Out we went again this week for another overnight trip in the truck. I turned on the fridge before leaving town, so it would run on battery on the road. We got to Tupungato, in Valle de Uco, a little over an hour later and drove straight to the campground since it was already well past 7:00PM. The campground was closed because of tree spraying against bugs. I waited a while and finally they gave us access to a section that hadn’t been sprayed yet and was OK to use. We set up camp, plugged the truck to campground power, turned on the lights and … opened the fridge to get a cold beer. After all these months of work it was a small but very satisfying thing. The fridge had cooled nicely on the road, the battery hadn’t really lost much charge, and the inverter was barely warm. So it all looks good for now. We’ll have to see what happens when the weather gets really hot. The 220V charger did it’s job and slowly started increasing the amperage and charging the battery. It ran all night as this was the first really good charge of the battery. The next morning it was showing a battery charged to 90% and the charge was now set automatically at only 2A for what is called a float charge. The only problem was that I mounted that charger against a wooden panel and the panel picks up and amplifies the noise and vibration from the charger fan. All night we heard the noise quite well and our sleep wasn’t exactly the best to say the least. I’ll have to change that part of the design before we go out again. On the up side, sleeping on the foam with real sheets and a blanket was a lot more comfortable than the inflatable mattresses and sleeping bags.
The next morning rain was with us so we drove looking for fruit trees in bloom and found some. Later we drove up a track to look for a lunch spot and encountered snow. It forced us to prepare and eat our lunch in the truck: no problem. We cooked, ate, made coffee, and I used the chemical toilet for the first time. It is quite nice to have, mostly in such bad weather with no services around. When we drove away the snow storm was now in full swing but since we were gradually going down in elevation the snow turn to slush then to rain. We learned a few more lessons on this short trip and that is why we went. Our truck is every time better equipped and comfortable, and we are better prepared. Stay tuned for the next little adventure 🙂
Sin Rumbo 