Day 52 - 2019 Review (Part 1)

January - We started out 2019 in Fairbanks with very cold temperatures. We had parked the 5th wheel in Benson, AZ, and the truck at a motel in Tucson. We flew back to AZ and headed back to Valley Vista RV Park in Benson, AZ. From there we went to Quartzsite to boondock at my first hamfest. This was a get together of other ham radio operators and it was scheduled to coincide with the RV show and the gem show. Too many people due to the RV show. From Quartzsite, we headed north to Lake Havasu City, AZ, to finish off the month.

February - We headed to the marina in Needles, CA, where we spent the entire month. This statue of Spike is in the Subway sandwich shop at the north end of town. Needles is the home of Spike, Snoopy’s brother in the Peanut’s comic strip.  We are currently at the same RV park and staying for a month. The cost is very reasonable and I really like the jacuzzi.

March - After Needles, we headed west into CA. The first stop was dry camping behind the George Patton museum with trips into Joshua Tree Natl Park. Then into Palm Desert near Palm Springs. The RV dealer next to the campground is the first time we looked at used diesel pushers. While here, I flew back home to Fairbanks. After returning, we headed into the Los Angeles basin and stayed for several days near Disneyland. We spent two days in the park. The next stop was Menifee for a couple of weeks for a mini family reunion. All this time in the Los Angeles area just reinforced the idea that a one ton crew cab may not be the best vehicle to drive around congested areas. (Big surprise, eh?)

April - We then started the trek north through California and had several wonderful multi-day stops along the Oregon coast. We then headed east through Washington, Idaho, and Montana before heading into Canada at the end of the month.

May - It turns out that the beginning of May was too early for the Alaska Highway. We ended up staying in Fort Nelson for three days  while a blizzard blew through the Canadian Rockies. After that, no problems at all until we crossed the border into Alaska. One of the spring shackles on the 5th wheel broke. We had the suspension rebuilt in Tok. We arrived back in Alaska on May 8th. After only a few days home, we left for Washington D.C. for Bridget’s dads ceremony at Arlington. The month ended with the sidecar rally in Talkeetna, AK.

June - The highlight for June was definitely riding to Dawson City, YT, for the D2D non-rally. There were other things less highlight-y such as tearing out the front porch or some local Fairbanks events. And one of my last trips to Barrow.

I’ll continue this post tomorrow as it’s getting to be kind of long. 

Day 50, 51 - Oatman and Kingman

Sunday (50) - Wow! Fifty days have passed since returning from my trip to Fairbanks. I can’t believe how quickly the days go by. Almost time to head back north again.

Trying something new with the sous vide. Yellowfin tuna rubbed with salt and sugar and cooked at 120°F for 30 min. This will top a salad. Butter lettuce, small potatoes, kalamata olives, eggs, tomatoes, and broccoli with a rice vinegar-dijon herb dressing. Tuna, potatoes, broccoli, and eggs are all cooked in the sous vide.

Monday (51) - We visited Oatman again for a while as it’s on the way, via a scenic route, to Kingman, AZ. The train museum that Bridget wanted to visit was closed today  but other places were open. We went through most of the shops in Oatman but I only picked up a couple of stickers.

Upstairs of one of the shops was a small motorcycle museum. Maybe a dozen vintage bikes. Mostly HD but a few Indians and a Cleveland. Pretty nice.

“Cool Junk” would be a good way to describe a lot of the stores in Oatman. Most of the stuff was overpriced especially the antique stuff. I remember using a lot of the stuff being passed off as “antique”.

This is the electric vehicle museum in Kingman. There is also a Route 66 museum. The entry fee for these museums plus two others was $3 (senior) for lifetime admission. That’s a pretty good deal.

This Santa Fe steam engine (originally coal but converted to oil in the 1940s) is parked in front of the visitors center. Below is one of the murals and a Studebaker inside of the Route 66 museum. It was a pretty nice museum.

Today’s dinner was wonderful home-made pork tamales from the local Mexican grocery store. Very tasty! But then again, I haven’t had tamales for quite a while. We used to make them around Christmas after friends of my sister showed us how.

Day 48, 49 -

Thursday evening - It looks like it’s going to be a little wet today so not much planned for today. I took a couple of slices from the leftover roast and vacuum sealed them. Now, simply set the sous vide to 135°F again and reheat them right in the vacuum bag. It should be good for over a year.

