Ahhhhhhh! Out in the Boonies Again – Borrego Springs, CA

Starting the Montezuma Grade. Borrego Springs valley is in the background.

So yesterday we decided to take a drive. A drive to the wide, open desert for a spot with a view and a solitude worth dreams. What always amazes me is how easy it is to do something like this. I don’t just mean in an RV, I mean for anybody. One moment we were in bustling San Diego, and a mere 75 miles later we’re in another world. A world of silence, mountains and utter gorgeous remoteness.

Entering Borrego Springs

Even the drive was fun. We actually did this drive, our very first EVER drive when we started our fulltiming RVing adventure ~2 years ago. At the time we were rather green and rather terrified. You see there’s a few steeper (and rather famous) grades coming from San Diego into Borrego Springs if you take the route through Julian Pie Company in Santa Ysabel (which everyone should, of course…make sure to stop now). One of these is the Montezuma Grade and it’s a beaut of a drive down a long, sweeping and rather steep road with dramatic views of Borrego Valley.

Our new back yard

Two years ago we went the long way around to avoid it and marveled at the RV’s we saw coming down such a crazy route. This time around we looked at each other and chimed in unison “oooooo, let’s DO it!!” (the road, that is…not that your mind was in the gutter). And amazingly it was easy, so easy in fact that I marvelled at how terrified we were back then. With the help of our fabulous exhaust brakes and some simple gear management Paul only tapped the brakes a few times on the way down, and we got to soak in the sweeping views in all their majestic splendor. It’s not every road (especially in CA) that we take with such blasé abandon, but Montezuma is in good condition, well-signed and with a reasonable shoulder. We’ll likely take it on the way back too.

Oh yeah...this is the spot!

And just 6 miles or so outside of Borrego Springs we found our spot. Tucked back between the mountains with only a few RVs in sight (to the back) and a wide, sweeping and completely open view in front of us, the beast settled in for a little R&R. We mixed up a robust rum & coke, kicked back in our chairs and took the time to just sit and soak the whole experience in.

A deep sense of peace, a soft sigh and you know that paradise is right here on earth…and the real beauty of it all is that anyone can come find it!

A few curves ahead...NO problem!

A soft sunset in pure solitude

Planning A Slower Couple-A-Months

A private view on a hike in hidden Santee hills, CA

For various reasons we’ve decided to stay put around San Diego for a few more months. You could call it an extension of our whole “take your time” motto that’s naturally becoming part of our 2012 travel plans. So far we’re loving it here. Weather is spectacular, natural beauty abounds and we’ve got tons of friends & activities in the area, plus there’s plenty of opportunity to do day-trips to interesting spots.

Burst of early flowers by the beach

Just to keep things fresh and the ol’ travel-bug fired-up we’re going to mix-up the months by moving around -> some time boondocking in the desert (this coming week), a month by the coast and more time in-land by the mountains. For the moment it all feels “right” and although it’s not quite the rapid pace of our previous 2 years it’s all part of the RV lifestyle. Move as you want and enjoy the spots you like while you’re there.

This is beautiful coast. Paul poses at Solana Beach, CA.

Another novelty of our longer-stay winter is that we’ve made firm friends with just about everyone around our rig. I’m a natural-born conversationist so I’m usually nosing my way into whatever is going on around me. We’ve got the snowbirders out back who’ve just taken Paul golfing for the day, the young Navy family in front of us with a cute lab-chow mix that’s become Polly’s new bestest-boyfriend, and the folks to the side of us who’ve got a new German Shepherd pup and are a bit overwhelmed (I’m going to give them some free dog-training lessons today). It’s this same sense of community which draws many RVers back to the same spots year after year, and I can certainly understand that attraction.

Golf by the beach anyone?

Oh, and for those of you who perked up like prairie dogs at the mention of golf let me say that so far it’s only Paul going that route. He was a rather keen player in his youth and has taken it back up this year with great enthusiasm. In my case, my lack of patience and complete absence of hand-to-eye coordination has (to the great boon of other players in my opinion) kept me happily off the greens. Of course, between grumbling about his swing and cursing the slice, Paul keeps trying to convince me it’s a fun sport. You should never say never of course, but I do tend to lean to Robin William’s view on the matter (if you’ve never seen this is definitely not PG, but it’s a classic!):

Having nothing to say that can beat that skit, I’ll leave you for a relaxing week-end in the sun. Next stop, the wide-open desert…..we’ll see you there!

