Jane's Island State Park looked appealing on Google Maps. That's really how I picked it. It's near water, and the surrounding area is thoroughly crisscrossed by water trails. That's what they call them over there - "water trails". I like water, and I like trails - great success.

The drive from New Jersey is longer than you might expect - about half the trip is spent on less-than freeways - ranging in speeds from 35 mph all the way to 65, littered with occasional traffic lights that can change suddenly - something that you probably could do without when driving 12,000 pounds. Yet that is the only way to get there, so we deal and persevere, and are glad we did.

The park itself is hidden behind sparsely populated lands, making it even quieter than it already is. The staff is remarkably forthcoming and friendly. The campground has three loops, each offering some water-front spots, though not all have electricity (and none have anything more). The sites are situated between sizable trees, mostly pines, giving the site pads (and the roof of your RV) a pleasant pine-needle feel. These sites overlook a narrow channel that leads to the Chesapeake Bay by way of a maze of water trails, or, if you prefer - in a more direct way.



Continue reading "Janes Island State Park, MD, Sep 2011"

With my typical tendency to postpone decision-making until some other time, I found myself searching for available campsites for the week prior to July 4th... with barely 3 weeks to go. We were looking to get away for 8-9 days and return on July 3rd, prior to the crazy traffic - and ideally not spend the entire week driving, leaving plenty of time to explore and enjoy one area, which would ideally be nice enough to warrant such exploration.


I settled on lake Ontario for no specific reason other than "it felt right" - and went through Reserve America one state campground at a time (using their semi-usable Microsoft-biased web interface). Most were booked solid or had availability in what appeared to be the worst remaining sites. My clockwise search around the lake eventually reached Lakeside Beach State Park, and that is where we went. The park is less crowded (except on July 4th, as I can attest) than its neighbors because it lacks a swimming beach altogether - in fact, it even lacks a boat launch. All access to the lake is either over boulders, cliffs, or both. For us, this is an ideal destination: less crowded, fewer kids, more serene. (Again, except July 4th). I was able to reserve the closest site to the lake on loop C for the days we wanted, and off we went to be quite surprised on arrival.
Continue reading "Lake Ontario, June 2011"

Our Sunline T1950 comes with a 24 gallon fresh water tank. It's probably intended to give you a chance to wash your hands and wash the dishes after a roadside picnic on your way to a full-hookup campsite - anything beyond that is tough to accomplish with 24 gallons. We've managed to make it last about 2 days with very judicial usage and military showers (2-3), but it's hardly convenient - and we didn't upgrade to an RV to forego convenience!



In the past, I did manage to extend things a little by bringing along a couple of 6G Reliant Aqua-tainers, but that's cumbersome in its own right because you have to lug them around, improvise a hose to pour them into your tank filler orifice, not to mention holding them up above waist height!

Therefore it was time to make a change. For this installation I decided to limit project scope to the fresh water tank only. My grey and black tank are both 28G for reasons that are completely mysterious to me, but I figured I'd deal with that limitation later on. Measuring the space it became clear that there are two ways to go - either replace the tank with a larger one, or add a second tank alongside. Adding a second tank would require a lot of hackery with Y adapters on all four connections to the tank, in other words - more points of failure. With that logic in mind, I decided to cram in the largest replacement tank I could possibly fit.
Continue reading "Fresh Water Tank Upgrade"

This is sort of a trailer trip - being a part-owner (by proxy) of Kingley Health (and Tazi's Cafe that's in the building), I found myself participating in the 4 day long move of the Piscataway location from 120 Centennial to 220 Centennial (it's a really great building). Since I knew that we'd be there all day, I just brought the trailer to the parking lot to save us the commute home - and we could stay there legally for once!

This was a really fun move, and although it was a lot of work I'm glad that we didn't hire professional movers - it forced the entire Kingley Health crew to not only get much closer, but also develop a great deal of appreciation and ownership for the new space, which is a little part of that magical reason why one may want to get out of bed in the morning and go to work. And our clients can feel this too.

