20250415 Tuesday, April 15, 2025 One More Limit and Home

20250415 Tuesday, April 15, 2025 One More Limit and Home

The weather has gotten very pleasant, so digging clams for the 8 a.m. low tide was both easy and pleasant.  It didn’t take long to get our limits and head back to the campsite.  

There was a family with a minivan that got stuck at the beach access that looked like they needed some help. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a recovery strap in the Bronco. We got back to our campsite, dropped off our clams, got out of our waders, and loaded up a recovery strap from the RV into the Bronco.  By the time we drove back to the access, someone else had rescued the stranded family, so it was good to know someone helped them out.  We did have to move the Bronco anyways to get it hitched up to the RV. 

We left our morning’s catch soaking in salt water in a bucket in the sink of the RV while we packed up the RV and reconfigured it to hit the road.  

Overnight, the batteries had discharged to 60%, but with full sunshine and several hours on the road ahead of us, we didn’t run the generator this morning at all.  We hitched up the Bronco and were headed home at 9:15 a.m. from Twin Harbors.  

We did stop at the rest area in Montesano where they have trailer dump facilities.  There are 4 lanes, but only one was open for use. Fortunately, there was only one class B ahead of us and they were storing away their hoses when we arrived, so we didn’t have to wait long for our turn.  

By the time we were ready to pull out, another RV was just pulling in behind us, so that site sees a steady stream of RV’s.  We also transferred the clams from the salt water soak onto ice in the refrigerator so they wouldn’t drown from lack of oxygen.

We refueled the RV and had Costco Hotdogs for lunch in Lacey.  The drive back was pretty easy with no problems with traffic except for the approach to downtown Seattle, but the express lanes were open. 

We made a final refueling stop at the Angel of the Winds Casino, where we filled up both the RV and the Bronco.  The casino has the least expensive fuel by a significant margin.  Anything to lure people into the casino.  By the time we got to the casino, the solar panels had fully recharged our lithium batteries.

It was nice to pull up in front of the house in the mid-afternoon instead of the evening.  We got dirty laundry and clams unloaded from the RV. After processing today’s catch, we had dinner at our local Chinese restaurant.  

It’ll take a while to dig out from 3 weeks’ worth of mail and get readjusted to being back home.  We had an enjoyable and productive road trip, and were glad to have an excuse to visit family in the Bay Area and get the most from our Senior Off-Season camping pass and shellfish licenses.  We did have quite a contrast between the rather terrible conditions and difficult clamming at the start of our trip to the pleasant and easy limits at the end of the trip.  

We also learned a couple of new things about living in the RV with regard to the generator, lithium batteries, and solar charger.  It turns out, reassuringly, that these systems are all working as intended.  The charge rates vary depending on the state of the batteries.  High current is allowed when the batteries are drained, but the current is reduced and even pulsed as the accumulated charge increases.  The generator can deliver up to 80A of charge current when the batteries are 20-50% charged, but the charging circuit in the inverter and onboard battery management circuits throttle the charge rate down as they fill up.  At 70% capacity, the charging circuit and onboard battery management circuits limit the charge rate to no more than 3-10A, cycling between low, higher and resting current states. The Solar panels can charge at up to 10A with full sunlight and discharged batteries, but are adversely affected by shade on any of the solar panels.  With full sun, we can be self sufficient without running the generator, but with shade and clouds, it may be necessary to charge the batteries with the generator up to 50-70% in the morning, and let the solar top up the batteries from 70% on.  If we’re careful with out power consumption, it is easy to make it through the night on 70% and have adequate reserves to be able to start up the generator in the morning if needed. But if we start the night with less than 50% charge, we may end up needing to jump start the batteries and generator in the morning, as we have had to do in the past.  Knowing what we now know, hopefully, jumpstarting the batteries and generator will be a thing of the past.

We have also gained experience and more confidence in towing the Bronco through mountain passes.  The Mercedes Sprinter chassis is a capable platform, and having the Bronco is great when we have a basestation where our RV can be set up for several days without relocating.