4 Tips For Creating Instant Indoor RV Coziness

We’ve had a few days of rain here in San Diego recently which means we end up doing alot of indoor stuff. You know what I mean -> hot chocolate, warm meals, watching endless reams of movies (Redbox deals of course! At $1.20 per movie they simply can’t be beat!). I don’t mind these types of days as long as they don’t last too long, which is why wintering here in the SW is sooooo nice. But all this did get me thinking about indoor tips and making your inside RV experience warm and cozy. In Danish we actually have a specific term for this called hygge -> the art of making your environment fluffy-sock-comfy-warm-inviting even on long, dark winter nights (we’re experts, don’t you know). Over the past few years we’ve infused hygge to the RV and picked up a couple of ideas which I thought might be kinda fun to share with others.

1/Add Mood Lighting

Mood-lighting in our bathroom. We hold everything down with Quakehold.

I’m a very light-sensitive person (in my cubicle days I always felt like the office florescents were sucking the living soul out of me), so I’m always looking for ways to make the lighting warm and cozy. Here’s my tips:

• Get LEDs in the right color & brightness - I spent alot of time finding exactly the right color and light when we converted our overhead G4′s and reading lights to LEDs. We’ve been incredibly happy with the results with the added bonus that these super-saving lights use ~1/10 of the power of our old halogens.
•  Use Candles – Being Danish I love real candles and we have several spots with candles and tea-lights around the RV. In a closed containers the tea-lights are safe and cozy, and will burn out on their own when done. I buy tea-light candles in bulk at IKEA, sometimes with scent too.
• OR, Try LED Candles - If you’re worried about using real candles in your RV check out some of the new flameless LED candles which are on the market. They’re battery-operated (perfect for boondocking) and the more advanced versions even have timers for the perfect mood-time. You can often find outstanding deals on these babies on eBay or in discount home furnishing stores.

2/ Decorate Your Space

Alot of RV’s have the same kind of “dullish” feel to them (what is it about RV decorators that makes them think everyone wants everything in a shade of brown?), so adding little accents of color and splash can make a huge difference to indoor feel. Here’s some ideas:

We've decorated the kitchen with burgundy-themed cooking accents

Our burgundy, teal and gold living room theme

•  Rugs, Pillows & Covers - In our rig the first change we did was get rid of our brown carpet and replace it with a burgundy red in the living room and a sky blue in the bedroom. I accented those colors with gold & red pillows on the couches and finished off the color-splash with teal Sure-Fit washable cloth covers on our (very brown) dinette chairs. Even if you don’t change our your carpet, throw rugs can be an bright, easy and cheap addition to your floor. Walmart, Target and IKEA are get spots to buy these at a reasonable price.
• Pictures & Decor - As everyone who’s ever rented a house knows, adding personal touches to decor and pictures can make your space feel more like home. We’ve put several pics up around the rig (using the 3M Command Strips), added several decor pieces (using QuakeHold Museum Putty), and hung some bigger pieces (with 3M Wire Hooks). None of these things have budged in 2 years of travel.
• Green Living Plants – I feel plants give a vibrant feel to just about any space. We have several pots around the house including a small one in the kitchen and a larger plant in the bedroom. Quakehold will keep these in place while travelling.

3/ Use Real China & Glass

Our home-made handy-dandy glass box

This is a kinda personal thing, but I feel having real china and glass in the RV adds alot to the sense of home I have here. If you package these properly they’ll travel over any terrain, and using these tips we’ve not had a single break (due to travel) in 2 years:

• Glasses – We use a wine-box lined with foam to create a custom wine, champagne & cognac glass holder. Fits any type of glass!
• Plates – For our plates we’ve lined the cupboards with a non-slip liner (the best stuff I’ve found is the thick IKEA shelf liner) and put non-slip plate separators between each item. They sell pre-packaged & cut versions at Camping World, or you can buy a whole roll of the stuff at Walmart for much cheaper and just cut it yourself.

