Sweating it out in Kingman, AZ
still stiflingly hot, and we're still in Kingman...
We don't like our decision, but we are convinced its the right one. We decided last night that staying made the most sense, even if our eagerness almost had us continue west. Something just tells us that an extra day here is worth it and that TNT is the right shop to work on the bus. We weren't even planning on hitting the grand canyon, much less touring arizona and historic route 66, but we ended up here, and ended up stumbling into this town, and across a shop that should have been closed hours before we arrived... Sometimes you listen...even if you cant yet say whether it was wise.
We spend most of the day finishing up some research, hitting the auto parts store and working on the bus. I installed the fuel filters we purchased yesterday and we crossed few more things off the list and decided to move further up the hill to the next motel over (functioning pool and all). It took us all of about 6 minutes after checking in to be immersed in the deep end of the pool, and it may have been half that long if the a/c wasn't a bit tricky to get running. Highs hit somewhere over 110degrees in the heat of the day, so we moved slowly.
Most of the afternoon we continued the research and trying to work out the kinks in our solar system. The solar is working okay- but just barely. We have yet to use anything but the fridge and the batteries are barely making it through each night before charging the next day. According to calcs, the batteries if fully charged should last us a few days off the grid without anymore sun...and sun is one thing we have had plenty of... so something just isn't right.
Also tested out the air compressor we picked up earlier. It runs great off the battery and should allow us to lower our air pressure to reduce vibration on rutted roads and hopefully to help get ourselves out should we get stuck in sand or mud (okay, the compressor actually doesn't allow us to lower the pressure...it allows us to fill them back up after).
Feeling good about our to-do list (but defeated by the solar) we have a great dinner jen bbq'd in the parking lot and then head off to bed. Tomorrow we take the bus to TNT and hopefully hit the road again.
