As they say, Christ has risen after Pontus Pilas declared him a menace to God and man, nailed him to a cross in what he said was a just persuit, buried him a cave, until he pushed the stone away and either he went to heaven or was grave robbed with his body dumped in a municipal landfill somewhere. But yeah, the story about the labor leader buried in a mound of garbage on the outskirts of town, isn’t the story the teach in church with the Easter bunny and colored eggs. At least they’re affordable now.
Or so the story goes. 🍫 Kids everywhere are looking forward to their Easter baskets with candy and the plastic grass that is fun to watch melt and burn when tossed on the trash fire. 🔥 All that sugar is good, though I stay away from it a lot more now that I am into getting healthy, though this morning I did have pancakes with so-called wild blueberries, lemon, and lots of shredded carrots. 🥕 Stocked up at Market 32, which was swamped yesterday, 🛒 with people buying shit before the Easter Holiday. 🐰 Definately some signs of spring at the Pine Hollow Arboretum, more to come soon. Also rode out Five Rivers 🐸 via Meads Lane so I could ride past the moo-moos 🐮 and smell that farm dirt. Spring peepers are loud.
Spring is definately coming. 📐 Yesterday, besides recreating in the woods, 🌲 I also spent some time trying to figure out the ins and outs of designing my new camping rig, 🚚 doing some measurements and sitting in the bed of the truck, deciding I can get away with a flat-roof cap on my truck, as the cab height is so much higher – and the bed deeper on a SuperDuty then a half ton truck.
Also discovered the bolts on center dash, 🔩 that I can safely mount the CB radio bracket too. Don’t love how it blocks my windshield view a bit, but I think it’s the best place for the CB. Will need to get some longer bolts and drill new holes in mount, and maybe some washers for spacers, but it should fit close to stock. Wire it to upfitter switch for power. Will need to get a new hood mount for antenna, as it’s different then on Silverado but I should be able to reuse most other components. Also going to order a water-proof amplified speaker so I can use the PA function on CB radio. 📻 Makes a lot of sense if you want to add a PA Speaker to install it in the same run in antenna wire.
As far as the electrical for camp, 🔋 going to mount the two deep-cycle lead acid batteries in the bed of the truck. Will need a plastic battery box for the one currently under the hood of Silverado, but they are inexpensive at Albany Wally World. I want eventually to switch one of batteries over to Lithium Ion Phosphate, but the problem is they can’t charge in cold, which is a problem for winter camping, and LiPo requires a DC-to-DC charge controller, while lead acid can live with being charged in an unregulated fashion from either the solar or alternator. ☀️ Probably always keep at least one of accessory batteries lead acid for that reason. For isolation between the starting batteries and house batteries in the cap, going to use the voltage switch I use for charging the starting batteries from solar on old truck, but will use a diode to monitor the voltage on both sides of relay – and connect the batteries whenever the solar or alternator is producing sufficient voltage. Mounting all the hardware in the bed, on the shelf I built for camping.
Going to order the truck cap next weekend, 🏕️ probably go for an ARE Cap purchased through Ruth’s in Albany Pine Bush, but I could also see if there is a local LEER dealer. ARE certainly offers the most options, and while their build quality is so-so and price not the cheapest, it is nice how you can get a cap built exactly as you want it. I am thinking the flat cap, with the roof tracks, the side windows that slide open and open-out, slide open front window and boot between the cab and cap, to allow air to flow between the two, while keeping out most of rain, moisture, dust. Then I can also run an extension cord into the cab when I want to work on my laptop plugged into the inverter. 🔌 I will move the solar panel and racks to the new truck, I want to add a second solar panel to double the output, probably just do another 100 watt Renology panel. I think my inexpensive PWM charger controller can handle two in parallel. If I have to, I’ll bump up to a MPPT controller, it would certainly improve panel outputs.
So yeah, at least in my head, I’m building out my new rig. ⏰ A lot depends on how long it takes to get my new truck cap, I am thinking 10 weeks, just knowing how these things go, but hopefully that’s a pessimistic number. I don’t remember how long my old cap took to build, I know it was a few weeks or months, but also it will be second week of April soon, certainly the busy season from camper shell manufacturers, and things just take longer now then it used to be. I can’t really do much electrical or move things over until I get the new cap, as I am mounting things primarily in the bed, to avoid cutting or modifying thing too much on the new truck. And that will keep wire runs much shorter, reducing voltage drop and wiring costs. ⚡ I am just trying to keep things much neater, much professionally done, and organized unlike some of mistakes I made when I was younger, and how the old rig evolved over time, as my needs grew and changed.
So I have a lot to plan out, but I will do it better this time, I tell myself. 👨👨👦 Today in the mean time, it’s off to visit Mom and Dad and visit with the family for Easter. It will be nice to be able to drive on my own for once. Try out driving the big truck, now that I got the mirrors and seat properly adjusted, and I’m figuring out all the controls. In many ways, it’s a chance to build my rig correctly for camping, after years of things being less then perfect 👌 on the old set up. Nobody can predict gas prices ⛽ – the futures markets are calling for a price crash by late summer into autumn and a recession – but only time will tell as the Iran situation is still very fluid. I kind of want to also try out hill descent control, I thought about hiking Bennett Hill 🚶 and after that just playing around on the backroad to see how it works in practice. I bet it would be awesome for some of those dirt roads I drive, especially those long twisty hills in West Virginia. I don’t know though, it’s going to be a rather rainy day. ☔ And there are many nice summer days ahead.