4/ Add Some Scents

Burning some incense for our buddha in the living room

Of the 5 senses, I think smell is one of the most inviting and there’s some super-easy ways to add that dimension into your RV

• Incense - We have several simple incense burners that we use from time to time. Lots of places sell relaxing & attractive incense sticks or cones.
• Flowers – Who doesn’t love the smell of fresh flowers in the RV? We don’t buy them often, but when we do I use my handy-dandy collapsable WonderVase to show them off. Love that thing!
• Scent Spots – There are all kinds of scented cones, crystals and plug-ins you can buy out there, but my absolute favorite is the Febreeze Set and Refresh -> it uses no power, gives decent longer-term scent and you can place it anywhere. We always have one open in the bathroom.

And that’s the whole enchillada for our little family here in the rain. Time to snuggle-up and watch a movie, methinks. Got any good tips of your own?

Green and cozy in our bedroom window sill. Cat basket on the right.

We have a larger silk Chinese scroll on our wall in the bedroom

Paw Friendly & Off-Leash Beaches – San Diego, CA

Polly makes a new friend at Del Mar Dog beach

Having bombarded you with a couple of pretty geek-intensive posts I figured I would get back to something cute and fluffy. In my mind, nothing is cuter than our furry family (that would be the pets, not Paul), and nothing is more fluffy than a wind-dried beach dog, and these past few weeks we’ve been doing our best to show off both at all the paw-friendly spots around town. The perfect lead-in to a blog post!

The brand new San Diego doggie beach map!! Blue icons are off-leash spots. Pink are on-leash spots. CLICK IT!

Now, the locals here loooove their dogs and this city is one of the dog-friendlier in the state, in my opinion, with lots of spots to take pooch on the beach both on and off-leash.  They’re so beach-dog crazy here they even hold annual dog surfing competitions (check out the 2011 winners) and you can take honest-to-goodness doggie surf lessons. How cool is that?

Given we used to live in the area I’ve got a pretty good idea of where to go w/ pooch, but when I looked around on the net I realized it can be tough for new-comers to figure it all out. Lots and lots of info out there, but nothing in terms of actual maps so you can see where everything is. So, I decided to change all that with both a map AND a summary of my favorite spots…with a few local secrets thrown in.

Off-Leash Beach Havens

For leash-free lovers from North to South, here’s our favorite spots:

Your truly poses w/ Polly by the gorgeous Solana cliffs

1/ Del Mar/Solana Dog Beach – A wonderful and spacious dog-friendly beach right on the border between Del Mar & Solana that allows off-leash access from Sept thro’ June. Lovely back-drop of cliffs here too. MAP IT!
Secret Tips: If you park right by the northern end (Solana side) you’ll have to pay for parking, but there’s free parking right across the bridge (Del Mar side) just 100 yards south. You can also hike for miles along the southern end of Del Mar with pooch on leash, both up on the cliffs and on the beach below. For a lovely pet store, stop by Dexter’s Deli in Del Mar too.

Polly leads a friends' puppy on a hike on Fiesta Island. San Diego in the background and beach on the right.

2/ Fiesta Island – This island sheltered in Mission Bay is doggie HEAVEN! The entire Island is off-leash friendly, plus there is a huge (enormous, gigantic, humungous) fenced-in dog area where you can hike/run w/ pooch both on land and by the water. MAP IT!
Secret Tips: If you’ve got a smaller rig (class C), you can park all day right on the sand at Fiesta Island. Park closes at 10PM.

Going for a splash at Ocean Beach Dog Beach

3/ Ocean Beach – This is the original off-leash doggie beach in San Diego. It’s a nice stretch of beach silhouetted by the pier and popular with surfers too. MAP IT!
Secret Tips: OB has a very cool, relaxed late-hippy vibe and several of the restaurants around town ( for example O’Bistro and OB Noodle House) are pooch-friendly too.

4/ Coronado Beach - The very northern end of Coronado beach (near Sunset Park, by the naval station) is off-leash dog friendly. To avoid (big) fines keep doggie on leash until you’re right AT the beach. MAP IT!
Secret Tips: You can see the majestic and historic Hotel Del Coronado in the distance from here. Hop along w/ pooch to the Wine Styles Bar or McP’s Irish Pub after your romp for a dog-friendly glass.

