Passport America Rally Day 3 Trip to the Beach

Posted on March 25, 2015 by landyachty

As rallies go this is a little slow on the exhibitor and seminar side. (We are again combining two days into one post.) On Tuesday we started out with a coffee (hot chocolate for Miss Peggy 🙂 ) and donuts, and then went to hear Rod Coe from Yankee RV Tours. If you have ever thought about a RV tour – check out their website. Rod does it right, he gets only the best sites for RV parking, knows the best restaurants, and has personalized guides everywhere they go. He is very serious about making the tour the best you will ever do.

After listening to Rod for 90 minutes we went and did a little work at the fifth wheel, and then went to a movie. On the way to the movie we got a burger and I found there was a Whataburger in the area. We had never been to one, and boy are they good! The movie we went to is Do You Believe?. It is done by the people who did the God’s Not Dead movie and has stars such as Lee Majors, Cybill Shepherd, Brian Bosworth, and Mira Sorvino. All I can say is don’t miss this great movie!

We got back to the equestrian center and went for a ATV ride on their horse trails. We took over a mile ride, I didn’t know the trails in the woods were so extensive. We will try to take another ride and take the camera with us.

Tuesday night we had roast pork dinner with all the trimmings and it was an improvement over the chicken from Monday night. Our entertainment was Brent Burns. He is a great comedian and song writer.

Brent cutting up!

On Wednesday we again had the coffee and donuts, then again listened to Rod Coe talk about the Canadian Maritime Providences – he is that good.

Miss Peggy made mini pizza for the two of us and we went to Fort Pickens (part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore) The fort was built-in 1829 and in service through World War II. At one time 1800 men were stationed here. Lots of walking and lots of history. 21.5 million bricks were used in the construction! A single battle from the fort during the civil war is believed to be the largest bombardment in history.

A rose in the war zone.

The canons could cover the entire harbor entrance.

Miss Peggy and I spent some time enjoying the beach.

This evening we had a diner of gourmet Chinese food and it was pretty good. The evening entertainment is Debbie Owen and Tony T. The played oldies from the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. and they are pretty good.

They played and sang for two hours. We are getting to bed late tonight!

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Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Him who is the Head, that is, Christ.

Ephesians 4:15

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Moving to Pensacola Florida

Posted on March 23, 2015 by landyachty

Today is a combination of Sunday and Monday. Both days are travel days so there wasn’t much to talk about yesterday.

We started out Sunday morning going back to Orchard Christian Center in Lake City. We enjoyed a great sermon from Pastor Eddie. After having Dr. Debra give me the one-two about losing 40 pounds I didn’t get the wonderful donuts they had before the service. 😦

We planned on leaving Ocean Pond at 12:30, but after lots of goodbyes and hugs, & then emptying all the tanks on the RV, & then filling up the fresh water tank (from a very slow hose) we got away at 2 PM.

This beautiful rig pulled into the camp before we left.

What a nice paint job. Truck and fifth wheel!

Shortly after heading west on Interstate 10 we ran into some rain. And some more rain, and more rain. We had planned on overnighting at Homes Rest Area (I think the biggest rest area on I-10 in Florida), but when we stopped to get diesel and gas (for the generators and ATV) at Flying J we saw it was 5 PM and decided to spend the night. After all they had a Denny’s Restaurant on site. Flying J’s and Pilots are where we usually stop for fuel as we get a discount and there is never any problem getting in. Flying J is our favorite as they have special fuel islands for RV’s. They also have a restaurant, laundry, nice restrooms, a lounge to rest in and even showers. Here is where we spent the night, right in the pretty grove of trees. We haven’t spent a night at a Flying J in a while, and it took a little time getting used to the noise of trucks coming and going. That settled down by 10 PM. I was so tired I was in bed by 9 and even forgot to take my pills.

We got away the next morning after breakfast (remember the Denny’s?. :), I had a “healthy” Grand Slam breakfast and it was pretty good.

Our destination is Pensacola Florida and a four-day Passport America rally. Passport is the original discount RV park people. You can check them out a www.camp4less.com If you want to join (and we firmly suggest all RVers do) use our number R-0265685 and we get some type of spiffs. 🙂

Here we are all set up at the equestrian center in Pensacola;

…here is the pile of manure in front us!

They cleaned it up about 3 hours after the prison inmates shoveled it out of the stalls. Flies, Flies, Flies. Miss Peggy seemed okay about the inmates (she even wanted to take a snack over to them – but there more than 10 & we didn’t have that much snacks – besides the guys with the guns might not have liked it), but boy is she upset about the flies! Florida makes very good use of inmates and I am happy to see them out working and making a little money.

Someone ask where both sets of batteries are – look on either side of the steps. This the last photo of the inverter with the AC electrical hooked up.

Here are a few pictures of the opening diner tonight at the rally.

We hope we pick up a few pointers for our upcoming work at Franklin RV Park.

Check out our page on RV Budgeting.

Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done. – 1 Chronicles 16:8

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InstaIling the New Inverter Day 5

Posted on March 21, 2015 by landyachty

Today is our last day at Ocean Pond, the weather hasn’t been cooperating with me on the inverter project and today I put in over 7 hours. Boy am I sore.

The new battery box is now lines with plastic gator foam. You can see the new cables peeking out. It is already for the batteries.

Th batteries are installed (90 minutes later) The batteries are taller than the opening, I had to install hold downs, and the hook up of the new cables is awful as you can barely get tools into the opening.