Anyway, the trailer was on purely night-time duty for this trip - water was barely used at all as the building has full facilities, heat was not necessary this time of year and we didn't have time to cook. So, basically, we just used the bed. I also brought a chair massager for our sore muscles and it worked just fine on a 320 watt mini plug-in inverter. Everyone was rather amused that we spent our nights in the trailer, but it wound up having an unexpected benefit - we played security guards one night when some neighborhood kids waltzed into the unlocked space. Electric was not even taxed as the solar panels got plenty of sun.

Continue reading "Kingley Health move in Piscataway"

This was a 3-day weekend trip, Saturday through Monday, and our destination is close enough (200 miles or 3.5 hours non-stop) to do this with ease. Assateague Island is a barrier strip with half in Maryland and half in Virginia, and it being an island on the East Coast it has the Atlantic ocean on the East and the bay on the West side. Both have their beauty, though the bay is naturally more buggy . In mid October the insects are pretty much gone (except flies), especially on the ocean side, making it a great time to go there. The island is well known for its wild/feral small horses that roam freely and steal your food.

There are several ways to stay there, unfortunately boondocking is not one of them. Developed campgrounds exist in both the State Park and the National Seashore Park. The latter is cheaper but requires you to pay the Park entrance fee (they take the national park pass) since the campground is located inside the National Park. The State Park campground costs $10 more per day ($20 more if you want electric hookups), but the lots are somewhat larger (or they seem to be). By the time it occurred to me to make reservations (which they only take up until mid October, incidentally) the National Park was full and the State Park gave me a choice of only one spot (D15) for $30/day, which I promptly grabbed after inspecting their campground map and realizing that it's one of the best spots I could ask for - closest to the ocean, and a huge back lot should I need more room. Here is a Google Maps link to the exact spot. My brain, pre-programmed for suspicion, naturally asked "What's wrong with this spot that nobody wanted it?", but I squashed it with "can't be choosers" concept, and it turned out to be a great site indeed.

There are alternatives to getting paved spots in the parks - backcountry camping (read: hike 2.5-15 miles carrying all your fresh water) is permitted but not reservable. I have friends who have done this, and this is probably not a beginner backpacking adventure unless you're in great shape - walking on the sand with 50lbs on your back can be a challenge. Alternatively, the park offers OSV (Over Sand Vehicle) permits, though I couldn't quite figure out if you can overnight (seemed like a "NO" unless you are actively fishing. What does "actively fishing" mean, exactly?) or if you can bring a trailer onto the sand (seemed like a pretty strong "NO"). I am pretty sure my truck could do it, though I'd probably not let someone like me onto the beach

Getting there was uneventful, my old Garmin C330 had no trouble bringing me directly to the park entrance (Assateauge is in its database), and the people are quite nice. Their access control system boils down to an automatic gate with a 3 digit code, which they give you with your parking hang-tag. We traveled with our fresh tank empty since there is a dump station and faucet available in the campground. Note that there are no camping spots with full hookups, meaning that as you get close to the 11AM checkout time, a pretty sizeable line of RV's forms at the dump station, which handles just one vehicle at a time. We were leaving on a Monday, but the line was still at least 15 RV's long, so we found a free dump site along our way home (Dover Slots) on sanidumps.com and that had no wait.

Now about the park:
Continue reading "Assateague Island Maryland 2009"

Labor Day is not the best time to take a long drive in New Jersey, but if that is the only time you can manage to take off 3 days, then there are things you can do to mitigate your traffic experiences. Like - going local. And local in New Jersey means Pine Barrens, aka Wharton State Forest.

