Marty's Travels

The brush around here has been getting greener. Not that you’d notice the change day to day, but in general, over the last few weeks.

Blackbirds are forming up flocks, I noted the other day. Way down in south Texas they are doing the same: the route to the polar circle takes a million minds to navigate.

I saw flowers next to the road today, they weren’t there two days ago. Lupines, mainly. This won’t be a wildflower year, but if one is looking at the subtle, it’s apparent now in the desert.

The grackles were making noise today in Blythe. They make more and more noise as the sun gets higher in the sky, culminating in the breeding season. Personally, I’ve learned that noisier grackles means more output from my solar panels. My batteries fill up far before the grackles reach their crescendo.

Spring in the desert is a real treat, look carefully to see it.

The numbers of RVs are declining fast, some vendors have pulled out, and the rock people are packing up to move to Tucson. Meanwhile there is a little tent show that’s pretty bad. It’s fascinating to see how quickly the event grows here, and how quickly it disbands.

Other than the wind storm I’m sitting in right now, the weather has been good and will be fine for at least a few more days. Right now I’m thinking about heading to Casa Grande, maybe to sit for a week or so.

Last summer I hung out with Howie and Norah while staying at Chimicum. I had some minor hand surgery done, and Howie was a great friend to accompany me during the procedure. Meanwhile he was visiting various doctors for a pain that defied treatments. When he got to California it was diagnosed as very serious.

Today he had surgery and all is well. I’m looking forward to meeting up with them.

Folk were leaving our gathering spot and I was getting antsy for a change in scenery, so I moved “into town” near the big tent. This is a different Quartzsite “experience”: much more crowded and busy, but within walking distance of the sights. I’m thinking this is one of those things I did once, just to say I did.

My power problems are dramatically better since I took out the bad bank of batteries. Everything is running as intended now. I put in a meter to monitor usage “real-time” in an effort to reduce my consumption even more. It’s not that I need to, I’ve got a thing about making every electron do something useful.

The weather is still favorable, and my permit is good until next week, so I’m sitting here for a while.

Another complicating factor when replacing incandescent lamps with LEDs is light output. If you need to replace an incandescent in your RV, just buy a replacement and all is well. Not so with LEDs.

LEDs are made with varying light output. You are used to this with household bulbs when you select a 40 watt, 60 watt, or 100 watt bulb. But wattage doesn’t make sense with LEDs, what you want to watch is the light output measured in lumens. Unfortunately, incandescent bulbs aren’t labeled with their light output, so some searching on the web is needed to determine what it is you are replacing. Then check to see if the LED is putting out roughly the same light, measured in lumens.

If you think this is complicated, here’s another angle: 12 volt incandescent bulbs have a specified light output (lumens) but that’s only good for short time. In just a bit of time the output drops by as much as 50%. So, when you put in a LED you’ll notice the light is brighter than what you were used to. Therefore, don’t be concerned if the LED is specified at 20-25% lower in lumens than the incandescent because the result will be a closer match to what you had become used to. The LEDs will not degrade in light output over their life.

That’s it from me on LED lamps. The price is dropping very fast which is good news. Power consumption is a fraction of the incandescents making dry camping easier. The downside is the complexity in matching what you have and like.

I’ve been fighting power problems the last couple of months, primarily erratic voltages and low batteries in the morning. I found some loose connections in the system, and searched for unexpected loads. Yesterday I used the hydrometer on the batteries and found one bank (out of three) in bad trouble. I took the bank out of the system and things instantly went back to normal. I’ll see how things are in the morning, then investigate further into the problem.

The batteries are almost five years old, a little soon to have a failure with the Trojans.

Two years ago I added a third battery bank to make life a bit easier during the two months when the daylight hours are so few, so I can get along just fine now without one bank.

After hanging around a bunch of sale racks puzzling over LED lamps I’ve overheard many descriptions of what people want in terms of color balance from their light “bulbs”. No one wants the “bright, white, flourescent-like” color, but when they describe what they do want it’s almost always incomprehensible. We are terrible at describing colors.

The sunrises and sunsets in the south are astoundingly beautiful, and after five years of seeing them they are still new and different to me. Take this morning for instance. Steve was out taking pictures of it, and the morning walkers on the road stopped and stared in awe. I tried to figure out what the names of the colors were I was witnessing, and was positive I was looking at colors I had never seen before. Every printer, photographer, painter, and graphic artist will claim they have control of every color possible, but they can’t reproduce the sun’s light in the desert.

Back to LEDs. Even though there is no way to consistently describe the color of light that everyone understands, manufacturers of lighting try anyway. White, cool white, warm white, and natural light are terms frequently encountered. But one can also find color balance defined as 3200K, 4700K, and 6500K. It’s a rather esoteric measure of color to describe it as “3200 degrees Kelvin” when most of us have no idea how color can be measured in degrees like Fahrenheit. It can’t possibly be related to degrees on a compass, and what the heck is a Kelvin?

The lower the number, the more yellow it is. High numbers indicate white.

If the label says Cool, it’s whiter. Warm means more yellow. That’s OK, until you encounter “Natural” light. The sunrise this morning certainly was natural, but it absolutely did not include “Normal” colors. “Natural” as used by manufacturers seems to me to be somewhere between cool and warm, somewhere about 4500-5000K. And 4752K is not how I’d describe the sunrise this morning.

If you are replacing incandescent bulbs (cuts your energy usage by 90%) you probably will be happier with the warm or low Kelvin numbers.

Q reminds me of the markets that gathered as the camel caravans moved between Persia and China a thousand years ago. Roaming vendors sell anything you can think of out of trailers and Rvs, sometimes even something you actually want or need. There are several venues in Q, today I did a walk-through of the Tyson Wells gathering.

I found a couple of things at bargain prices. I’m familiar with the stuff that’s available here so I keep a Q list of things I’d like that I know is here and will be found at low prices.

Several of my friends have pulled out to be encountered again somewhere in the country over the next year, but a few remain. The weather is splendid, couldn’t ask for any better.

I took another run through the big tent this morning and concluded I’ve seen everything there. LED lamps (for Rvs) are real big this year, as are single-panel solar kits which are over-priced and under-powered. I was interested in the lamps, and found about eight vendors.

The biggest vendor was selling an OK product at about $20 each; some were selling at $25, and I found one at $15. Prices are approximate for a typical unit. I picked up a couple at a good price and might go back for another couple later. Otherwise I’m done with the tent.

I bought another permit today good for 2 weeks, so I’ll be here a while. I’m chasing an electrical problem that showed up the other day; somehow I have a draw on my batteries I’m not used to.

The wind is blowing and the dust flying today, but we had a pretty good run of weather for the reunion. Folk will start dribbling out tomorrow, but a few of us will be around for a while longer to take in the tent show and other events.

We had a good time. All told our group was 40 people. There was a lot of catching up and comparing travel plans, remembering those we’ve lost, swapping gossip on those that couldn’t make it, and plenty of good food and drink.

The weather forecast is favorable for a while, so I’m looking forward to a longer stay here.