–
We slept at a rest stop and apparently lived to tell the tale. No axe murderers and no sex criminals were detected (Big Bang Theory anyone?). After a day of biting off a bit more than we could chew, we never made it to our destination. Perhaps it was the epic argument that a careful observer might have witnessed on the live feed or problem with our toad but we burned off many hours on nothing and didn't get our driving done. Last night after we crossed another time zone line and the clocks turned yet again to 9:30pm I couldn't help but to think that I was tired enough to say forget it. [caption align=right caption="South Dakota I90 Rest Area 1"]
[/caption]
The rest stop is actually not too bad once you get used to the noise. All the trucks shut down their APU's after a certain amount of time and it gets genuinely quiet for 6+ hours. We've been getting into the habit of not running the generator and air conditioners all night because it's pretty wasteful. We had become very dependent on the white noise to sleep. Instead we use a small inverter and fan, a fantastic fan and our coach batteries handle this without issue (now that the chassis alternator charges them)The problem with the toad was that we found the battery dead. In a lot of vehicles you can just plug in the brake buddy and turn the key to ACC to unlock the steering wheel and you're good to go. In our car, ACC lights up the dash like a christmas tree. Navigation is on, as is the enter climate control system. After 1.5 days of driving this completely drained the battery. To resolve this issue we unhooked the car and pushed it beside the rv to jumpstart it and then left it idling as we pulled it for a couple of hours. I also did an emergency conversion of our electric trailer brake system to toad battery charging system. We used to pull a trailer and so we have installed a nice proportional electric brake controller, complete with 12 gauge wire running back to power the trailer brakes. Our 7 way connector however did NOT have the 12v battery line connected much to my dismay. This line would be used to charge/maintain a battery in a trailer and in our case with a small adapter it would be used to keep the toad battery charged. Since it's not hooked up I abandoned plans to run the battery maintainer and just hope for the best. This obviously didn't work, so I jumped the electric brake line directly to the battery and moved the charge controller to draw on the electric brake terminal vs the 12v power terminal. It works but the voltage is still pretty low. It will also thoroughly destroy a trailer with electric brakes if it is hooked up so it's a situation that must be resolved. [caption align=left caption="South Dakota I90 Rest Area 1"]
[/caption]
The reasons for the epic argument are personal but it is sufficient to say that even when you are supposed to be having fun and travelling stress can still get the best of you. Expose two insanely stubborn individuals to that and that's what happens.
And so we move on...
Last modified: 21 October, 2014
Created: 13 August, 2013