Al F

10 hours ago, Ray,IN said:

Call around to find a store selling Purple Heat.

A good idea.  Maybe just picking up 4 or 5 containers of table salt and pouring it into the tank would help.  Or picking up some water softener salt and pouring it into the tank would work.

First real winter we have had in San Antonio since 2018.  It is 11am here and still 29*, about what it was at 6am.  Supposed to be 10* or colder Tuesday morning. 

Yeah, I get the same feeling when I look at my outside temp in San Antonio, Texas (or in the Portland, OR area, or in the high desert country of Central Oregon) and see 98-102 temps.

What is the reason you are wanting to check your batteries?

Are you having a problem and are trying to find out if your batteries are good, or do you just want to check to see if the batteries are charged?

Are you planning on doing some dry camping or boondocking and want to know if your batteries are in good enough shape to dry camp with?

Any other reason?

The hydrometer is the best tool to check the state of charge (SOC).  Be sure to compensate for the temperature.  Details should have come with the hydrometer. 

However if you want to know the SOC of your batteries while dry camping you really need a battery monitor like a Trimetric or Victron 712.

One year, about 10 years or so ago, there were several places in Big Bend NP where you could walk across the Rio Grande and not get your feet wet.  No flowing water in those spots.  There was a very significant drought in the area at the time.

It is good to note that there is that the water flow in the Rio Grande stops at El Paso, TX.  All the water has been used for irrigation or drinking.  All water below there comes from recycled water out of El Paso or from tributaries feeding the river below El Paso.  The major source of water flowing through Big Bend NP comes from the Concho river in Mexico.

12 hours ago, homelesshartshorns said:

Sorry for the implication that they park was free. 

12 hours ago, homelesshartshorns said:

I hope everyone well forgive me for my excitement over a pretty cool place.  

No reason to apologize.  Being as the place is on private property it is reasonable to expect that there would be a fee for dry camping.  The place is interesting, being as you could park right on the river and it is not a far drive to what should be a pretty quiet beach, unlike South Padre Island which is quite crowded much of the time. 

It is interesting to note that a few years ago, during a dry spell, the mighty Rio Grande wasn't flowing out into the Gulf of Mexico.  You could drive a 4x4 from the north side of the mouth of the Rio Grande, across the sand bar, into Mexico.  

Back in the 1860's during the Civil War they used to sail ships up the river for maybe 50-100 miles to pick up cotton for shipment to Europe. 

32 minutes ago, homelesshartshorns said:

I agree with you, coming from an expectation of free to having to pay is a bummer for sure.

I would consider paying $10/night to park along the river there.  After all the owner has to pay taxes and upkeep for the property, so I wouldn't expect free.   

But as others wrote there are free boondock places in the area. 

5 minutes ago, RickS said:

Two of these

OUCH!  $10,900 (including the BMS)  for 600AH.   That comes out to about $1800 for each 100AH of power.  

Their website seems to state that it is $35 for dry camping, a bit expensive.   Might be worth it to view the Space X rocket launches though. 

On 1/30/2021 at 12:19 AM, sandsys said:

Unless you get a free weekly newspaper like we did. How do you stop them from delivering when they give one to every house?!!!  There's nothing like a pile of newspaper laying around your front door to say no one is home.

Linda

Those newspaper and flyers are delivered by private companies and have nothing to do with the post office.  You could talk to your local city officials and get them to ban private companies from delivering unsolicited mail. 

Three 100AH deep cycle batteries is far to little battery power to connect to a 3000 or greater watt inverter.  Four deep cycle batteries are usually used to connect to a 2000 watt inverter.  

Three batteries and a 1000 watt inverter will power a TV, cell phones and computers.  Also the 400 watts should do fine keeping those 3 batteries charged. 

What are you planning on powering with the 3000-5000 watt inverter?  

21 minutes ago, packnrat said:

it would be great if i could get a discount by paying with a check. i pay nothing by cc. just direct payment from the bank.

sad but when a check was used the cc company's had (still do) a way so the check to them is delivered late.

but as of today's date, i can not remember the last time i wrote out a check.

I bet the Credit Card companies have a kickback deal with the local postmaster to hold the credit card payments until they are past due.   🙁

51 minutes ago, Rich&Sylvia said:

Your wish was granted just last November when the Dept. of Interior released more information on the largest ever restoration bill ever signed.

