Sorry the blog is a day late, but we didn't have enough cell data access to post it until Friday.
Friday, John wired up the fixed panel, and connected the controller. After getting everything wired up, the controller shorted out, and started burning. The dealer told us to discuss the problem with Zamp Solar, the maker of the controller. The Zamp technician had us send him pictures of the setup to diagnose the problem. It turned out that the WEP connector between the battery and the controller had the red wire on the negative side instead of the positive, something we had figured out when the Zamp technician told us that the 'ribbed' wire on their connectors was positive. Since the controller was hooked up with reversed polarity, it wasn't covered under warranty. We headed back to Quartzite to show the dealer we bought the connector from that the polarity was backwards. They asked if we had bought the extension that had plugs at both ends. Yep. You cut them in half and then use the correct end. Of course John used the wrong end. We bought a new controller.
Saturday, we just did a small walk up along King Road. We noticed that the Immigration blimp was visible over the hills.
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| Blimp |
Then John connected the controller in, this time with correct end of the extension adapter. This time it worked, and the new panel generated power quite happily.
Sunday, we did another small walk, but this time we walked to the top of one of the small hills near the entrance of the refuge.
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| Cap rock that keeps hill from eroding |
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| Cows tongue cactus |
Monday morning we packed up everything. It was a good time to get back on power, because it clouded over, so our solar wouldn't do much. We had a concern about the softness of the area we had to go through to get out to the road, as we had a bit of problem with tire traction moving the truck the first time we went somewhere here. However, we hooked up at an angle to avoid the soft area, and Joan exercised her rules for going through spots with little traction. Once you get moving, do not slow down. It worked just fine. We stopped in Quartzite to pick up a few connectors for the solar to put the controller inside the cabinet, instead of under the panel. The controller got really dusty with the wind we had for a few days. From there we headed to Alamo Lake State Park, about 40 miles north of Wenden in Arizona. It is a nice location looking out over a reservoir on the Bill Williams River. While we were setting up, there were showers off and on.
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| Alamo Lake |
Tuesday, we walked the 2 miles along the road from the park to the Bill Williams Overlook. Bill Williams was a mountain man. He was trapping beaver in 1937 on the river named after him. He wrote a manuscript about the Navajo, Apache and Pueblo tribes, with whom he spent a lot of time. Unfortunately, it was burnt in a fire. He was also a guide for military and exploratory expeditons until he was killed by Ute tribe members in 1849.
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| Bill Williams Overlook |
The road is unusual in this part of the country as it had many deep washes to cross in a short distance, so it was built up over washes with culverts far down at the bottom of them, and guardrails. The overlook is on a spit that gives views of the Alamo Dam (alamo is cottonwood in Spanish), and of the lake. The dam is a small earthen dam.
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| Alamo Dam |
The reservoir stretches to the northeast for about 5 miles. It is a popular fishing area. While we were at the overlook, we could hear some burros in the hills, but we couldn't see them. About halfway back to the park, a trail comes close to the road. There are signs there indicating that the trail leads to a summit, where you can get cell service. We didn't bring our phones with us to check this out, so instead we headed down the trail across to the campground. The trail was well-marked with cairns spaced at good intervals.
Wednesday we did a hike that started at the boat ramp parking lot. It goes through the hilly area along the side of the lake toward the dam.
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| Heron |
At the top of one hill, we saw a bald eagle perched on a dead tree.
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| Bald Eagle |
We did the loop down to Buckskin Cove which is rated as difficult as it is fairly steep, and there is loose rock. We managed it okay. From the cove, we climbed up to the 'Summit'. At the summit, to check the cell phone service. However, we couldn't read the display on Joan's phone (it turned out that the brightness was set to the lowest level, so wasn't visible in sunlight, even though it was overcast). Near the summit we could hear burros, but again, we couldn't see where they were. When we got down to the road, we met our next door neighbours from the campground. They were heading up to the summit to do their e-mail, and told us that there was Verizon service there. They also told us that they had heard coyotes and burros in the wash behind us last night.
Thursday, we walked 2.5 miles to the other campground area in the park. As we were walking toward it, Joan caught sight of a wild burro down one of the washes. It turned out that there were two of them.
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| Two Wild Burros |
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| Artillery Peak with sun on it |
Friday morning, we packed up again, because we hadn't been able to get our reservation to go past Friday morning. While we were packing up, we heard burros on the hill south of us. It was too far to get a good picture. Coming back to the trailer, we saw a hare lope through the campground.
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| Hare |
We understood why we couldn't get reservation over the weekend when we met many trailers heading to the park. It looked like there must be a fishing derby. We stopped at Wenden, and tried to call a local RV park, but couldn't get an answer. We checked our recreation map, and found Saddle Mountain RV Park in Tonopah, about a half hour west of the Phoenix suburbs. They had space, so we headed there and paid for a week.
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