Since it feels cold, I made some navy bean and ham soup in the Instant Pot. No need to soak the beans overnight when using a pressure cooker.

Friday (48) - Another cool (temperature) day. I think it has been raining lightly most of the night and is starting to clear. The water level in the river is a function of how much water is being released from the dams upstream than the not rainfall. The water level is even lower today than it has been before this storm came through.

These mountains are to the west and southwest of Needles. This is not the view from the RV as most of our windows face other RVs. Since there isn’t anyone next to us towards the river, we do have a view in that direction. Not complaining as this place is really quiet and has a nice pool/jacuzzi that I’ve been using just about everyday.

Saturday (49) - We went into Bullhead City to look for new curtains for the front windshield. No luck finding anything at either Walmart or Joanne’s. I guess were stuck with Amazon. We also picked up groceries including today’s experiment. Sous vide burgers. Sounds odd, at least to me, but 140°F for 22 minutes. For burgers, you can’t use the vacuum sealer so this will be the first time I’ll be using some silicone bags designed for use with a sous vide.

The burgers came out fine. Medium edge to edge and after searing in a frying pan for a minute or so they no longer looked an unappetizing grey. The silicone bags are more difficult to purge the air. I think Zip-Loc bags would work better for burgers.

The Mexican grocery store in Mojave Valley had pre-made masa for tamales. Tempting but a 5lb bag would make about 5 dozen tamales. A few more tamales than we need. The masa is the most challenging part of making tamales. At least in my opinion.

Today’s movies were Santa Clause 3 and episode 1 of Lost in Space. I think we watched Santa Clause 2 on Thursday. We are flush with streaming services. Netflix, Disney+, and Apple TV+. Disney+ is courtesy of Verizon and Apple TV+ was included with Bridget’s new iPad.

Day 47 - Convection Oven Success

The convection oven did a decent job browning the rib roast. I’ve heard that they just don’t get hot enough to brown but it did okay. Three of the courses needed to be “baked” so all of them used the convection oven. The roast was sous vide for 7 hours at 135°F then finished off in the convection oven at 450°F for 10 minutes. The baby potatoes were roasted at 400°F for an hour and the asparagus was roasted at 375°F for 20 minutes. The asparagus was served with hollandaise (not homemade).

Pretzel rolls and some Cabernet finished off our first Christmas dinner on the road. This was also our first Christmas on our own. Our Christmas tree is just behind Bridget along with some lighted garland. Dessert were items from the Safeway bakery.

The movie tonight was Santa Clause 2. I had seen the first one before but none of the sequels. 

Day 44, 45, 46 - Merry Christmas!

Monday - We went to the Avi casino just across the Colorado River from Bullhead City to catch a movie. Star Wars episode IX The Rise of Skywalker (I think). Lots of action but somewhat confusing unless you follow all this stuff which I don’t. I kept forgetting or losing track of who was who. Good movie and the casino theater was decent. Great audio and, to me, the sound system can make or break a movie.

Tuesday - Still raining in the morning. Went to the pool around 2pm and it was starting to get pretty nice. Watched A Beautiful Life on Amazon Prime video. BTW, when we arrived we signed up with the WiFi provider here at the RV park for a mere $25 for the month. For the service we are getting, it’s a good deal. At other places, we still ended up using our Verizon mobile data when things slow down in the evening. That hasn’t been happening here.

Wednesday - Merry Christmas! 

Not raining today but rather cool at only 50°F. I got a nice early start using the sous vide for a rib roast. Not “prime” but “choice”. Simple salt, pepper and rosemary for seasoning. Cut the rib bones off to season between them. Sealed it with the vacuum sealer, set it for 134°F for 7 hours. I’ll try the broiler function of the convection/microwave again but I don’t see how it’ll do it since there isn’t a heating element. It’s worth a try. 

Of course, I had to use the pool/jacuzzi this afternoon. Met another couple who moved out of Alaska about three years ago. He was also in Fairbanks at the university in the early 80s. This was after watching A Miracle on 34th Street on Disney+. I think I’ve watched more movies in the last week or so than in the past year...

Day 43 - Committed!

