On the Road: Sometimes Confused, But Never Lost: Desert Bondocking Report

There is a wonderful quiet and peacefulness about the desert. I've always been surprised that there are those who seem to fear, or are unsettled by the prospect of a desolate environment. A former supervisor (who had grown up in the urban environment) told me once that he could never live in the suburbs because it was too quiet. I asked if he really liked the sounds of police sirens and honking car horns? I told him that the only positive I could think of for the big city life was great doctors and hospitals. In the desert there is mainly only the sounds of the wind.

Here at the American Girl Mine BLM area, there are quite a few other folks. So we hear the occasional sound of generators. The good cellular signal allows modern-day telephone and internet communications. The wind drives a fair amount of dust into the air. Picking the right camp location in relation to the prevailing wind helps to avoid the dust annoyance.

Solar power with only an occasional use of the generator allows pretty much normal activity which includes binge watching Youtube videos and an hour or so a day of Dish network news. At noon time the panels are harvesting over 20amps. Charging cell phones, computers and running the mostly LED lights consumes less than that. The result is that generally batteries are charged full by sunset. Watching TV at night and using propane for cooking leaves batteries at 40-70% charge by bedtime. Making coffee or cooking with the microwave requires only brief generator usage. Replacement of our lead-acid golf cart batteries with lithium batteries would likely eliminate generator usage (except for long sunless periods).

As I expected, the limiting factor for camping with no hook-ups is is fresh water. With drinking bottled water and careful water usage (e.g., saving soapy wash water for flushing toilets and taking "navy" showers), we've found that 50 gallons of on-board fresh water can last nearly two weeks.

Running the refrigerator and water heater on propane I see as a virtual boondocking necessity. Many modern coaches come equipped with residential electric refrigerators. These are heavy consumers of battery power. My opinion is that if you must buy a coach with a residential refrigerator and plan to dry camp; the fridge should have its own battery bank; a dedicated small inverter, and correspondingly enlarged solar array. We see a number of RVs around us who have fairly large solar arrays, but are still running their generator often. Using a residential refrigerator and non-led lights is almost certainly be a factor.

Temperatures have been very pleasant with highs in the high 60s to low 70s during the day. No need for air conditioning. Night time temps dip into the mid-40s. The coach warms quickly with the morning sun and retains the warm interior temps well after dark. On the colder nights we run our Olympian Wave 8 catalytic propane heater. With its 90% efficiency, it uses very little propane and no electric power. The factory installed propane furnace consumes lots of propane, is noisy, and its fan consumes electric power. We seldom use it. We also have Mr Heater Buddy. However, we don't use it often because it consumes far more propane and since it uses open flames in a ceramic block, the smells and exhaust gases are much greater than the flameless catalytic heater.

We cook pretty much the same as when we are home in our "sticks and bricks" house. We probably don't go out to eat any more or less than we did at home. Needless to say there are compromises to be made for RV living. However, our experience is that the adjustments are minor and mostly enjoyable.