skater91

I have a 38 foot Class A diesel pusher. 100 gallon fresh, 53 gal grey, 56 gal black water. Large propane tank ?23 gallons on board, with extend a stay T. Diesel Cummins genset 7000Watts, 3 x 100 watts Renogy panels on roof. Your question depends on summer or winter. I have summered in the mountains in Colorado for a job where I had to shower 5 of 7 days, cook, do dishes, etc. off grid. If I saved the dishwater for flushing toilet, or, used a dishpan and dumped out side, I could make the 100 gallons fresh last 2 weeks. Keep in mind I don't drink water out of the tank, only for household use. I carry 5 gallon Rhino BPA free jugs for fresh water from water dispensers (filtered). 5 gal fresh jug lasts a week with me and 3 dogs. Propane tank draw was from frig/cooking/boil water for coffee and I didn't fill that up but every 3 months in warm months. I leave the hot water heater off until I want to shower, turn it on 10 minutes before, about the time it takes to get clothes laid out, brush teeth, organize what I'm taking for lunch. Even a 10 gallon water heater reservoir will heat to comfortable quickly with propane, almost like an on demand water heater. I did this for a 13 week contract, moving every 2 weeks per National forest rules, so I would drive into town to dump station and water source at the visitor center. Trash management is worth mentioning, too. Take your trash out in the grocery bags you took it out in. It is less objectionable to business owners where you might pop it in their trash can, while supporting their business. Seeing a household trash bag grates on their good will, as they feel they are paying for your trash collection. I would top up the batteries every night with a generator run before bed, mainly because the batteries were at the end of their useful life. New batteries do just fine with the panels.

Yes, and those 'crazy, out there ideas' aren't limited to people who's education should expect them to know better. I worked with an ENT doc in the mid 90's who whispered under her OR mask that HIV was being transmitted by mosquitos but the govt was covering it up. (?!?) This woman was very diligent and brilliant in specialty, but swayed by those with an agenda. Obviously, if this were true, EVERYONE would be HIV positive, and we know that just isn't the case. Another doc I was working with in the mid 80's got a needle stick on an HIV pos patient during surgery. He grabbed the electrocautery and burned the beJesus out of his finger, before we knew what he was doing (Vietnam vet surgeon). The confusion about what is 'right' and what is 'wrong' today isn't anything new.

Thanks to everyone who has posted what's going on in their corner of the world. I've been locked down in Houston, at home, off the road since the end of February. I, like DollyTrolley's doc, saw the Chinese fighting this thing, devoting massive govt resources to putting up temporary hospitals, saw videos of people falling over on streets in China, being hauled off by workers garbed in high level biohazard gear, etc. in January. The people I was working with in Oklahoma were laughing about the Kung Flu, "I'll take a shot of Jack, and be at work the next day" (?!?) I finished a job in February & hustled back Houston to get the RV serviced, unloaded and stored, getting all essentials done (doc visit, dogs to vet, etc.) shopping (yes, TOILET PAPER), before the virus was widespread here. I hope the Candians I had wine with, boondocking at Cummins(getting RV serviced) in Houston, canceled their plans for the April cruise as I suggested. Everyone in Houston did sorta good the first month or two. Week by week, more people have stopped wearing masks, gone back to bar life, eating out, crowding the Farmers market, like the virus just 'disappeared'....we see how that worked out. The parachute analogy so describes what happened- It worked, so we can take it off. Every place that thinks they are not going to have a problem, get's the problem, eventually. The young people thought it was only the old folks, now they are the largest numbers of new patients in Houston. Small towns thought they wouldn't have it, and there it is. Officials in Houston were watching the thing take off in New York when they allowed the Rodeo to take place, naively thinking that it would be contained in New York. They exposed hundreds of thousands of folks in Texas and other states that first week of the Rodeo, until they shut down the second week...when EMS and police started being admitted to the hospital. You can believe that it won't be that bad for quite a while, until it is...like last week when the Governor of Texas HAD to reinstitute more drastic measures to keep the hospitals from being unable to care for ALL patients, not just COVID infections. I've boondocked out in the National Forest quite a few times the last few years, so this is kind of like that, except at home, with TV and good cell service. I just got a contract to go back to work...I'm going, I'm not thrilled, but I'd rather be at a job and not worrying how I'm going to pay house taxes this year. This is the first time in 38 years of living in this country that I've SERIOUSLY thought about unloading the house and moving back to Canada. At least the pool of potential infected people is smaller and the resources to address a public health threat are there and being deployed. Life as we know it has changed, and will be changing more in the next year. Prior to the HIV virus, no one wore gloves for many things that involved blood or body fluids. It was seen as wasteful and unnecessary. It took a few years for people to even adopt glove wearing AFTER wide spread HIV infections, knowledge that gloves were effective to prevent transmission of blood or body fluids, and the standards of care changed to mandate it. This is where we are with masks. ...at the beginning.

