Apr 4th, bike exploring from campsite, Eclipse Trip

 
April 4th, thursday 9:30a.m. ozarks, arkansas

crawled up into bed around 8 last night.   watched more Ted Lasso reruns before falling asleep around 9.   slept solid until about 4a.m., then woke off and on for a few hours.   Lazy morning.   got up around 8a.m.    tomorrow there’s a frost warning, so I’ll have to be sure to make sure all my little water pump gadgets are run dry before bed, so they don’t freeze and break.

speaking of.   I’m loving the little usb-charged electric water pump thing for rinsing the dishes.   It’s probably meant for misting flowers/plants, but it works for me.     For me, it’s a good size, but it may be heavy for those of the tiny human persuasion.   i like when you push the orange trigger button it stays on, you push again to turn it off.   used it to mist my air popped popcorn so the nacho salt seasoning would stick.   worked great.

April 4th, thursday 5:30p.m. ozarks, arkansas

went for a ride this afternoon.   felt great to be on the bike exporing.   did a few of the side roads to see what the camps were like.   none of the camps were taken.  

i was a bit slow at times, but the new bike cranks felt great on the knees.  you wouldn’t think shortening from 175mm long to 165mm would be a huge difference, but if you add at the top of spinning the pedals and the bottom the diameter is almost an inch shorter.

i also fired up the Geyser sponge shower after getting back.   first shower since Monday morning at my in-laws.   I only have 10gallons of water, and even though it uses just 3 liters (you mix 1 liter boiling water and 2 liters room temp), but that’s nearly  ¾ of a gallon.   it adds up.   If I showered every day, I wouldn’t have enough water to last a week .   My Geyser doesn’t have the heating element.  I actually use my 1 liter electric hot water kettle to boil 1 liter of water to the 2 liters of cold to mix for the shower.

Tomorrow, I may just try boiling half a liter of water and mixing with half a liter and just use a wash cloth to clean up after my bike ride.    

i also went for a short walk this morning.   even though the gate is still locked, it’s only a 200 yard walk to an open meadow.   should be perfect for watching the eclipse.    I may fine tune my truck placement, but wind-wise it’s in a good spot.   just wish i was getting more Sun this morning for the solar to recharge the batteries .   The Sun is hitting the back of the truck this morning, so this afternoon, I should get some Sun on the panel on the front of the truck, but there are trees in the way, so I’m not sure.

 

 

 

and here’s the other half of the cracker barrel taco pancakes, reheated on my white gas stove.  it was yummy.   the new folding windscreen I bought is working well.  I just have to use a tin filled with fudge and chocolate to keep the wind from pushing it into the stove.    I’d rather use a rock, but there’s not a lot around here.

 

 

and the pellets didn’t burn down as much as I hoped they would. the tiny solo stove worked fairly well, but i’ll have to see if there’s a trick to getting the pellets to burn down to ash better. Maybe i need to get a long metal spoon so I can push the half-burned pellets to one side of the stove before going to bed.   looks like a lack of air to me.   I dumped it out into the nearby fire ring.   looks like rabbit poo.