to coincide with Earth Hour – when everyone is supposed to turn off their lights for one hour at 8:30 tonight in a showing of global showing of solidarity for energy conservation. But let me tell you, Earth Hour happens every night around the LiveWorkDream rig!

Shortly after we returned to Slab City, we got fed up with killing our batteries every evening. And coincidentally, I had just completed a design project that enabled us to afford an upgrade to our RV solar power system. But what to upgrade with the budget we had? That was the big question, so we went and saw Solar Mike.

Our original system included one Evergreen 120w solar panel rated up to 7.6 amps. Considering we draw about 10 amps when using our satellite internet connection and charging our laptops, it’s really no wonder our batteries would often be drained at the end of the day – even if the sun was shining bright. Simply put, we were just using more juice than we were making even on the best of days.

So back to the question at hand … what to upgrade? We had the opportunity to rebuild an Outback MX60 MPPT charge controller – and still do – which would give us the boost available from Maximum Power Point Tracking for about half the price of a new controller. But that would still only buy us another amp or so.

So, we took Mike’s advice and added another panel. While we were at it, we modified our existing mounting hardware to let us tilt both panels for maximum solar exposure, all day long. And now we’re making too much power!

Our new Kyocera 135w panel is rated up to 8.3 amps. During our entire stay over at Anza Borrego, I don’t recall running the generator once. But that changed yesterday. It was a beautiful day for making power. The sun was shining bright, a steady breeze kept our panels cool, and we drained our batteries by the afternoon. Huh? That’s what I said!

Upon investigation, I discovered the batteries were not only dead, but there was no status LED blinking on our C40 charge controller. Great, I thought, now we’d have to stay until next week and take the rig over to the Sun Works to find out what was happening. Then I discovered we had just blown a fuse!

The 15 amp Buss fuses we had protecting the controller were more than sufficient for the single Evergreen panel we originally installed. But with the recent upgrade, we had apparently peaked at more than 15 amps of power being generated at some point! Not bad, not bad at all. Now if only we had the battery bank capacity to hold the extra power allowing us to work a few more hours into the night. That upgrade will just have to wait until we return to the Slabs and go see Solar Mike again next year.

My only regret was not asking Mike about a trade-in of our first panel before we started remounting it. But with the price of panels coming down, he assured me we wouldn’t have gotten much for it.

Yes, solar panel mismatch is something to consider – it’s not just aesthetic – but in an RV system like ours, where squeezing out every bit of possible power in a limited space on a limited budget, it is as they say … what it is.

Besides, the two tilted panels still look pretty cool! And yes, we did consider the swing of the arm on our F2 Dish when re-installing the panel. To my surprise and delight, it clears the elevated panel with room to spare. Now whether or not it does so next time we are way up north is another story. Let’s hope by the time we get back to Maine, we remember to check the panel before stowing the dish.

Slab City: love it or hate it.

Lovers are tolerant individuals who respect the many different lifestyle choices here. Haters just can’t seem to turn away from the trash heaps and shiftless drifters, and usually depart within 24 hours.

One might assume that Slab City Lovers are younger folks on the fringes of society, but as our neighbor Bernie demonstrates, that just ain’t so.

Bernie and his wife are snowbirds, spending summers in Washington and winters here at the Slabs.

He built this RV himself, handles all of his own rig maintenance, and is building a new cottage by hand back in Washington. A former HVAC repair man, he spends his afternoons lounging and riding his ATV around the desert. He and his wife have been vegan for the last 40 years.

Bernie is 80 years old. His wife is 75. They’re just one example of the many reasons why we love staying at kooky places like Slab City.

Because you just never know who’s going to rock your world here, like Don the musician.

We hit the road yesterday for the first time since early December. And as with all first days on the road, things didn’t go quite as smoothly as we would have liked. We are definitely rusty.

First, we missed our exit to the Slabs, and almost ended up in Quartzsite. Drove about 25 miles out of our way.

Next, when we were in search of water, we took a wrong turn and drove another 10 miles in the opposite direction. The small road we were on was so flooded from the recent rains, we couldn’t find a dry enough place to turn around.

Once we got to the Slabs, I opened up our door, and saw hummus everywhere. Good thing the flour didn’t spill too!

As I proceeded to clean up the mess, Jim tried to turn on the Motosat dish. Guess what? That pain in the ass dish is acting up again, and won’t go up. Thank Dog we have Internet redundancy with our MiFi setup. If we couldn’t get online to manage Tripawds, we would be on our way to the nearest service shop. Apparently our F2 motor is dead . . . again.

All this, during our first day back on the road. In the past, I might have fallen apart at so many mishaps in one day. Because when you’re new on the road, multiple screw ups in one day happen a lot, and they can be upsetting. At least to me they were. Jim’s always been a little better about not letting them get him down.

But after almost three years on the road, I’m happy to say that we are both able to handle these things with a smile.

A few cocktails also work wonders.  Good thing we’re stocked up.