Lou Schneider

Three phase power is common around movie sets. Three outlets implies the trailer is set up to evenly load a 3 phase generator - either an internal one or a whole site generator also feeding the set lights, etc. Having individual cords also gives you the option to power parts of the trailer from conventional portable generators. The only exception to using portable generators is if the trailer has any 3 phase loads like a large central air conditioner. These will have 3 breakers mechanically tied together in a 3 phase distribution panel. If so, you won't be able to operate them on anything except true 3 phase power.

I'm just as unique as any other individual on this planet. Sometimes more so.

USB is 5 volts, the Mobley requires 12 volts. So multiply the current by 2.4 to get the draw out of the USB outlet. From the manual: Since these are 12 volt currents, the peak will be 693 MA from a 5 volt USB outlet. While a USB port on a computer is limited to 500 ma you can parallel two of them to get 1 amp, more than enough for the Mobley's highest consumption. The smallest USB charger I've seen also delivers 1 amp so a Mobley should work fine from it via a 5 volt to 12 volt adapter.

You can enter Yosemite via Highway 140, Highway 120 or Highway 41. Note the sections on tunnel clearances I highlighted above - the height at the fog line (the line at the edge of the lane) is high enough for CA height legal vehicles to pass. CA's maximum legal height is 14' - beyond that you need an Oversize Load permit. If your motorhome is 13' tall at the center mounted air conditioner it certainly will fit. Whether you'd want to drive your motorhome into Yosemite Valley is a seperate question. I wouldn't unless you're going to park it in one of the campgrounds and take your toad or a shuttle around the park.

Get a small water transfer pump - here's a 12 volt one from Harbor Freight. You can directly attach a pair of garden hoses to it. Run one from the inlet into your 5 gallon container, take the other from the outlet to your trailer's fill port, clip the pump onto a 12 volt battery and you're in business. Back in 2000 I had a truck and trailer and I decided to take a mid-life break. Part of it was spending 3 months in several of the Southwest LTVAs. I decided I wouldn't go overboard on conservation but instead live fairly normally, taking a shower every morning, etc. So instead of having to break camp frequently to dump and fill, I used one of these pumps along with my two water hoses to transfer water from a 50 gallon barrel in the truck bed into the trailer's tank. A Macerator pump going into another 50 gallon barrel with a dump valve installed on it took care of my sewage. Just fill the sewage barrel and take it to the dump station. Then fill the water barrel before going back to camp. Later I got a motorhome where the only way to fill the fresh water tank was via the pressurized city water inlet and it worked great pumping water from 5 gallon containers into the motorhome's tank. Or you can do the same thing with a conventional RV water pump and have a spare on hand when your present one goes out. https://www.harborfreight.com/12v-dc-transfer-pump-290-gph-63324.html

The final Heinlein book is "The Pursuit of The Pankera", which was never published during his lifetime. It was written in 1977 and shares the beginning with "The Number of the Beast" but diverges as soon as Gay Deceiver makes the first jump into a parallel universe. In essence, Heinlein wrote two parallel novels about the same 4 characters visiting parallel universes. The manuscript was discovered in bits and pieces. It took 3 years to assemble them and realize it was a complete book. Published in 2020 and available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle. I really enjoyed this unexpected epilog by the Master. https://booksreadingorder.com/pursuit-of-pankera/

If dropoffs scare you, be aware the train has a couple of places where the tracks go along similar terrain with sharp dropoffs next to the track. Maybe switch to a seat on the uphill side of the car or don't look until you're past them.

Enter your location and this will tell you when Starlink satellites are visible: https://findstarlink.com/

The white switch is labeled "Transformer" and "Battery". Converters of that time only had a low current battery charger built in, using the switch you could connect the 12 volt loads directly to the transformer so all of the charger's limited current can go towards charging the battery. Actually transformer plus rectifier, what your 12 volt loads got in the Transformer position was unregulated, unfiltered DC. The next version of that converter automated the transformer vs battery functions - when AC power was connected the relay would connect the 12 volt loads to the transformer, when AC power wasn't there the loads were connected to the battery.