Having no specific plan of action I figured we'd go and find a place to hang out. It was my understanding that you can overnight in these areas since the prohibition signs enumerate a variety of noise and impairment-related restrictions, but say nothing about camping or parking. This would also be our first trip with the newly purchased truck (Ram 2500 V10), and with that comes the need to make some adjustments... Specifically - height adjustments. The truck is about 8" taller than the van (it's a 4x4) and I'm still using the same hitch ball mount from the weight-distributing hitch. Which makes the trailer sit a little funny... and by funny I mean that the rear bumper is eerily close to the ground.
Continue reading "Wharton State Forest off roading adventures"

In an attempt to make our battery last longer on dry-camping expeditions, I measured all the electrical loads we have and found that the biggest appliance we have is the lighting system - and the Sunline has 15 interior light bulbs, not to mention outside lights all over the place. All the bulbs are 921 (spade type) and at 12-13v they consume at least 1.3A each. That's easily 18 watts. That's each! If we have, say, 4 of them turned on, that's over 5A - over 100Ah in a 24 hour period! How big is your battery?

So that was no good. There are two alternatives - compact fluorescents and LED's. I've tried LED's before, but the color temperature was horrible - very cold and white, bluish almost. They are very efficient though. As for CFL's, the idea of running something that will only glow at several hundred volts from a 12V system just doesn't sound efficient to me, so I looked into what's been happening with LED's these days. I was pleasantly surprised...
Continue reading "RV LED Interior Lighting experiments for energy saving"

Problem: the water pump pulses on-and-off to maintain water pressure. It does a decent job, but it's noisy and the water flow varies every second or two.

Solution: install an expansion (accumulator) tank that will accumulate pressure and reduce the need for the pump to cycle or even turn on.

After some preliminary research, I ordered the parts and installed it in 2 hours (including some performance testing). Here is the how-to, largely for me to remember how I did it.
Continue reading "RV Expansion Tank Installation in the trailer"

We have yet to take our first trip, but I couldn't wait. Actually I found used panels and a charge controller on Craigslist and picked them up the same day we got the trailer! Someone was selling a pair of 50 watt panels and a 15 Amp charge controller.

As it turned out, the hard part of this installation was not electrical but rather mechanical - finding beams to screw into, without perforating the rubber roof unnecessarily or causing leaks.

Some details on both electrical and mechanical install:
Continue reading "Our RV gets Solar Power"

It finally happened! It's a 2003 Sunline Solaris Lite T-1950. We were fortunate to find it in perfect condition, one owner, having been professionally cleaned with a toothbrush by a meticulous owner for the last 6 years. Even the awning is spotless, not to mention the interior. The water tank has never been filled and the water heater never ran on propane (it was always hooked up).


Why did we upgrade? It's not that the conversion-conversion van is not functional - it is, it has a place to sleep, a sink, even stove and toilet. What it lacks is a place. As in space. It lacks the space to "just be". If you want to relax and just hang out, you either have to do it on tiny director's chairs (blocking the isle), in the driver seat (can't turn), or lie down on the bed. If you need to move around - well you keep your head down, and you push the other person out of the way. If you need to use the bathroom... well the other person should probably vacate the premises, which is fine when it's sunny and pleasant outside, but... You get the idea. It got us this far, and now it's time for it to pull our new toy instead. Which brings us to the trailer:

Continue reading "We bought an RV!"

There was no plan to this trip. The only thing even remotely close to a plan was my idea that I wanted to go somewhere warm, which (in December) - meant Florida. We didn't make it all the way to Florida because Georgia was already warm enough - days were in the 70's, and that was good enough for me. Plus - they have Palm Trees out there!

We headed out on Dec 14th and drove straight down for about 250 miles (the first day) and wound up staying in a hotel parking lot the first night. (As we've figured out, hotel parking lots are just about the quietest/calmest place to overnight, especially if it's a bit away from the Interstate). We then proceeded onwards and were soon in North Carolina. Despite not having a plan, it was my idea to drive South for a while further before getting off the Interstate and switching to local roads. On board we have a book titled "Road Trip USA", and this book advocates doing just that - travelling the byways and actually "seeing something" rather than zooming past rest areas. By the time we made it to South Carolina, we headed over to Rt 15 and followed the coast line to Charleston, a pleasant and quaint city on the water.
Continue reading "2000 Mile Road Trip South - NC,SC,Georgia - in 7 days"

Needing to clear my head a bit, I took the van out alone (for the first time ever) and headed over to the biggest green square on the map of New Jersey. Would you believe that there is actually a considerable forest in New Jersey?

