Onward to South Bend, Indiana!

 Well, Monday, Sep 6th rolled around and it was time to Hitch up, Jacks up, dump, and head to South Bend, In. A company, Briter Products, that was at the Escapees rally in Rock Spring in July invited us to their manufacturing facility to help us determine what we would need in Lithium batteries and solar panels so we would be able to camp off grid (dry camp, boondock) with our RV. The process has been slow, They will start installation tomorrow (Sep 17th). 

This shows the testing phase, the two solar panels, the controller (one of the mumbo jumbo things mentioned below) is on the side of that little building looking thing! The batteries are in the front cargo hold area!

Today is Sunday, Sep 19th. Our system is installed, (2) Lithium batteries, (2) 400watt solar panels to keep them charged and a whole bunch of electronic "mumbo-jumbo stuff" in-between those two things to keep the whole thing working together without burning everything up. I thought we would be on the road today heading to Taylorsville, IL, but, alas, no. There is a converter in RV's that, as the name implies, converts shore power (120vac) to 12vdc, which the lights and motors operate on. The converter also charges the batteries, like a giant battery charger! I guess lithium batteries charge differently then standard lead acid batteries and our converter, per the P/N, was suppose to have a switch that could be switched to this setting. When it came to change that setting, that switch wasn't there. This was discovered late on Saturday (yesterday) so we have to wait till tomorrow (Monday) to find out what's going on. I didn't realize I would be spending my retirement years in an old Industrial Park parking lot in South Bend, ID!! LoL!! 

Monday, Sep20th: An update on the switch, it was was there, they couldn't see it until the manufacturer showed them where it was! We decided to spend one more night and leave in the morning!!

Solar panels getting installed on the roof (by the top of the ladder). I'm at the front checking out there work!

Some fun things since we have been here, we have visited Notre Dame University, Indiana's Dune State Park and Trinity Evangelical Free Church which I will write about in a separate post. We have also met Don (see picture below). He having some work done on his RV also. Great sense of humor!

Starr and Don. 
Also note the refrigerator, we had to put up a calendar so can keep track of the day of the week.

Avanti Lalwani & Starr, Avanti was one of the people that installed our system!
Truck and trailer are in the background, hitched and ready to head to next destination!