DOI historic deferred maintenance news release

There were other news releases from different government agencies regarding this event.
And yes, the Trump administration was responsible - which is why there was no media coverage of the event - but none-the-less. . .

 

I sure saw a lot of media coverage about the deferred maintenance bill.  

Most interesting is that 102 Republican Congressmen voted against the bill and only 81 voted for it, while only 2 of the Democrats voted against it. 

First we always travel with full or almost full fresh water tank.  Next we stay at city park, state parks, National Forest campground and fill up before we leave.

Websites like Campendium NP, NF, RV Parks,  Free Campsites. Net and others sometimes list dumps and places to fill your water tank.  Also as Linda wrote above a number of gas stations have dump stations and water fills. 

The Escapees RV club, the owner of this forum has a website which lists thousands of free or low cost places to park your RV at and also has many listings of places to dump and fill your water tank.  You have to be an Escapees member to access and download the list.  https://daysenddirectory.com/

Excellent video from PBS TV News Hour. 

3 hours ago, Kirk W said:

While I have no experience with a composting toilet in an RV, I have been a volunteer in park locations that have fixed composting toilets and they produce material that you remove from it? In looking around the internet, I found this article on them from Gone with the Wynns that may be helpful.

EDIT: I just finished the Wynn's article and they don't address my main question either. My question is, what do you do with the liquid container waste and also with the compost that has been created, if you are on public lands or in some RV park? 

Liquid container waste:  In a RV park, dump it down a toilet in the bath house.  Dry camping with vault toilets or pit toilets, dump it in the toilet.  Boondocking, take it 50-100 yards from where people camp and scratch out a hole about 6" deep (cat hole), dump it in there and then cover it up.   About the same if you were tent camping.

Solid waste.  You only need to dispose of it every few weeks and you just bag it up and dispose of it like any other trash.   

I believe the video I posted in the reply just before this one discusses the disposal issue.  

I found this video to be very informative about composting toilets:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM71d8wMuUU

They had been using the composting toilet for about 1 year before making the video.  

4 hours ago, Stephen Ryan said:

We bought Eccotemp water heater for our RV, and it has been a dream! We fulltime in our RV, and use it on a daily basis. The only time we have issues is when the water pressure is too low, not a fault of the heater. We read reviews that complained about the freezing issue, we mounted the unit on an inside wall perpendicular to the outside wall to where it was vented. This kept the coils away from the colder outside wall, and yes it got cold this winter, and we never had one issue with freezing.

Do you dry camp/boondock with it?  How well does it work with very intermittent water flow Such as running the water for 2-4 seconds then off for 10-15 seconds then on for 2-4 seconds and repeat.  We do this when washing hands, or washing dishes.  

When dry camping/boondocking you very severely limit the amount of time you let the water run. 

The one we had, (not the one you have) the heater would start during the 2-4 seconds run time, turn off and run the 20-30 second cool down cycle, but not heating water.  When we turned the water back on the heater was still in the cool down cycle so it wouldn't re-light for a while.

6 hours ago, chuckbear said:

This is absolutely useless unless you are looking for a package with a tracking number. Chuck

You are absolutely correct.  That becomes evident as soon as you start into the "Find Missing Mail" online process. 

To report missing mail, go to USPS.com and hover your mouse pointer over the "Help" tab and click on "Finding Missing Mail".  From there just follow the instructions.

Another success story with opening an online incident for a missing package with USPS.  

Package arrived in the Dallas area from shipper in 2-3 days on 12/8, then sat at the Coppell distribution center until 12/12.  Then it was flagged as in transit to next destination.  On 12/17 at 11:30am I opened the USPS incident, then 38 minutes later at 12:08pm it was scanned in at the local post office.  Coincident or did they just "happen" to scan it in as it came off the truck????? 

Anyways the package arrived today.  

Edit:  I called it an incident report, but actually it is "Finding Missing Mail"  drop downn in the "Help" tab on the USPS.com home page. 