On-Leash Beach Playgrounds

Outside of the “big 4″ there are a bunch of other beaches that allow on-leash access on the coast. Most of them specify an 8-foot leash and a few have specific hours. Once again our top pics North to South:

Polly digs for treasure in the sand

1/ Cardiff State Beach - The only state beach that allows dogs in San Diego. This is a lovely stretch of sand that runs south from Cardiff (just south of the watchtower at San Elijo State Park) to Solana. Dogs are allowed on-leash all along this area. Since it’s right next to San Elijo State Park this is also the only spot I know in San Diego where you can camp, surf (sweeeet long-boarding break) and enjoy the beach w/pooch right next door. We haven’t stayed at San Elijo (it’s $35/night for dry-camping and it’s rated for 35′-max) but we could probably squeeze into a few spots. MAP IT!

2/ La Jolla Shores – A cute little stretch of beach right in upscale La Jolla. Doggies allowed on-leash on the beach (and next-door Kellogg Park) before 9AM and after 6PM (in summer Apr-Oct) or after 4PM (in winter Nov-Mar). MAP IT!

Wonderful Mission Bay. Fiesta Island is in the middle.

3/ Mission Bay Park - Mission Bay Park has ~27 miles of shoreline all secluded inside this lovely bay. In addition to fully-off-leash Fiesta Island, the park allows leashed dogs pretty much everywhere else as long as it’s before 9AM and after 6PM (in summer Apr-Oct) or after 4PM (in winter Nov-Mar). There are tons of spots to take pooch here incl. De Anza Cove, Ventura Cove, Mission Point….you name it. If you want to camp in the area Mission Bay RV Resort (accepts Passport America mid-week) is a private park right on the bay beachline. MAP IT!

4/ Imperial Beach – A lovely beach with a superb pier right at the southern end of San Diego, you can take pooch on leash anywhere outside of the swimming area (north of Palm Blvd or south of Imperial Beach Blvd). MAP IT!

Some good links:
Dog-friendly restaurants in San Diego – from BringFido.com
Dog-friendly parks & beaches in San Diego  – From San Diego Travels
San Diego dog beaches and parks – From Sandiego.com

And with that I think doggie and us will go get wet and sandy (with a little post-fluffing-up) before the sun sets.

The Holey Story Part II -> Searching For 128 Amp Hours

The Eternal Question...

So, 2 days ago (in internet time) we left our intrepid boondockers in a 128 Amp Hour hole, with just the slimmest prospects of getting out. How would our adventurers elude this holey problem and find the amperage they so desperately needed before it was too late? Would Paul be forced to miss his football games? And Nina be forced to endure the prospect of Paul in such a horrifying state? Even our RV was morose and philosophical, throwing out the question “Oh, where are thou Amperage?”….

Would wine help? Most likely!!

Well, we got some FABULOUS ideas from our blog followers. Jil suggested a bar (which, though it would not directly close the amperage gap would certainly ease the pain and give the whole problem a much more rosy outlook). Terry suggested hooking up the bikes to a hand crank generator and peddling our way out of the hole (a suggestion I personally REALLY liked, especially with Paul on the bike). And Bob suggested one less football game (which seemed totally logical for me but was, of course, horrifyingly unthinkable for Paul).

Well, having strung out the suspense for as long as I possibly can, I’ll go through our thinking on how finally we solved our dilemma. We had 3 brilliant ideas for the gap, and it turns out the easiest and bottom line cheapest was the best solution (isn’t that always how you want it)?

1/ Go DC On Everything

DC Power baby!!

In every RV there’s stuff that runs directly off the DC current from batteries (lights for example) and stuff that requires you to turn on an inverter to create an AC current (like TV/internet/electronics). But if you look deeper you’ll find that you don’t really need the AC. Look at the back of your computer charger, for example, and you’ll find that although it takes in AC current it converts it to a DC current which is what the computer actually uses (for example the output on mine is 19V, 4.74A DC). So, instead of doing the whole silly DC->AC->DC conversion why not just mount a bunch of DC plugs, run everything directly off your DC batteries and get rid of the need for an inverter altogether? It seems like a great idea, but the numbers will tell you otherwise!