Here is the interesting part... being from North/Central NJ, I am well habituated to prohibitions of all kinds. I am used to seeing "Do Not Enter", "Private Property", "We will shoot you if you think about it", etc. So it was with glum expectations that I found myself driving South on Route 206 in heavy rain, looking to my left at the myriads of tempting dirt roads which all have a white but unreadable (at 50mph) sign posted at the entrance. After passing about 20 of these, I decided to brave the elements and my old notions, and turned into one. I had to drive right up to one to read it, and here is what it said (more or less):

Rules of Conduct in the State Forest: No bad behavior. No exploding nuclear weapons. No disrespecting small rodents.

(I stopped reading at this point. I've never experienced a "Yes you can" sign before - at least that's what this meant to me)

So I drove in and found a very nice patch to park on (after driving through a narrow opening in the bushes and listening to the sound of bush thorns on the paint for a hunded feet or so). It was still raining, so I stayed inside, awaiting nightfall, but the rain suddenly stopped and I went out to explore
Continue reading "Wharton State Forest (NJ) Solo Trip"

This trip sets the current record for living out of a 1/2 ton van without resorting to hotels!

White Mountains National Park is located in New Hampshire, and is not that small a park (as we found out). It is vaguely reminiscent of the Blue Ridge Parkway, as the drive on the "Cank" (Cancamangus Highway, or Rt 112) is very similar - series of climbs and drops interspersed with overlooks and the occasional "Unimproved Road", as my GPS calls them, invitingly appearing on either side. Unlike the Blue Ridge Parkway, this park charges a fee, a whopping $5 for a week. The permit you get in exchange for you money allows you to park (yes, overnight) just about anywhere you want

One of these overlooks had a parking lot on either side of the road, and the back lot is where we spent most of our nighs - we liked it that much. The overlook faced East so we got to watch the sunrise from bed every morning. Despite what the locals might call a "crowded" situation (local speak for 20 people instead of 10 in a 50 mile radius), "our" parking lot was basically ours for the whole 6 days including Labor Day Weekend - the camera-vision tourist types were interested in the other parking lot, and they would periodically arrive, jump out of the car, put on fake smiles and take pictures, jumping back into their cars so fast that one might think they just smashed someone's mailbox and were now escaping the gun-toting owner.


Continue reading "White Mountains (NH) 6 day trip in the van"

Our first major trip (at least our first trip with photos). We've become less inclined to take photos lately, placing more emphasis on enjoying the moment than trying to have the camera enjoy the moment. This one was a three-day trip that was semi-planned, a coworker of mine grew up in this area and told me where to go and what to see.

In the tame

We set out after work on a Friday afternoon and drove North until it got late enough for us to want to sleep. We then spent some time driving around looking for a Walmart. (Edit: we later figured out that we can park in hotel parking lots, which are quieter and easier to find). Many WalMarts allow overnight parking and one can usually be found only a short detour off your highway route. A suitable store was soon found and we slept in the parking lot, away from the main entrance, and to our surprise we were far from alone. There were other RV's, there were pickup trucks with people sleeping in the front seats, there were some full size trucks with sleeping people too.

I cannot say that this was a very quiet experience, there are usually engines running, starting and stopping within earshot all night, and periodically a street sweeper would drive through the parking lot, polishing the pavement. We were of course very new to this so we didn't sleep that well, worrying that we'll get kicked out. Our standard equipment includes the built-in pull-down shades for the living quarters, and pop-up shades (incidentally, from Walmart) for the windshield and front side windows. Once these are all up it is fairly difficult to see inside the vehicle, especially once the lights are off inside.

Continue reading "Pharaoh Mountain Trip (Adirondacks)"

I went out in search of the impossible...

A device that can do all of the above. And then I found it. Sort of.

So I wanted to have one all-purpose head unit take care of all these functions. The name brands didn't seem to have this, or if they did, it was a bit expensive... in the four digits.

Then I looked at mp3playerstore's Innovatek line....
Continue reading "Electronics: Radio, DVD, TV, Backup Camera"