I've ordered from Amazon Fresh (once), Kroger, Walmart, HEB (once) here in Houston. March and April, there were many things not filled in orders. They send you an email about 15 minutes before your pickup time showing what they were able to fill in the order and what they didn't have. Shopping online is no guarantee that you will get what you order, but I have found one hack that gives me a better chance. I always select the earliest pickup time reserved for old folks (I qualify, you do too). I'm not rousting my lazy ass out of bed for an 0700 pickup time! I want that shopper to have the first crack at everything on the shelves! So when I get there (when I GET there), I've found that more things are fulfilled in the order. There are some things that are hit and miss ordering online, so I will go in the store, avoiding weekends, the first week of the month and try to be in/out before noon. Even though one store showed a limit of 2 online, it wouldn't let me order two of one size of toilet paper. So, next best thing is order one of the 12 rolls and one of the 6 rolls. I have traveled with 3-6 months staples (rice, flour, yeast, breadmaker, oil, beans, tuna, etc.) for the past few years, so I'm still eating off reserves. I learned to store those in covered metal feed bins (Tractor Supply) in the basement after a mouse problem in the mountains in Colorado. Even toilet paper in basement will not be safe unless in a storage box. Chewy is my go to for dog food. They deliver the next day by Fedex for free if you buy the big bags, also stored in a steel covered bin. The supply chain delivery was interupted from March to now. Going forward I would plan for the supply chain SUPPLY to be sketchy. If you traveled with a couple of weeks food, you might rethink budget and storage to accomodate a bigger cushion. Just saw a video today of the potato seed farmer in Idaho dumping all the seed potatoes he couldn't sell to growers in a big pit. There is food in warehouses right now...this fall may be another story.

It will be interesting to see if the Canadians come down for the winter. There are travel restrictions on moving around in Canada right now. As of today, people from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland can now go to P.E.I. without further restrictions. Canadians from OTHER provinces must self quarantine for 14 days, including register with govt authorities, designate a person that will shop for them, etc.. Cranky Uncle Tom from Ontario got ratted out to the RCMP for jumping on the riding mower and going over to another cousins cottage to mow the lawn. RCMP did a visit..LOL He's got ONE warning, next one, he could be booted off the island.

The online reservation system is open to everyone. Pick a time, plug in a credit card, pay the money. This is a free market system. If you are OTR and know you have to be in Houston at a set time, you, too, can reserve a spot, just like I did. If they hadn't rented the RV sites, I wouldn't even have known about that option. Look on their website for RV reservation....

