Researching Boondocking

I’m still down under the weather with my back.  We got a little bit of rain today, not sure it was enough to settle the dust.

Since I’ve been stuck indoors a lot lately with my back I’ve been researching what is all needed to do more extreme boon docking.  I would like to head to AZ/CA this winter and do a bit more of secluded adventures.  I want to experience Quartzsite and the Slabs .  Since I found the full –time lifestyle and dreamed of full – timing i have wanted to experience Quartzsite and the Slabs.  I want to experience what it is like to be among thousands of RV’s.  I want to see Salvation Mountain by Leonard Knight.  Hubby on the other hand has no desire.  He prefers to stay secluded, yet hooked up to shore power.  That is hard to do in RV Parks.  As it never fails we find a camp site where no one is and then behold here comes a neighbor to park on top of us. 

I purchased Brian Gore RV Boon docking Tips e-book.  I haven’t read the entire book yet, just took a glance.  I have also been surfing and reading anything i can find about boon docking and what is needed to do it without difficulty. 

We can stay a few days with out shore power as we have done that before but going 2 weeks at a time?  Hmmm   Battery and water will most likely be our biggest 2 problems.  We have spent a month at a National Forest and just had water and electric.  We dumped our tanks after 17 days, but i forgot we were on conserve mode the first 2 days, we still had room in our black tank but our gray tank was reading full (it wasn’t to the bubbling stage). 

I think my biggest concern is battery because we both enjoy being on our computers.   Hubby loves to keep up with all the local and national news on the computer and i enjoy following other blogs and etc.  Our morning routine includes a couple hours of computer time for each of us.  Hubby also enjoys his TV.  He has shows on Discovery that he doesn’t like to miss.  So that would mean a couple hours of TV every night including Satellite TV and computer time for me. 

We already have a big generator, but as I've read that is considered a nuisance to your neighbors if you have any.  Plus the expense of running it.  We have a 12 volt deep cell battery in our rig right now.  It is a true deep cell as i looked it up and called the company.  Hubby measured our compartment and hubby being a welder/fabricator could easily remove the brackets and put new ones in so that we could rearrange the batteries and could add 2 more.  Giving us 3 - 12 volt deep cells.  I know everyone says 6 volt is better but hubby thinks to start out we should just stay with the 12 volt system.  To go to a 6 volt system our battery bank would have to be moved to a new compartment and hubby isn’t sure he wants to go to the trouble or expense for something we are not sure about.  I agreed.

Once we find out if boondocking is for us and we (hubby) wants to do more of it then we can check into having our system changed out for the 6 volt system with solar panels.  I agree that going to that expense right now isn’t necessary as we are not sure that we will be extreme boondockers.

We are thinking of adding just a couple of small inventors like i use in the truck.  I can take the one from the truck and then purchase a bigger one for the living room.  Hubby could run cords to the battery that could be removed when not using.  Our bedroom has a 12 volt plug where I already use the inventor from our truck when we are stopping over night to run the bedroom tv, computer or cell phone chargers. Of course this is just temporary until we find out if boondocking is for us.  Then we would have a larger inventor installed into our rig for electrical outlets. 

I know we would need to purchase the collapsible water containers. For extra water as our fresh water tank is only 45 gallons and that isn’t much.  We would use the fresh tank for showering and dishes and the portable containers for drinking and cooking.  I never use water from fresh tank for drinking.  I have for cooking when i had to, but prefer not to.  I know it’s probably safe and we do put bleach in it from time to time but i prefer water that i know comes from a clean surface.  I already have a 5 gal container that we fill and use when we are in travel mode.  For that just in case situation.