Day 37, 38, 39 - Whitney, TX - TT

Friday (37) - After an early morning thunderstorm, I headed north to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. I started out using Waze until it put me on a toll highway. I turned off but I think I accumulated a toll of 32¢. I need to find the online site for Texas tolls. So much for Waze. I switched back to Google Maps combined with the built-in Toyota GPS. The flight was slightly delayed and Bridget said that the flights were only half full. I guess people are opting not to fly.

We stopped at Huddle House in Joshua, TX. I was expecting a copy of a Waffle House but the menu was much more extensive. The inside looked like the building used to be a Waffle House due to the layout of the tables. The food was decent.

There are significantly more RVs here today. I think that this is the beginning of spring break.

Saturday (38) - Not much happened today. I still have the tanks drain valves closed and I'm watching the levels. For all three tanks, the lower half is most of the capacity. For the holding tanks, the tanks are about 15” high and kind of "U" shaped (side profile) so my guess is that from 40% to 100% is maybe ¼ of the total capacity. With the water tank shape, the upper 50% is an even smaller percentage of the total tank capacity as it is an "L" shape and runs the entire width of the coach. Not knowing how full the holding tanks were was a big problem when we were boondocking. Less of a problem was not really knowing how much freshwater we still had in the tank.

I think that the tank monitor was only the 3rd major accessory that we added to the coach. The Progressive Industries EMS to monitor the incoming AC power, the Victron battery monitor to monitor DC power usage, and the SeeLevel II tank monitor. I'm thinking that I will still be adding some solar. I now have several ideas on how to do it without drilling holes in the roof. Unlike the 5th wheel with it's TPO roof membrane, this coach as a fiberglass shell for a roof. Drilling holes could cause cracks to form. I've come up with several solutions for mounting panels. One is a metal frame such as Unistrut that is anchored to the edges of the roof. By edge, I mean along the side and not the top. The other uses 3M VHB tape with panel mounts with a larger footprint. I'm skeptical but the spec for 3M VHB tape is 90 lbs/square inch in tension. Shear strength isn't specified.

It's 5pm now and the rain has started again.

Sunday (39) - It was 55°F this morning and it felt chilly. Since rain is in the forecast for the next couple of days, I went ahead and put the bikes away as well as the outside mat. Much easier to do it now than in the rain. Still playing with the SeeLevel II system to get an initial calibration. The black tank was at 75% which meant that the much smaller upper portion of the tank had about 3” left. That seems like a good number to consider as max. There may be enough room for two more flushes or so. The grey tank read 46%. That was  three loads of laundry, several showers, and half a dozen dish washing. We heard that the combo washer-dryer uses about 12 gal per load. So the grey tank was about 65% full.

In a few weeks we will be heading back towards AZ with 4 days of roadside dry camping along the way. It will be nice to have accurate water and waste tank levels.