Winter RTR 2018: lessons learned

I’ve had time to think about and integrate some lessons learned from the Winter 2018 RTR.    It's time to start documenting those lessons.

Shakedown cruise

I took 2.5 weeks vacation planned around the RTR.  I wanted to have plenty of free time and flexibility to make a comfortable drive between Texas and Arizona.

The RTR trip was the first extended offgrid experience in my van.  In total, I was off grid for 13 days.  This is important because that is the length of time I will be offgrid boondocking on BLM/NF land at each stretch before relocating.

The van is about 50% complete cosmetically and organizationally, but the basic systems are fully functional:  power, water, ventilation, heat, sleeping platform, etc.   I’ll discuss those and more in their own posts.

Spoiler alert:  everything went exceptionally well.   No crises, no drama, I had everything I needed and identified some stuff I didn’t need.  Made some mistakes and learned from them.   Hence lessons learned.  :-)