Convection oven cookies. Not quite as straightforward as in a propane oven. Since we are on a 30amp connection, the heat needs to be switched to propane while the oven is being used. But, it did work. This is the third or fourth time I’ve used the oven to bake cookies. The cooking time needs to be extended around 25%. I tried to use the broiler function earlier but it just doesn’t seem to get warm enough. I’ll be trying the broiler again on Wednesday to finish off the rib roast after cooking it with the sous vide. These are the ready-to-bake cookies as I don’t need to make dozens at a time.

Back in August, 2018, before we headed out on our first snowbird trip, I purchased a Thousand Trails (TT) Camping Pass with two zones. The northwest and southwest zones plus we added the Trails Collection which gave us access to the Encore Resorts. We’ve really enjoyed staying at these parks as we were able to reserve stays 60 days in advance and stay for up to two weeks at a time. Between longer stays, we had to find somewhere else to stay for a week before we could go to another TT property. Since we are planning to go further east this year, we were going to purchase the southeast zone.

In addition to the Camping Pass, they offer memberships. Since we decided that we enjoy the RV traveling and can see ourselves continuing to do it, we decided to purchase an actual membership. These are lifetime memberships but can be resold on the secondary market. They can only be sold once. If we purchased from the secondary market, we wouldn’t be able to resell at some future date. What we get is the ability to reserve 120 days in advance. In addition, we get one year of RPI membership (another campground club) and one week cabin rental per year at any TT property. We are no longer limited to the regions or zones, can stay up to 21 days and can go park to park. That last one will be important when we visit the east coast as boondocking opportunities are supposedly very limited.

With this RV, I see us in RV parks more often than not due to its limitations which, for us, is fine. Especially if we can take advantage of no-additional-cost locations. When we stay at a TT property, we don’t pay for the site and it includes utilities. In some other locations, such as here in Needles, we pay for electricity. 

Day 42 - Solstice

Saturday - No wind today and the forecasters say rain next week sometime. I went up on the roof to check out the Dicor, a self-leveling sealant, around the vents. The crank-up vent in the foreground had some small cracks in it so it needed to be resealed. Dicor needs warmer temperatures to cure so my plan was to use Eternabond tape. I still had some leftover from the solar panel installation. Extremely sticky, thick tape designed for repairing roofs. I cleaned the roof and the existing Dicor with a general purpose cleaner before applying the tape.

As you can see, I had just enough to complete the task. When it warms up a bit more, I’ll reseal all of the other vents. Something else the dealer said that they would do but didn’t. Fortunately, it’s not hard or expensive to check and reseal. And something that is supposed to be done yearly. It doesn’t look like it was done, ever...

The e-bikes were dug out and we went for a short ride around the RV park and the surrounding neighborhood. Very densely packed housing along the river. I guess everyone wants a view of the water.

Solstice isn’t a big deal around here like it is in Alaska. It being the shortest day is sort of irrelevant. It’s around -34°F back home with a high of -31°F. Not much of a difference.

Day 39, 40, 41 - Misc. Activities

Wednesday - Since we are here for a month, I’m not going to bother putting the location of the RV park in every post. Last night, it was in the high-30s (°F) so I switched to the propane furnace instead of the heat pump. The wind has died down so the jacuzzi was pretty nice this afternoon. The only other “activity” was going down to the Dollar General store to pick up some bread as we neglected to pick some up yesterday at Walmart or Safeway. We recently discovered that we can get Disney+ courtesy of Verizon so I’ve been watching The Imagineering Story. A documentary on the creative arm of Disney. And Bridget wanted to watch the next episode of the Mandalorian.

Thursday - We went to have a late lunch at Lake Havasu City to celebrate our anniversary (yesterday) and Bridget’s birthday (Sunday). The restaurant was Shugrue’s right next to the London Bridge. The food was very good and the lunch menu prices were reasonable.

We walked across the bridge and wandered through the shops waiting for dark to see the Christmas lights on the bridge and in the shopping area. It was a cloudless evening so not a great sunset though I’m glad we are no longer having high winds.

There were a lot of references to London in Lake Havasu City including this dragon. The sign said that the borders of London were marked by a “Heraldic Dragon” such as this. I thought it interesting that the red showed up much brighter in the picture than it did in real life. About half of the businesses were closed or only open on the weekend so it was pretty quiet. The Harley shop here at the bridge only sold logo-wear but there was one motorcycle in the shop. And that was there mostly as a prop in the window for their stuffed animals.