I think the other member is referencing not parking in state highway rest stops that would put a trucker at risk of driving over their mandated time limit. I will seek out overnight boondocking spots in towns that truckers wouldn't be welcome at because I can do that with more stealth (solar+batteries). FlyingJ rent out the RV spaces to Bobtails, that's why they never have any RV spaces available. If I stay at a Flying J, I reserve and PAY for a spot in the truck lot so that I have a guaranteed site, parked in between two professional truckers. It's not ideal, but I need to do that to load/unload RV to house when I'm off the road from working because drive to the storage lot is MUCH further. Another use for this parking spot is getting into town the night before an appointment at the Cummins shop, and being a mile away for the early am appointment. I quit trying to find a 'free' site at Flying J years ago when they started renting out the RV spots, nevermind that they are like trying to sleep at Grand Central Station. There was never a spot, no matter what time of day I went, at any Flying J. The truck lot is much less frantic, and, I'm paying, just like everybody else, so it doesn't matter if it's me or another trucker-the system is fair.

I agree with folivier on the security issue. I've had my eye on property in Southern Colorado for quite a while. A property I'd seen many months ago just came back online (Zillow) with a new (bad) description. "solar system was stolen, damage to property". Not COOL! As much as I'd like to have a remote place to myself, I wouldn't feel secure in that area now, knowing that thieves have found good loot and, like wolves, will be back because they found good loot. Even people with vacation houses have to contend with all sorts of off season thieves.

You might also ask your insurance agent what the cost of insurance would be, based on the zip code where the RV is stored. I moved storage this year (for a covered spot) and ended up paying more for insurance because RV is in Harris county, not Montgomery county like last year.

If you cannot get an Arctic Fox rig, you can still retrofit others to some degree. I had to run a pipewrap section from the rear most heater vent (propane) into the box in the bedroom where the water went into the tank under the queen bed to extend heat into that closed space. The water inlet line would freeze just where it entered the coach on the INSIDE because the carpet covered box isolated the water lines from the inside of the coach. The water lines for the 32 foot coach ran along the bottom of the wall on the driver side, also freezing up, until I lifted the board that covered them and put reflectix between pipes and outside wall. If you are not going to run water in the camper just be sure you have RV antifreeze in all the lines and you'll be okay. I drove first RV out of Alaska in -38F with lines purged with antifreeze with no problems. Water tank was inside coach under bed, so not at risk of freezing. Just flushed out lines when I got south enough for them not to freeze overnight. I wouldn't do that with the coach I have now because the water tank is in a basement compartment. Even though basement is heated by furnace running, I wouldn't expose it to those extremes, being outside the main living area. When you do get your rig set up, invest in some remote temperature monitors so you can watch temps in compartments where water might freeze. Plan on using the furnace more than heaters on really cold nights because the furnace & vents will get heat to more of the coach interior than space heaters will. You may be comfortable with a space heater, but your remote monitor may show falling temps in a critical area, like your water heater compartment. Space heaters will also fake out your furnace thermostat, causing the furnace to cycle LESS...not what you want on a cold night.

In the years I've traveled for work, including boondocking between contracts, the main reason to have a generator is to run the air conditioner, or, if you are camping in cold weather, to top up the batteries to run the furnace at night. In my first Class A used, new to me, first road trip, I was boondocked off Hwy 95 north of Quartzsite when I woke up to a dead engine battery. I was able to fire up the generator off the house batteries to run the battery charger to the engine battery, which I replaced when I got to a town. A generator is a good primary and back up plan! You can run your microwave off batteries but it really pulls a charge out of them.

Kirk, Thanks for the shout-out, back atcha!

https://abc13.com/face-mask-order-protest-coronavirus-covid-19/6277878/ People are being manipulated by someone with the money to pay for them to go raise a ruckus. The protest organizer in this video stood out to me because he's wearing a SUIT to a protest (?) in Pearland (suburb of Houston) on a day when it is 93F(heat index 103F), and, a silly pink tie. Something didn't add up. Sure enough, "Tex Christopher" turns out to be a D.C. lobbyist. Wonder who's paying him to organize and stand there in the Tx heat? https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jun/11/mayor-bowser-washington-dc-mayor-sued-over-black-l/ "The main argument in the 51-page complaint filed at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is that Ms. Bowser is violating the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution by supporting one orthodoxy over others. “The Black Lives Matter banner conveys that black people are the favored race of the city of DC, which is of course a racist contention floated by a racist Democrat who persistently refuses to think logically,” the lawsuit said. Pastor Rich Penkoski, identified as a “street preacher” is the named plaintiff in the case. He’s joined by Chris Sevier, a former judge advocate general, and Tex Christopher, a D.C. lobbyist."