When you go back to Grand Canyon, there's a commercial RV park just outside the main gate in the town of Tusayan, which is mainly hotels and restaurants serving Grand Canyon. You can catch the shuttle bus into the park at the hotels or at the visitor center across the street. If you want to drive into the park the entry pass is good for a week and after you purchase it you can use the re-entry lane to bypass the lines at the gates. There's also a couple of Forest Service campgrounds nearby that don't show up on any of the reservation sites. https://www.google.com/search?q=tusayan%2C+az+campgrounds

In Phoenix, you have the opposite problem. You want to add some humidity to the interior to keep the heat from drying out and cracking wood trim, etc.

We're collecting donations for them at Pair-A-Dice. The Lone Star Corral folks suggested it be in the form of WalMart gift cards.

299 isn't bad. The road you want to avoid is CA 36 from Fortuna to Red Bluff. It's posted "RVs Not Advised".

I'm a big fan of the book and the movie, and Bob Wells' HOWA. There's a whole cottage industry that's sprung up around the vanlife movement since the movie started sweeping the film awards last year. The movie itself is streaming free on Hulu. If you aren't a subscriber you can sign up for a free month. It's not the same story as the book but it's worth viewing as except for Francis McDormand and David Straithern almost all of the cast are real people portraying versions of themselves. Before you read the book, take a look at the 2014 Harper's Magazine article that inspired it. The opening paragraph made it all the way to being a key scene in the movie. By the same author, Jessica Bruder. https://harpers.org/archive/2014/08/the-end-of-retirement/ There's a half hour "broadcast special" and several trailers on YouTube giving a taste of the movie, woven in with interviews with the director and other principles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zICxsKAUO0k PBS had an excellent report on "The Real World of Nomadland". It's a compilation of interviews they did exploring van life and it's causes with several people including Bob Wells and author Jessica Bruder. You can watch it on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO-pKYzcY_8

Both of the above are good choices, but keep in mind the tow rating is the absolute maximum for your vehicle and means the combo will have the minimum acceptable performance. Every pound you add to the tow vehicle not only subtracts from the hitch weight it can carry, but also from the allowed trailer weight. If you start out with a 5000 lb tow rating and have passengers and cargo in the truck that totals 500 lbs, you can tow 4500 lbs, not 5000. And the tow ratings are set using a low profile trailer with a concrete block or bricks on it. Not a wide and tall RV trailer. That extra frontal area means you need more power to carve a path through the air, especially if you're facing a headwind. Those tall and long sides create more sail area for sidewinds to push against so you need a larger vehicle to keep the tail from wagging the dog. All of the above is why experienced RVers try to tow no more than 80% of their vehicle's maximum tow rating. RV travel should be a pleasant experience and that 20% cushion can make the difference between a nice drive vs. having to constantly fight to keep things under control.

A few minutes with an AC/DC clamp on current meter will show which power source is most efficient. The price of decent meters is coming down, I've had this one for about 6 months, it works great and at less than $50 including everything else it does, it's a steal. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Z398YWF

Jumper the thermostat contacts and turn the fan on and off manually. Or add an external thermostat in the 12 volt supply line.

I've been using this Fagor set for 10 years. My ex-wife bought it at Camping World for it's nesting qualities, it just also happens to be induction compatable. Too bad it's no longer available, the stacked set stores nicely in the RV's oven and comes out as a single piece when I want to use the oven. It works great with the induction hotplate I have now and the thick base creates even heat distribution on the gas stovetop. http://popupbackpacker.com/camping/fagor-cookware/

I was about to post the same thing. Swamp coolers are one pass devices - to work properly they have to draw in dry outside air for the evaporating water to cool, this also adds humidity to the output of the cooler. Then the cooled air passes through the living area and out an open window making room for more cooled outside air to enter. In a small space like an RV, a box unit just recirculates the inside air, quickly loading it up with humidity until there's no more dry air to cool. They may be effective spot-cooling a small area in a large shop or warehouse where there's lots more hot, dry air for it to draw from.

You'll be "deprioritized" if you go over 22 mb in a month, in other words other users have higher priority when the network is heavily loaded. So yes, after 22 mb you can be slowed down if you're on a crowded tower. But you'll return to full speed as soon as the congestion eases. And as soon as you enter a new billing cycle you return to the same footing as everyone else. I've had Visible for several years and the only time I was deprioritized was when I was staying in a motel room in Las Vegas adjacent to I-15. During commute hours my speed slowed noticeably but was still sufficient to stream SD video.

