Winnefred Mulligan

Adam and I  used to live on our respective sailboats and we know a little bit about solar power. Winnefred came with a single, marine lead acid deep-cycle battery. Not surprisingly, it was completely dead. The battery compartment in the RV can only hold a single battery. We decided to go with 2 six volt golf cart batteries, wired in series, to create a 12 volt system. This is probably the most bang for the buck. I'm certainly no expert, but this is what we decided on. We mounted the two batteries in the compartment above the former battery compartment. This way we could vent the new batteries to the old compartment and feeding the wires from the old battery was only a matter of a foot or less. Like I said, we're both sailors, and we both have some knowledge about how to build a 12v system on a sailboat. We crimp, we don't use twist on connectors. The near constant motion of a sailboat or of an RV, means that those wires are moving, even if only a little. That little movemen

Since we've been here in Alaska, the weather had been absolutely gorgeous. Sunny and in the mid to upper 70's and even higher. That is, until today. Rain, gusty wind and in the 50's... More like how we expected the weather to be up here. Now we realize how lucky we have been. Adam and I got up sort of early to make it to the National Park Service Visitor Center for Exit Glacier. We were here the other day and saw that they have guided tours at 9am daily all the way up past the glacier to the Harding Ice Field. We made it in time. Well, Adam made it in time. I stayed with the dogs in the RV in the parking lot. I wasn't envious of Adam since it was chilly and rainy. He will have to post about his hike. I know he enjoyed it despite the weather. The cloud cover is too thick and our solar panels are having a tough time keeping up. We decided to move to a spot that has electrical power. There are not as many of these sites and it seems everyone had the same idea we

From the Atlantic coast of Florida, to the Pacific in Alaska and on to the Arctic Ocean in Tuktoyaktuk, we're finally back where we started, in St. Augustine, FL. Our return trip on Google Maps We drove the back roads of GA all day. Peach trees in the Georgia country side Pecan Trees Quite a few small towns You know you're in the South when you see boiled peanuts for sale! More Pecan trees It was overcast and rained quite a bit with a few rumbles of thunder. Luckily, we seemed to have missed the worst of the thunderstorms. The cloud cover helped to keep the RV cooler on the inside. The solar panels were still cranking out voltage despite the clouds - tells you how strong the sun is here in the South. We finally pulled into St. Augustine around 11pm or 12am. We passed the iconic St. Augustine Castillo. We got a lot of our stuff, but not all, and parked Winnefred. We'll be back to clean her up an

Here we are I wish I was with my parents to celebrate such an amazing milestone. "Age does not protect you from love.  But love, to some extent, protects you from age." Anais   Nin Anyway, we woke up and headed back into Lloydminster, 5 miles away. Our goal was to find a place to get our oil changed and transmission fluid changed. We let our laundry collect for a couple of days so we wanted to find a laundromat to do a catch up load.  We managed to do a load of laundry, after having to get Canadian quarters.  Canada Tire couldn't do it, their lifts could not manage our 6000 lb  motorhome. We looked around for a place like Jiffy Lube that has the pits that you drive over, not lifts. We found The Great Canadian Oil Change. Mostly, we liked the name ;-) They happily helped us out. Travis the manager, was properly impressed with our little rig so he scored points with us immediately. They checked her over, changed the engine oil and advised us against chan

At Canadian Tire, they recommended we re-tighten our lugs in 100 Km, turns out that's also the location of "The Ancient Forest." A beautiful stop along our way. The boardwalk built through the magical forest was shaded, cool and an easy walk. Amazing redcedar trees, some over 1000 years old (!). A great opportunity to stretch the legs and take the doggies for a walk. Continuing on 16 east, our route took us right through Jasper National Park, the largest national park in Canada. This big elk was strolling down the side of the road Tons of RV's on the road. Prime vacation time. All of the reservable sites were already full. The non-reservable sites were also full, with one exception. The Snare River Overflow Site. This was according to the signs as we entered the park. We took a gamble that there would still be room by the time we got there in a couple of hours. Yep, still room. The "overflow"