16 hours ago, Randyretired said:

We had a Medicare supplement plan through a former employer.  It was difficult for me to understand medical billing but my DW was having treatment at the Mayo clinic and she saw the same doctor billed under the same codes multiple times.  The billing amount was the same each time but the amount UHC paid was 3 different amounts.  Based on this I complained and after I pushed it some UHC assigned a person to go over all of UHC payments to MAYO with me.  She found numerous errors in the amount paid that amounted to several thousand dollars.  After she found these errors it had to go to a committee to be approved.  I don't remember how long that took but I believe it was 90 days for the committee and months for the review.  In the mean time Mayo was waiting to be paid.  I had to make monthly payments until UHC finally came through and I could get a refund.  The bills for this treatment were extensive and included a hospital stay.  Some of the Mayo bills were paid in full by Medicare such as the hospital stay.  Others Medicare only pays 80% then these bills were sent to UHC for their payment and we were left with a small amount to pay under this supplement.  I asked UHC for a list of what they should pay for each code billed but they never would give me that.  This is kinda of a complicated deal and Mayo's complicated billing practices made it worse.  Mayo would only have Medicare send payments that Medicare paid in full to them.  All of the Medicare payments that required additional funds from insurance were sent to us.  Mayo filled out the form for UHC and those funds were also sent to us.  We then had to pay these funds to Mayo.  Needless to say there were large sums of money going through our bank account.  Trying to keep all of this straight was crazy and nearly impossible but when the money required from us became excessive I started looking for problems.  I also needed surgery during this time and went to Mayo.  We found more UHC under payments for that.  So all of this was going on for both of us at the same time.  These UHC plans paid most of our bills and in the past when we only had minor bills and I would just pay what was billed.  I have to wonder if those bills were accurate?

The Medicare Advantage that we have now only requires a small $10 copay when seeing specialists all other medical bills are paid in full.  We have not had any problems with UHC with this plan and when the hospital makes an error and sends us a bill UHC has stepped in when requested to solve the problem.

Thanks for the info and clarification.  

My confusion stems from terminology.  That is the terms "supplement" versus "advantage".  That was the source of my question.  I think that your former employer had (has) a sort of customized plan, similar to an advantage plan, with Medicare instead of a "supplement".   

Medicare supplements (also called "Medigap" on Medicare's website) are well defined plans with letters such as  F, G, N that pays what regular Medicare doesn't cover. 

 Not to say that your former employer didn't use the word "supplement" in describing the insurance, just that it wasn't the "Medicare Supplement" plan offered to Medicare eligible people.    

For 3 or 4 years after I turned 65, my former employer had a plan similar to what you describe, that also included prescriptions.   They stopped that plan and set up a type of Health Savings Plan, (maybe it is called FSA for Federal Savings Plan?) that the company funds up to X number of dollars each year for us to select the Medicare plan that suites us.  We decide if we want a Medicare Advantage plan from whatever insurance company or a Medicare Supplement.  We also need to select Medicare prescription Plan D if we want it.  

3 hours ago, Kirk W said:

My wife was in that same boat and made the same choice. She only needs glasses to read now and is very happy with the results. She was able to pass the driver's license vision test without glasses for the first time ever. 

1 hour ago, Chalkie said:

I'm afraid I have absolutely no idea. I am retired military and at the time my provider was the USAF Academy and the surgery was done there. 

Thanks for the info.  We probably would have paid $200-$300 for the special lenses.  We felt the cost we were quoted for the new lenses was like most of what we have seen in the medical charges the last 20+ years.  The retail cost is exorbitant, but they are willing to take from 10 cents to 30 cents on the dollar from the insurance companies/Medicare. 

After all Medicare was paying for the surgery, all the extra charge would have been for the different lenses. 

7 hours ago, Randyretired said:

 We had a Medicare supplement through United Health care they were very difficult to deal with and under paid on more than one occasion.  I fought with them over payments they didn't make or shorted by thousands of dollars.  If I was persistent enough they would finally pay.  However, we now have a Medicare Advantage Plan with UHC and it is like dealing with a different company.  They have been helpful and the only problems we have had has been with the hospital billing.  UHC has even helped us with that.

Which Medicare supplement did you have?  Also curious as to what UHC under paid. 

We have Plan F though USAA.  It primarily pays 20% copay that we would usually need to pay.  Seems pretty cut and dried as to what to pay, seeming to me to be hard to under pay.