The new batteries are installed (90 minutes later). The batteries are taller than the opening, I had to install hold downs, and the hook up of the new cables is awful as you can barely get tools into the opening.

The next job is to tackle the existing batteries.

I had to remove all the old cable and pull the batteries out. I checked them (they are only a couple of months old). The new cable is twice as big as the old ones so they barely fit. This was 90 minutes also.

The next project was to remove the existing inverter and prep the stop for the new.

As you can see they are not the same size.

I could never figure out why the old wires were not put in straight.

I had to move the battery transfer switch as I need the room for the inverter. This switch senses if the generator is turned on and turns off the shore power.

Unfortunetly, I have to unwire and reqire the entire device. Another hour.

Unfortunately, I have to unwire and rewire the entire device. Another hour.

New location, look at all the room I freed up!

Finally, with the sun setting, the new inverter is installed.

It looks like a lot of extra cable, and there is. The cable from the new batteries to the 200 amp fuse is six-foot long. The cable from the old batteries has to be the same length for proper working specs. Thus an extra four-foot of black and red cable is floating in the opening. I will coil that up and tie it to the top of the opening.

After a very quick shower we went off to the final campfire. Here are some scenes from tonight.

Do I look tired or what, it is after dark but the flash makes it look earlier.

Susan is one of the hosts at Ocean Pond.

Eleven of us were at the fire tonight. Gospel music was sprinkled in with Haggard, Cash, folk and praise & worship songs. We all had a good time.

Miss Peggy and I make blueberry and cherry camp pies for the eleven.

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“‘If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.’ Then He said to them, ‘Take heed what you hear. With the same measure you use, it will be measured to you; and to you who hear, more will be given. For whoever has, to him more will be given; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him'”

Mark 4:23-25

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InstaIling the New Inverter Day 3

Posted on March 19, 2015 by landyachty

This is where we left off yesterday. After tearing out a few more electrical pieces we went off to Lowes. The main thing I needed was a small load box.

This is the schematic for just the remote control for the inverter!

This is the schematic for the new Inverter, the old one had two wire and plugged into a outlet.

You may not notice it in the picture, but I have removed the entire main panel and lowered it 1/4 inch.

This is the small sub-panel I went to Lowe’s to get, now comes the fun. The dimension stated does not include the cover. 😦

After removing the cover and installing the breakers and ground plane plus putting in the main power input this is what I have. I then spent 45 minutes cutting the sides off the cover as you have to put a cover on for safety purposes – things don’t get easy. This will provide the circuits for all the outlets, the TV/Stereo setups, and the microwave. These are the items we want to be able to run off of the inverter when we don’t have outside AC power nor want to run the generators. I have left a 20 amp breaker open for future expansion. I have already run a separate 120 volt AC circuit just for the airbed.

I then prepped the inverter for the move tomorrow. The batteries (four of them) will tie into the little black box at the end of the 18″ red cable. That box is a DC 200 AMP circuit breaker. The control panel on the front of the inverter will be taken off and moved (via remote cable) to the main control area inside the RV.

With rain off and on today, plus the trip to Lowe’s, an electrical supply shop, a short walk, and the fruit/veggie stand we only got in about 5 hour of work.

We started the neighborhood fire at 6:45 tonight and were rained out by 7:45! We hope the rain runs its course tonight, but it is raining pretty hard right now!

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Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done. – 1 Chronicles 16:8

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InstaIling the New Inverter & Dr. Debra Visits Ocean Pond

Posted on March 18, 2015 by landyachty

(Just so you know, you can click on any picture to make it larger, you can post comments or questions at the bottom of each post, you can click on any links (in blue & underlined) to learn more, you can click on our “Travel Map” to see our journey, and you can click on “Contact Landyachty” for a direct email to us.)

After taking an extra-long walk, I started in the process of adding two new batteries and the new larger inverter.

In this picture you will see the old inverter removed (it has the fins), now comes the problem the new inverter needs twice as much room as the old one :).

To help this problem and the fact that I had to get on my hands and knees to see the gas gauge and generator controls, I decided to move them up from here (they are the two loose things)

To here:

They are now out but not moved! Why you ask – I thought this would be a 15 minutes project, just add wire and move them up four feet. Well the area above is solid wood so it took me 90 minutes to get the wires moved. I found out there are 9 wires and I don’t have 9 different colors.

Dr. Debra came out to Ocean Pond Camp at 2 PM to check out Miss Peggy, Miss Mary Ann and myself. She also brought a diet plan for me! Miss Mary Ann getting an adjustment on her knee.

Miss Peggy getting her neck worked on.

…and yes Dr. Debra likes to talk.

She brought her puppy as she on her way to Fort Lauderdale.

I started back on my project at 3:30; I finally got the generator controls installed.

This is the wiring behind the panel, what a mess! I will be rewiring it.

After another (shorter) walk we had a quick diner and went over to the community fire.

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“Your dead will live; their corpses will rise. You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy” Isaiah 26:19 .

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Landyachty – The Frugal RVers

Sitting on the side waiting for the next big adventure

Tag Archives: rv inverter

Passport America Rally Day 3 Trip to the Beach

Moving to Pensacola Florida

InstaIling the New Inverter Day 5

InstaIling the New Inverter Day 3

InstaIling the New Inverter & Dr. Debra Visits Ocean Pond