Brians Bus Adventure: My test run at roughin' it

I have been away for a little while on a mini trip into the wilderness. It was not really wilderness in the true sense as I had friendly neighbors about a quarter mile away who allowed me to refill my 5 gallon water jugs and make ice bottles in their freezer to keep eggs and hot dogs cold. But I tried to restrict myself from using those resources. I did take them up on a baked chicken dinner mid-week. It was delicious.
A guy I barely knew,Jason, allowed me to park on his land to fix up my bus. Evidently he liked my blog and he had some land that wasn't being used. In exchange I would clean up some of the leftovers of a mobile home that had been on the property. Jason is really great guy and has gone above and beyond being helpful. He even let me forage a few things out of a mobile home he keeps on a part of the land. I have a sink to install thanks to that and a set of drawers. Huge helpful items to me.
On this trip I was able to test out my new solar panels. They worked great! Not bad at all for 45 watt solar system. It took all day to recharge my two type 29 deep cycle batteries. And it was a hassle moving those big, heavy, cumbersome batteries in and out of the bus everyday. On my next visit I am going to mount panels to the roof with hardware I picked up. Then I will run wiring down into the bus. Here is a pic of the panels. They are 3ft by 1ft each.

This is the regulator that takes the solar energy and sends it to my batteries. It is showing 12.9 which means my batteries are about topped off.

These are my batteries wired in parallel to increase the amp/hours (versus wired in series, which increases voltage) Positive to positive and negative to negative with 2 gauge wire (very thick)

On my first day there, as is turning out to be typical for me, it rained. I have been waiting for a time and place to work on the bus and when I get there the rains come. No rain for the previous 3 weeks. If your area is experiencing lack of rain, invite me over, I'll bring some with me.

Before I left I snapped this shot of Oscar in his favorite viewing place. He rides down the interstate sitting up there, but the stop and go in town traffic test his balance a little too much. Make sure to wave at him if you pass us on the road.

Nala took advantage of the overgrown field to hunt something. I would only see her tail and part of her back roaming around. Whatever it was she liked it, she wagged her 'happy dog' tail when she stopped. Rabbit? Field Mice? baby snake? I'll never know.

This is a picture of 3 jobs under way. My front storage cabinet is on the saw horses, my freshly painted cabinet doors are rear left and the battery base/drawer shelf is center right.

This picture shows my shower/bathroom tent in the background. The main point of this photo is to capture my increasing carpentry skills, notice the miter cuts in the corners. I feel that home built RV doesn't mean it has to be totally rough.

Below is what as a kid we called a 'cow-killer' ant. This thing is over an inch long and moves about fast. Its abdomen actually has fine hairs on it. I think I will call it the woolly mammoth ant.

This is Mark and Brock (Tiffany, Mark's wife was absent), They are the very neighborly people who visited and allowed me to restock on water and ice.

This was my typical breakfast the first few days. egg burritos, toastchee crackers and mountain dew. By the end of the week it was peanut butter burritos and water. I will have to make better food plans.

Here is a picture of a small bonfire I made to burn my trash. I used extra wood laying around from previous mobile home pieces. You can also see my solar shower bag hanging in bathroom, as well as 'country time' toliet (old lawn chair and bucket).

I am wearing clothes. And I couldn't wait until dark so I justified that being in the shadow of the trees warranted lighting the fire.

Another interesting big ol' bug. Where were these things when I was doing elementary school bug collections.

"Damn paparazzi, I said NO PHOTOS"

These are the drawers that I harvested from the mobile home that was on bottom half of the land. I set them on top of the battery case I built. Miss Priss is testing for structural integrity.