https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2020/06/29/texas-medical-center-pulls-icu-numbers-from-covid-19-resource-website/ I am in Houston right now. The numbers posted by TMC, when they last did that, were 97% of ICU beds occupied in the city of Houston (the Medical Center, Harris county public hospitals BentTaub, Quentin Meese, and other private hospitals). They reported 31% of the ICU patients as being COVID and the rest non-COVID. As I expected, the next day after these stats were made public, the governor ordered a cancellation of elective surgery. That order had the immediate effect of relieving pressure on the ICU bed situation by not putting post surgical patients in beds that might be needed for COVID patients getting sicker and needing to be moved to the ICU. Beds and how sick patients are in each bed, ICU or not, is tabulated hourly by each hospital, with nurses identifying those patients who are not responding to treatment. If you have 1000 patients in a hospital, sick with COVID, but not in an ICU bed, the stats of those who take a turn for the worse, based on 1000 patients, indicates the ICU bed capacity is overrun. Particularly when you still have NON COVID patients showing up that need ICU beds (trauma, burns, accidents, complex surgeries, people not returning to breathing on their own after surgery, etc.). There is no crystal ball or statistics for medical administrators to work from, only the data from New York and other cities that have experienced their surge to date. Based on New York, I think Houston is doing much better, but ONLY because we have the benefit of watching what happened in New Yorker and learning what worked and didn't work. To those who carp about the Gov 'ordering' folks to nursing homes-the Gov of NY only clarified what is standard practice-nursing home patients go back to their 'home', just like you wouldn't be able to dump off your live-in mother or father and not pick them up when they were well enough to go home. Where else would you put them? If the hospital kept every nursing home patient that was over their acute phase and was stable for discharge they wouldn't have any beds for acute patients arriving by the hundreds. Texas Med Center stopped reporting, then reorganized daily stats to dispell confusion over ICU beds, because the lay public doesn't have the information or background to understand how raw bed numbers don't reflect historical ICU bed use in the summer vs the added demands of COVID critically ill people piled on top of those usually high numbers. I can understand why they did it-who would want to be piloting a plane with someone looking at your instrument panel mid flight and questioning your every move. But, as someone who can read the instrument panel, it sucks to now be in the dark.

ROFL!!

Don't be so sure about that....They are discovering a brain component to this infection. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/how-does-coronavirus-affect-the-brain

I have been doing contracts on the road since 2002, on my second Class A. Jobs for management level RN's are not common, but are more so than 10 years ago. Some of the jobs i walk into are chaotic, with resident staff that are 'traveler fatigued'. Mmgmt jobs above my pay grade can be worse. I had to end a job at 715 am one morning because a rent-a-mgr tried to shanghai me into doing an OR case I had no training for. You have to ferret out the reason why they need you at the job site. Best answers on the interview from mgmt are: we have a young staff who are serially pregnant (means stable work force, with ties to the area), key staff out on leave for surgery (you are just place holding til they get back. Sketchy answers involve complete loss of staff from the area, "they moved away", 'after we trained them'....they saw the writing on the wall and don't want to stay. Or, 'we have a hard time attracting staff to this locale'. There is always local staff in the area that mgmt have pissed on and won't work at the hospital, or even bring their family in for care. I peruse the hospital career page to get an idea of how many short they are in the area I work in (OR) and how long they've had positions open. Also look at ALL the positions in the area with openings. If there are ads for techs, housekeepers, anes. techs open, that tells me I will be doing triple duty when I arrive there...because RN means you do ANY job needed if there isn't a body populating the FTE, eh?