When I got home from the Starbucks last night, I crashed. I had the furnace bring the temperature up to about 25 then turned it off. I watched a movie on the laptop while running an LED light for embroidery, made supper (baked pasta smothered in oodles of cheese, yuuuuuum), set the laptop to charge in the inverter, and curled up with an ebook. It started to get chilly around 9 and I decided to retire to bed and my electric blanket instead of wasting both power and propane. I read till almost 11, feeling very cozy and warm, and turned the blanket off being going to sleep.

I’d unplugged the laptop before going to bed and checked the battery voltage; it was hovering between 11.8 and 12.0, which is a reading I don’t like to see until two nights of boondocking, and I hadn’t run the blanket yet!

I woke up around four, plugged the blanket back in, and slept for another five hours (two sleepless nights will do that for you!) with the blanket on.

When I finally got up, it was to an overcast day with sunny patches.

My solar array was pulling in just over 3 amps and my battery voltage was sitting at 13.6, which I consider a full charge but the controller doesn’t; it won’t start pulsing until I hit a voltage of 14.0. Imagine that, waking up after a night off shore power all snug and cozy in a climate that still requires me to heat and having a fresh start to my power usage!

And, just like that, the self-renewing nature of solar charging finally made its impact. It’s now okay to ‘run down’ my batteries every day and I will get a do-over every morning, even if it’s overcast. And I use so little power during the day that even on overcast days I’m likely to have enough power for the evening. It’s still much too early to make an predictions, and I desperately need a battery monitor to take some scientific measurements, but I’m suddenly very excited about heading out to the Oregon coast tomorrow for a few days of ocean-side boondocking!