Friday - No wind in the morning and it’s supposed to get up to 66°F today. I’ve been seeing posts on FB from friends in Fairbanks with slightly cooler temperatures. Seeing those temperatures make me happy that I’m not there. By mid-afternoon, it’s 65°F. Sunny and a little breezy but nice enough to sit around the pool.

This morning, we went into Bullhead City to get a box mailed out and pick up a few groceries. I am planning to try to sous vide a rib roast so wanted to pick one up before they are all sold out. I found a modest sized one at Safeway. They had some really nice prime cut ones there for over $150! It’s rare to see prime grade in a grocery store. We actually ended up picking more than a few groceries. But that alway seems to happen.

Day 38 - A Scare Back Home, Early Christmas

I have been using Zip-Loc freezer bags with the sous vide appliance. Supposedly, they are less than optimal as they do have a tendency to break and the seals leak slightly. A vacuum sealer is what is recommended and Bridget had ordered one for me. It is the Aobosi model YVS-102. It only draws 100 watts so no problem using it off of the inverter. I’m trying it today with balsamic-sage chops. Cooking at 136°F for a couple of hours. A bit longer than the recipe since the chops are still half frozen.

We are in a 30 amp RV site which is about ¼ of the electric power capacity of a 50 amp site so we have to be careful what electric appliances are running. For example, the water heater, heat pump, and microwave/convection oven can’t be running at the same time. Maybe two high draw items at a time. This RV has a power management system that will automatically limit what can run at a given time. In general, it works as long as you know what it’s doing. For example, yesterday I ran the convection oven, when the heat pump switched on the water heater and the washer turned off.

The scare back home was that my son texted me this afternoon that the temperature in the house was 59°F instead of the more normal 68°F this morning. I called the fuel oil company and they said that there should be about 200 gallons in the tank but they will send a truck over today and fill it up. Just in case. During his lunch break, my son returned home and found the reset button on the oil burner and it started right up. The scare is that it is supposed to drop to -36°F later this week. The furnace not working would be a disaster.

Day 36, 37 - Needles, CA

Sunday - Today was a travel day. Google maps claimed 3 hrs 37 minutes but it took us over 6 hours which was a bit longer than the Garmin RV-770 GPS. The Garmin factors in reasonable vehicle speed and not just assume that you will travel at the speed limit. We will be here in Needles through the holidays until the middle of January. We stayed here last year and liked it enough to return. There isn’t much in Needles but go across the bridge into AZ and you can find whatever’s you need.

We went to the Wagon Wheel Restaurant for dinner as it was past sunset when we finished setting up. Sunset comes really early as we are just across the California border and on Pacific time. So sunset was at 4:29. After dinner, we went and tried out the jacuzzi. It was even nicer than I remembered. I think that they did some work on the pool and jacuzzi.

Monday morning - Kind of breezy today as evidenced by the palm tree in the picture. The Colorado River is literally about 30 yards from our camping spot. It's sort of the regular RV site but it's nice enough. Since we are going to be here for a while, we staked down our mat and Bridget set up her decorations. Some things with solar-charged LED lights. 

Day 34, 35 - Casa Grande, AZ

Our stay at this Encore Park is coming to an end. We can stay at Encore parks for two weeks at a time  but need a one week gap between stays. Access to the Encore parks is an add-on to our Thousand Trails camping pass. Just in the last three months, we’ve stayed 47 nights in either Encore or Thousand Trails. I’d say that we are getting our moneys worth.

Saturday - After visiting the Apple Store in Chandler, we went to Organ Stop Pizza where they have a large pipe organ (big surprise there) with a whole collection of other instruments besides the pipes. All controlled from the keyboard. Lots of percussion. There used to be place like this in Fairbanks when I first moved up there called Pizza and Pipes.

Videos are prohibited but the organ, and the person playing it, were pretty phenomenal. 

Day 32, 33 - Casa Grande, AZ

Wednesday - Today was a little bit different. On a RV/ham radio FB group, someone posted that they were snowbirding for the first time and were in Coolidge. This is the town where we stayed last year near the Casa Grande ruins. I met him in Coolidge as his wife was at her job and had the truck. We just went down the street to Macdonalds for coffee. Interesting hearing what he was running for an HF (high frequency) radio and antenna in his 5th wheel. Before we knew it, two hours had passed talking about RVs and radios.

