general thoughts about this Beulah Valley boondocking spot
scooter offloading goat clusterfsck
So. I can’t open the rear barn doors with bike on the hitch. This makes unloading the bike something that needs doing early if I m playing to stay somewhere.
I removed all straps for the except for the one that will hold it upright when the van is parked. The carrier is locked into the receiver hitch but that can stay. The bike is padlocked to the receiver with a heavy, coated steel cable.
- I went into the van to get the padlock key, which has been on a length of paracord for several years. The paracord sheet bend had untied itself (never seen that before) and the key was missing. I mean, it’s somewhere in the rig but I don’t know where. It’ll show up.
- the other key to the padlock is in my recreational lockpicking toolbox, but it’s only accessible with the back doors open.
Grrrrr!
Luckily the pick set is stored inside where I can get to it. The padlock was in a hard-to-access spot, very low on the scooter and inside toward the van. Couldn’t get to it from above or the sides.
I unrolled a large black trash bag and used it as ground cover. Still hard to access from below, causing hand cramps and dropped lever bars. After a few minutes it make a nice THUNK and popped open. Not sure, but this might be the first practical used of my larval ‘picking skills. Everything else has been for fun and education.
With the back accessible I can retrieve the spare key. I’ll eventually run across the primary key inside the van somewhere.
solar
Yesterday I got 2.49kWh so I dropped from my “full power, kiptain” 13.8v charging profile to the normal, more-relaxed 13.6v profile.
testing the new catholer
I dug my first catholes with the mini mattock. It came in the Amazon package and is replacing my beloved full-size mattock that walked away at the last campground.
It works pretty good. According to the specs the blade is 1.57” wide; I think 2-2.5” would be better for cat-holing. Definitely takes less effort and less storage space in the rig.
rain
Weather report said possibility of rain last night so I put out my catchment. Dry as a bone.
neighbors
There’s an OHV area about a half mile down the road but the hat-on-backwards crowd prefers to rip around the boondocking spots. Better to show off the loud aftermarket exhausts, I guess. Yes, you are very cool.
meat for three meals for $1.50 each
I picked up ~2lbs of “country-style pork ribs” (not ribs, but cut in that general shape) for something like $2.40/lb. I pressure cooked them in the instant pot.
- I ate the first third last night with gravy. I was going to build a meal around it but ended up just eating that.
- this morning I deboned another third and used them for breakfast burritos with cheese, sour cream and Valentine’s hot sauce.
- I made a batch of white rice this morning for fried rice tonight’s dinner. The last deboned third will go into that.