While the weather is still nice we decided to hitch up the camper for a quick trip into Iowa to try the Keg Creek Brewery in Glenwood. It's 90 miles from the farm and even though we had to jog around one detour it was an easy drive.
(Side note: My dad served in the Navy during WWII and used to say, "Red sky at night, sailors' delight. Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning." Right again dad.)
Keg Creek is relatively new and turned out to be a comfortable setting.
We were pleasantly surprised with the number of beers they had on tap and I was especially happy to see they had three stouts to choose from.
We picked up a pizza on our way into town, which was perfect with the Keg Creek beers.
Because of the enjoyable facility and selection of beers this is certainly a go-to brewery. Best of all the pints of beer were $3.50 during happy hour!
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Because I'm someone who can't leave well enough alone, I've been making some upgrades to the camper. The latest razzle dazzle in the camping world is the recent trend towards 12 volt refrigerators to replace absorption 3 way refrigerators. They are compressor driven and reportedly are roomier, quicker to cool and more efficient. Anyway, that's the claim and they have been getting good reviews. The word is that during Covid RV manufacturers couldn't get the propane refrigerators and 12 volt were plentiful. Our new camper came with a 12 volt refrigerator.
The camper also came with one group 27 FLA (flooded lead acid) battery, to which I had a second one added. We haven't fully tested the capabilities of the batteries with the refrigerator running, however I doubt one battery would keep up and even wonder about two. It seemed to me that with everything else in the camper running off these two FLA batteries when boondocking it might be a problem. So, to that end, I added two group 31 AGM batteries in parallel and connected them to run the camper.
That left me with the two FLA batteries. The other problem was no outlets to run plug in items, like the Dish satellite, when off grid. I had a barely used 1000 watt pure sine inverter sitting around and ran dedicated wires from the two FLA batteries in parallel to the inverter. It required drilling two holes to feed the main camper wiring to the AGM batteries in the storage compartment and the wiring from the two FLA batteries on the front of the camper to the inverter.
From the inverter I ran a remote wire and a power strip to an inconspicuous wall in the camper. The inverter will easily run the Dish satellite and any other plug in items, including charging the electric bike battery. I still need to clean up some wires, but it at this point it is working.
The camper came with a 190 watt solar panel on the roof and a solar plug on the frame, which will charge the AGM batteries when off grid. While I was at it I added a solar plug on the battery box for the two FLA batteries on the front of the camper.
We have two 200 watt suitcase solar panels and along with factory roof mounted solar panel that gives us 590 watts of solar. My guess is that the roof solar panel will keep the AGM batteries charged, however if we are in a shaded area I can plug in a suitcase panel on a cord and move it around.
I'm planning to take the camper out this weekend off grid and run the refrigerator, Dish satellite, television and lights to max out the system. I'll also take the electric bike out and charge the battery from the inverter. I'll see how it goes.
