Monday, January 27, 2025 Heading Home

Monday, January 27, 2025 Heading home

It was nice to have no drama in the morning as the sun rose and our batteries were still reporting over 50% and the furnace had been maintaining a comfortable comfortable sleeping temperature and the refrigerator operated normally overnight.  It appears that as long as the batteries can start the night at least 70% charged we shouldn’t have repeat troubles.

  
We did get on the road after hitching the Bronco back up by 9:30am so we could avoid the worst of the city traffic.  There were icy patches in the shade but the roads had been sanded where there might have been black ice.  Traffic fortunately remained fairly light.  The RV was on reserve fuel when we arrived at the Lacey Costco, but reserve means somewhere between 50 and 100 miles to empty.  We put in 12gal to get us to the Angel of the Winds Casino where the diesel was 15 cents per gallon less expensive.  We did go in and pick up a few things at Costco before getting back on the road.

  
The only place where the traffic slowed to below 50mph was just heading into downtown Seattle, which was pretty unheard of.  We topped off both the RV and Bronco at the Angel of the Winds Casino and managed to arrive back home by 4:30pm.  We unloaded the RV at home and then put it away in the barn.  Driving in the full daylight had charged the batteries to 99%, and when the sun was shining fully on the solar panels, the charge controller showed 4A of charging current, so there may not be a problem with the solar panels other than lack of sunlight at the campground.  We did managed to run the propane down to below 1/4 by running the generator and furnace over 4 nights.  

This did turn out to be a pleasant little RV excursion to the coast and we were treated to blue skies and sunny days in a part of the state most known for grey skies and rain.   We did learn to keep an eye out on the charge state of our batteries on cloudy days and in campsites where our solar panels may be shaded by trees to avoid future problems with the battery management system shutting down again.