I still haven’t ventured into HF for a number of reasons. How to mount a tuneable antenna that needs a ground plane on a fiberglass skinned RV being one reason. The picture is from last January at Quartzfest and is an example of a portable HF antenna.

Thursday - Is it odd to go to Ikea for lunch? Apparently not. There were more people in the cafeteria than there were in the store. Bridget is flying into Phoenix this afternoon and if you know me, I would rather be early than late. It’s normally about 45 minutes from Casa Grande to the airport but earlier today, Waze said 85 minutes due to an accident. There seems to be a lot of accidents around here. Just yesterday while returning from Coolidge, a pickup turned left in front of oncoming traffic causing panic stops for the cars ahead of me. The driver of the pickup was oblivious with her phone to her ear…

The Alaska Air flight was early. Picked up some coffee and waited just outside of security. Once you get into the terminal, the airport feels “small town” but outside, it’s a zoo. 

Day 31 - Casa Grande, AZ

Evening at the jacuzzi. 

Another day left on my own. So, I made another batch of cookies in the convection/microwave. It does a pretty good job as long as you are on shore power. I can’t see an electric oven being a very useful RV cooking appliance even with the generator.

Last nights cloudless skies meant cooler temperatures. Last night at the pool, it was 55°F with clear skies. A nice change from the rain and thunderstorms that we’ve been having for the last couple of days. This morning, it was mid-40s which is about 10°F colder than it’s been. Almost needed to dig out my jacket, hat and gloves. (Just kidding)

One of the maintenance projects of the day is to replace the anti-siphon valve for the black tank flush. It’s located inside of the vanity cabinet. Not the easiest to access location. I looked around locally for the part and Lowe’s has anti-siphon valves but they are designed for yard sprinkler systems. A bit overkill in both size and cost. So, I ordered the part from Amazon on Sunday evening. It arrived already in today’s mail. Time between order and arrival was less than 36 hours.

Another project was adjusting the shower door. Of course, there is no built in adjustment. But with both Lowe’s and Home Depot within ¼ mile, and a Dremel tool, no problem. A couple of SS washers was sufficient to shim the hinge to raise the door by around 3/16”. After leaving Lowe’s with the needed parts for both projects, I noticed that there was a Sonic next door to Lowe’s. I’ve never been to one before. Hatch green chile burger and diet limeade. I’d go back.

In my last post, Sonja and Michael commented about all of the maintenance and repair this RV seems to need. It is essentially a fourteen year old house that get’s driven down the road. Wear and tear is expected. This is aggravated by the quest for light weight and poor build quality of most RVs. And yes, there are a lot of mechanical systems, some more complex than needed and all of which are candidates for failure. In addition, this being a drive-able RV, it has a whole driveline that needs regular maintenance. That is one of the advantages of towable RVs such as our 5th wheel. If the truck breaks down, like it did in Redlands, CA, we still have our house. If the coach is in the shop, we have to move out of our house during the repair such as we did in Tucson. There are a lot of advantages to a simpler camper but that wasn’t what we were looking for. 

Day 29, 30 - Casa Grande, AZ

Sunday - After several weeks of having the wireless repeater for the tire pressure sensors hanging out of a light fixture, I wired it into the back of the curio cabinet and changed the curio cabinet light switch for a duplex switch. That way the repeater can be powered off when not needed.

Plus some other misc activities that seemed to keep me busy all day. Finally went to the pool after dark.

Monday - Today’s “chore” was defrosting the freezer. I think that since this fridge has an ice maker, there is more frost buildup in the freezer. The ice was around an inch thick so it seemed like it was time. I had pretty much used up most of the frozen food over the last week or so there wasn’t much in there. And, I really couldn’t go anywhere since I’m expecting a UPS delivery today. Nothing exciting, just tire covers that I had ordered last month. The heat gun made fairly quick work of the ice and now, I’m just waiting for the freezer to cool down.

Removing the built up ice from the freezer distracted me sufficiently that I had to reheat my morning coffee twice. I would forget that it was there until it was cold. Maybe I should’ve just added some ice.

The tire covers came but to install them, the coach needs to be at “ride height”. Before the slides are deployed, the hydraulic leveling jacks are deployed. Before the hydraulic jacks are lowered by the system, the air is dumped from the suspension to lower the coach. So now that we are set up, the top of the tires are inside of the wheel wells. I suspect that I can remove the covers without refilling the air bags.

