Well after the rush of yesterdays visitors showin’ up a day early we had a leisurely mornin’. Breakfast, more coffee and Linda on her computer & me on mine. Our grand-daughter had gone off to spend the weekend with her friend. A braver girl than I. Seems when I was a young lad I never wanted to spend ‘Overnighters’ at a friends house,I always preferred being at home. I would go camp in the woods at the drop of a hat, under the stars or under a lean-to that we had constructed of branches with leaves on top, but stay at someone’s house fer’ the night, NOT!
So the plan was to pickup Ashley around four Sunday afternoon. Since we were going south anyway we wanted to stop at a Save-A-Lot grocery store that we like and I had seen a great deal on a 2000 watt inverter at Harbor Freight stores we decided to make an afternoon of it.
First stop was Subway for a BMT sub, our favorite and something we haven’t indulged in in quite some time. Mmnn… it was tasty! With our bellies full we headed south headed for Harbor Freight.
See I’m getting’ together supplies to prewire for solar on the 5’ver. Gonna build a battery bank of 4 or 6 batteries and build a box to enclose ‘em in the front basement where the existing batteries are. Still haven’t decided on 6v or 12v fer’ the battery choice. The advantage of the 6v is they are true deep cycle and have heavy plates, providing longevity. But if one 220AH battery goes bad I lose two, because being 6 volts they have to be wired in series/parallel to get 12 volts. That being the case I lose 220AH from the battery bank. The 12volt, 125AH batteries are much more readily available and if I lose one I’ve only lost 125AH of the battery bank, but I don’t believe they will provide the years of service of the true deep cycle 6v batteries. Somethin’ I’m stewin’ over.
Anywho…,The inverter I was interested in was on sale with a coupon for $129, regularly $199, seventy bucks off sounds good to me! I figured this would be great for the 5’ver, givin’ us plenty of power for the money and if it lasted till I can replace it with a more standard inverter/charger all the more better. More Better? Is that really correct? I always kid about somethin’ bein’ better or More Better. Like peanut butter spread on somethin’ makes it better, but bacon wrappin’ somethin’ is ‘More Better’! Kinda like worse and More Worser? Singles, doubles, triples and Fourples!
Anywho…. back to the day. We finally found the Harbor Freight store, seemed like every plaza we came to we said “this is it”. Only to drive down the road further. We had been here but it was several years ago and we don’t frequent this area so our ‘Old Timers’ was comin’ on strong. After findin’ the inverter section I picked up the box and thought, Holy Crap! This thing is gia-normus! (heavy too).
Why would anyone make a 2000watt inverter with one duplex outlet and no hardwire capability? Cost? Gee the 1000watt model has three outlets. Go figure. Well I decided against this inverter and started to look at the smaller ones, but the price difference made me step back and wait till they’re on sale, $129 fer’ 2000watt, $99 fer 1000watt. Back to square one. I saw a 1500 watt model at a Flea Market booth a couple o’ months ago, should have grabbed it at $30, but I thought I wanted bigger at the time. Live & learn, at least it just cost me some diesel fuel & nothing more.
Durin’ our shopping-less spree our grand-daughter called to see if she could stay till Monday, cause the kids have off for MLK Day. Sure why not. So now we don’t have any schedule to keep so we browsed several stores till it was dinner time and Linda & I went to dine at Applebee's. We did the ‘two for twenty’ meal and had Buffalo tenders for an appetizer and each had a 7oz sirloin. The meal was excellent.
Afterwards we headed home with a stop fer’ diesel thrown in, YIKES! $3.49 fer’ fuel? We found some fer’ $3.31 a gallon, still was $38+ fer a half a tank. Then it was home to let this full tummy recoup and relax and read some blogs. Linda couldn’t keep up & pooped out around 9.
Well we have the house clean from top to bottom and a good thing cause the ‘Campin’ Cousins’ are comin’ to Florida. They arrive this Thursday at noon and will be here for 5-6 days.
Yipee! We can’t wait.
OK what’s everyone using for batteries, 6V or 12V, what’s the advantage of yours? Give me your opinion. Maybe I’ll be able to make a decision!
Well that’s all the excitement I can stand fer’ now. Hope to see ya’ down the road as we’re:
I am afraid fuel prices are only going to go up. It is gonna be an expensive year for fuel.
ReplyDeleteThe post is written in very a good manner and it entails many useful information for me. I am happy to find your distinguished way of writing the post.
ReplyDeletevideo on demand
Hi Barry and Linda, Thanks for coming by and leaving comments at A Camp Host's Meanderings. Appreciated! You sure have had a busy time of late but sounds fun! I don't know enough about the batteries (shame shame) to give input. Take care and be safe.
ReplyDeleteInverter, sminverter?!?! You and Jonathan speak the same language. Me, I was dreaming about Subway sandwiches the rest of your post :)hehe!
ReplyDelete