You'll need charge adapters for all your gear

Expected Costs. Costs for this project are waaaay higher than you might expect. Not only do you need to install a bunch of new DC plugs (we’d need 5 in various locations for our TV, satellite, 2 computers, internet router), but you’ll have to run new, thicker wires to those plugs (since the existing wires in your rig are not meant to handle higher DC current) PLUS you’ll need to buy DC to DC converters for all your electronics (since they all need a regulated DC voltage). Even if you do the installation yourself, a typical DC->DC converter costs anywhere from $30-$85 (e.g iGo Laptop Travel Charger), not to mention costs of wiring & new plugs. You’re talking at least $300. Add-in labor time/costs and this number will be much, much higher.

Expected Amp Hour Savings. In this scenario you get rid of your inverter. So savings are inverter usage = 2.5 Amps = 25 Amp Hours over a 10 hour period.

Bottom Line. It’s alot of money and time for very little savings. You use $300 and save only 25 Amp Hours = $12/Amp Hour saved.

2/ Dedicated, Smaller Inverter

The super-sleek Xantrex PROWatt 600 pure sine wave Inverter

We have a massive honking 2000 Watt inverter in our rig. It’ll run everything we have including our super-amp-sucking microwave, but it doesn’t need to be that big if you’re just running electronics. Why not buy a small, dedicated inverter just for the electronics and save some power?

Expected Costs. A small pure sine-wave inverter costs anywhere from $150-$300 (say the Xantrex PROWatt 600). We would keep our old inverter for the big stuff, so we’d need to do some additional AC wiring for this project too.

Expected Amp Hour Savings. Our current inverter runs ~2.5 Amps/hour. The new inverter would run ~0.5 Amps/hour. So, you would save 20 Amp Hours over a 10 hour period.

Bottom Line. Savings are still way too small to make a difference especially if we add-in the costs/time of getting more AC wiring done. At a minimum we use $150 for only 20 Amp Hours of savings = $7.5/Amp Hour saved. Better, but not good enough…

3/ Get a New TV

The Beautiful VIZIO M320VT

The new LED TV’s are nice, and as it turns out for this project they are REALLY nice. They’re thinner, lighter and use a ton less power. Could such a simple solution really make sense?

Expected Costs. A new 32″ LED TV costs anywhere between~ $400-$500. Since our old TV had a custom mount, we’d need to buy a new “universal” mount for another ~$50 too. However we expected to make some money by selling the old TV.

Peerless Universal TV Tilt Mount

Expected Amp Hour Savings. Here’s the shocker of the story. When we looked at the specs we realized our old 32″ Sharp Aquos LCD TV was running a massive ~175 Watts. The new LED TVs, many of which are Energy Star compliant only run ~60-75 Watts. That’s a HUGE savings of minimum ~100 Watts or ~80 Amp Hours over a 10-hour period. Plus there’s no need to run any new wiring and the new TV would fit directly into our old TV cabinet. A little modification needed to add the new mount, but nothing compared to the other solutions out there.

Bottom Line. For ~$450 we could get 80 Amp Hours of savings giving this solution a cost of ~$5.5/Amp Hour saved. Definitely the route to go.

4/ And The Final Results?

Et VOILA! The 100 Amp Hour saver is in place!

Well it turned out better than we expected. At the time we were shopping Costco had a deal going on a new 32″ VIZIO M320VT for ~$400 (all in). Paul got the Peerless PT640 Universal Mount on Amazon for $50 and we saved $120 by selling our old TV on Craig’s List (sold in half a day). Total cost = $330

And the Amp Hour savings? They were….wait for it….10 Amps/hour (as measured by our Xantrex LinkLITE) . Total savings = 100 Amp Hours over a 10 hour period. It’s not quite the full 128 Amp Hours we were looking for, but it’s darn close.

Bottom line we used $330 and saved 100 Amp hours = $3.3/Amp Hour saved. Not bad at all.

And so ends the holey story and everyone lived happily ever after….well, until Paul gets another one of his geeky ideas anyway.