Boondocking Marathon...

So we made it to Tetons National Park, one of my favorite National parks. Last time we visited in 2007, we stayed at Colter Bay campground, on the shores of Jackson Lake. But, at this time of the year, the only open campground is on the other end of the park, the south end, closer to Jackson Hole. The Gros Ventre campground. This campground is a -dry- campground, meaning no hookups at all. No water, no electricity and no sewer. Water and sewer at available at the exit dump station, and you are allowed to run your generator from 8am to 8pm.

So, since we like this park so much, we tried to stay as long as possible, and for the first time test just how long the Safari Airstream can sustain two carbon based bourgeois lifeforms.

We end up boondocking for 10 days! A record for us.
So far, it looks like the black and gray water tanks are not an issue for us, even at the end of the 10 days, they were not close to full.

Fresh water and battery reserve are a different story. We did OK on fresh water, only at the very end, we started to run low. Even then, we could have pulled the trailer to the entrance of the camp and re-fill. So not much of a critical issue there.

Even though we ran the generator every day for about 2-3 hours, our batteries barely recharged enough to keep up with the electric demands. We figure that the main source of electric drain was the furnace fan. We needed to turn on the furnace to ride some of the 18F nights in the Tetons. About the morning of 7th day, when I turned the water pump to drink some water, for the first time I heard the Converter/Inverter/Charger unit alarm indicating that the 12V juice was running too low.



I fired up the generator, but after a couple of hours, it just recharged the batteries enough to put them outside the "warning" level. This prompted me to research battery charge on Airforums resource and to Google the model of my converter unit, a Parallax 7300 series.

As it turns, it is somewhat of an art to boondock and keep your batteries up to snuff. You need to develop a strategy to conserve energy.
Then, there is the "solution" side of the equation, as in upgrades and equipment to battle the battery charge war. Options are...

- Solar panels
- 3 phase smart chargers built into the RV inverter unit
- A 3 phase smart charger connected to your generator to recharge the batteries
- Recharge the batteries with your tow vehicle

The optimal option as far of less hassle and just "plug and play" is to install a new Inverter unit that has a smart 3 phase charger. My current Parallax unit charges in just one phase and it is too slow. But this options is expen$ive. About $250 + labor.

For the remainder of this trip, I decided to buy a 110V/16 amp smart 3 phase recharger that I can plug into my generator (or 20 amp camp outlet) and clamp directly to the battery bank. This type units will start with a big boost to charge the battery, then tapper off slowly to top-off the battery.