When I drove back on US 93 past Hoover Dam a couple of weeks ago, only one of the turbine outlets was creating any disturbance in the outlet pond. They recently replaced the power turbines with ones that will work at lower lake levels, now it should continue generating power until the lake falls to 950 ft. - previously the cutoff was 1050 ft. The current lake level is 1084 ft. or 40% full with the 100% level at 1229 ft. AMSL. Of greater worry is the lake is below the level that triggers widespread cutbacks in water delivery to AZ, NV and CA. Normally the level of Lake Powell is lowered to send more water down to Lake Mead but it's also at historic lows. https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-environment/2020/08/15/lake-mead-low-arizona-nevada-water-cutbacks/5584993002/

If you look at the rest of the posting instead of just taking that sentence out of context, you'll see the OP was talking about fulltimers having a long term base they could return to instead of relying on overnight stays always being available. "Waiting lists" refers to the way the 11 co-op parks fill vacancies in their lifetime memberships and, more recently, how people are chosen to fill a vacancy at one of the limited number of annual leases or ERPU 5 year leases at some of the Escapees owned parks. All of these are such superb values that it often takes several years for someone to rise to the top of the list and become eligible for one of these. As I pointed out, Racoon Valley isn't a co-op park, nor does it offer ERPU or long term leases. Thus it's occupancy level isn't relevant to this discussion. If you want, you can get more infromation about the various types of parks in the Escapees network here: https://www.escapees.com/benefits/rv-parking/

Racoon Valley is an exception, it caters to short term visitors and unlike most Escapees parks doesn't offer long term sites. The waiting lists referred to above are for the Escapees Co-op parks which do offer long term sites using a different business model. There are several types of "Escapees" parks. Escapees RV Parks (formerly Rainbow Parks) are owned by Escapees, Inc. and with a couple of exceptions offer short term campgrounds and deeded sites within the parks. The deeded sites are bought and sold as real estate and are only for the use of the site owner, short term guests stay in the seperate campground. Racoon Valley is one of the exceptions that don't have deeded lots because Escapees bought it as an existing RV park instead of building it from scratch. Escapees Co-Op parks were the original park model, they're owned by individual members who buy a share in the co-op and get a lifetime lease on a specific site in the park. Escapees who aren't co-op members are welcome to stay on a space-available basis - when a leaseholder is away from the park they can place their vacant site in a rental pool for other Escapees to use. The Co-ops have waiting lists, where prospective members put down a deposit to join the park when a space becomes available. A waiting list is part of the co-op's business model and is what was being discussed above. Lots in the co-op park belong to the co-op and can't be bought and sold like real estate, they can only be transfered with the co-op membership. If a person decides to leave the co-op they turn in their membership and it's re-sold to the next person on the waiting list, who then gets unrestricted use of that space. When the park gets the money from the new member, they refund the purchase price paid by the departing member. Having people on a waiting list primed and ready to buy into the co-op facilitates this process.

From Park Sierra it's about a half hour to the park's south entrance near Wawona and the ski area. It's another hour or so inside the park from there to the valley floor.

The problem may not be with the battery. If it's a diesel pusher the large 8D starting battery may be too large for an automotive charger to determine when it's fully charged. The charger determines the battery is good by shutting off after the charging current tapers to zero at the end of the charging cycle and seeing if the battery holds it's surface charge. If the battery doesn't let the charger taper to zero current the charger thinks the battery has an internal short and flags it as bad. It may be the large 8D battery has enough natural leakage or normal parasitic loads on the battery are preventing the charger from tapering to zero current, thus it flags the battery as bad. Try disconnecting the battery from the RV (lift the negative battery cable) and see if the charger then says it's OK. On a seperate note, I really like WalMart's $50 Value Power batteries. They're made by the same company as the rest of their batteries (Johnson Controls) and as far as I can tell the only difference between them and the more expensive batteries is the length of the warranty and about 10% less CCA. I've had one in my toad for 3 years so far and in my gas motorhome for about a year and they're doing fine.