I think it may be time to go to the pool before the next thunderstorm rolls in...

Day 28 - Casa Grande, AZ

This afternoon, we drove into Phoenix and it was a zoo. Bridget had Waze running to route us around the traffic jams. There was another accident just south of Chandler. It seems that everyone drives too fast around here and they like to weave through traffic. Bridget is on her way to Fairbanks for several days.

This evening, I installed a mount for the small TV in the bedroom and since there used to be a tube TV in that spot, there was a large, empty, unused space with a power outlet. I moved the printer into that space and there is enough room for paper and ink bottles. I wasn’t sure how sturdy the structure is so I added some additional reinforcement to support the TV. While I was at it, I finally mounted the Ubiquity access point and power supply. I may finally mount the radio to the ladder since there is a nice flagpole holder on the ladder. It may be easy to make it easy to rotate. 

Day 25, 26, 27 - Casa Grande, AZ

Wednesday - Continued to play around with the Sony DVD player/sound system. None of the provided remotes seemed to work. The optical audio cable work well including content with Dolby Prologic encoding. I reconnected the subwoofer and watched a movie (on cable) and the surround sound speakers and subwoofer work well in the space. More than enough volume to annoy the neighbors.

I used the sous vide to cook sweet potatoes. It came out pretty good, a whole lot better than boiling and more evenly cooked than baking.

Thursday - A few errands this morning and tried sous vide soft boiled eggs. Works alright but I think the Instant Pot works better. But, I couldn’t really follow the directions accurately. Two things I did could easily affected the result. They said to use the smallest container so the temperature could be brought back up quickly and use room temperature eggs. Both would result in slightly underdone results.

I’m at the pool again and at 71°F and sunny, it’s feeling really warm. Another volleyball game in progress the pool so I just used the jacuzzi for short periods. Cooled off at the other pool for a while.

Tonight’s sous vide experiment is burgers. 140° for 22 minutes according to the app. Then brown in a pan for a minute or so. It came out okay. I used turkey which has a whole lot more water than beef. But the texture was good and very evenly cooked.

I’ve always heard that the convection microwave doesn’t do a very good job. I tried making cookies and it did a pretty good job though the cooking time was longer. Nicely browned on the bottom. It is an appliance that is not boondocking friendly. I used it off of the generator and it draws a lot of power and takes a long time to preheat. But in a full hookup RV park, no problem.

Friday - While digging through a file box in the closet looking for the manual for the Magnum inverter/charger, I found an invoice from Ring Power in Lakeland, FL, a Caterpillar service shop, dated 7-2-19. In June, the RV was brought in by the previous owner due to low power and excessive smoke. The computer indicated low fuel pressure. The shop replaced the HEUI (Hydraulically activated Electronically controller Unit Injection system) pump and all six injectors to the tune of over $12k based on messages within the engine computer. After replacement, they tested the HEUI system and all of the injectors. So, it turns out that we have a new HEUI pump and injectors as of last July. They also installed the supplemental oil filter at the inlet to the HEUI pump. They also noted that they changed the engine oil and filters (oil and fuel) and added 8 gallons of oil. Now I know why there was so much oil in the crankcase.

I am spending most of the day waiting for deliveries. There is supposed to be an Arizona Propane truck driving around looking for people who need propane and I’m waiting for an Amazon Prime delivery vehicle. This is the first time I saw that getting it delivered by Amazon was an available option.

Propane gauge said 5/16 and he added 17 gallons to fill it to 80% of the tank capacity. So the tank holds approximately 23 gallons of propane. I just wasn’t able to find a convenient place to fill up the propane tank between Quartzsite and here so we paid a premium for delivery. Around 50% more. At the Pilot truck stop, we would have blocked in about 3 cars if we pulled up to the bulk propane tank.

The Amazon delivery truck came about 6pm. There have been numerous times when we needed a printer. Some RV parks have Internet computers and some even have printers. But since September, we haven’t been at a place with a functioning printer. I picked up this Canon G6020 multifunction printer and it has tanks of ink instead of ink cartridges. And it came with two extra bottles of black ink. The claim is over 6,000 pages per ink fill up. We’ll see how it works in real life. I have it in a cabinet above the washing machine. I just need to run an outlet strip into the cabinet.