Boondocking in 24 degree weather! Love Harvest Host!

Good Morning from "The Great Open Road" and Deming New Mexico. What an adventure!

As Julie wrote about in her Sunday post, Coach Addy has an Automatic Transfer Switch that is blown and needs to be replaced. We have that repair set for when we are in Boerne Texas for a few weeks visiting family. The practical side of that is that we have no shore power and no generator power (it runs but can't charge the batteries with the blown ATS) just batteries and the ability to charge them via solar and driving. So how does it all work in 24 degree weather? First we are warm, cozy and comfortable enjoying our morning coffee. Coach Addy has four, six volt deep cell batteries that provide energy to the coach. We arrived at the D.H. Lescombes Winery with the batteries fully charged via our drive from Tucson with more than enough juice for lights, internet, the furnaces and other appliances to keep us comfortable through the night. We're still showing 12.2 volts so we are still above the 50 percent mark with room to spare. Basically, all the comforts of home, just managed a lot more closely. After enjoying a fantastic Shrimp Pesto Bucatini with Hatch Chili wine for dinner in the coach, We pulled in two of the four slides to reduce the sq. footage of the coach, so less to heat, and we are now referring to that configuration as our "Arctic Package." Today we have a two hour drive to Alamogordo and White Sands National Park, so the batteries will be fully charged once again. In Alamogordo where we will be for three days, we will access have 120V electricity so we can run the refrigerator and a space heater off that thus greatly reducing our load.

About Harvest Host. We were introduced to Harvest Host by Elaine Lyttleton and Hatfield Creek Winery. Basically, it's a "Boondocking dream stay" at any of the over 4000 locations nationwide for one night. You need to have a self contained rig and the Harvest Host website works similar but easier to an AirB&B type website for reservations, many of which are made on the same day of travel. The overnight stay is free and many times there are a few other coaches in the parking lot with you. At this particular winery, they can host 17 coaches. Talk about a party! While the stay is free, the culture is to partake in the offerings of where you are staying. It may be a museum where a donation is made, a brewery where a couple of pints are drank, a dairy, where cheese and milk are bought and so on. In our case we bought 3 bottles of Hatch Chili Wine (for NM gifts) and a wine tasting. A stay at Harvest Host locations gives us a great opportunity to meet the entrepreneurs and wonderfully diverse Americans in an inspiring & beautiful setting, as we chris-cross this great country of ours on Coach Addy's Adventure. What an adventure it is! Love my Merino Wool Beanie, On to White Sands, enjoy your day! Peder