Walt's Corner

Dog Canyon Campground. The name itself instills a false sense of dread within me due to its similar name to a trail located at Oliver Lee Memorial State Park that winds up the mountains and takes you nearly up to Sunspot. A trail that took me a few times to make it up to the top – Dog Canyon Trail.

But no. This is not that Dog Canyon. This is a remote campground nestled within the north side of Guadalupe Mountains National Park (GMNP). There are two ways to get there. From a trail system beginning at the Pine Springs Campground, located just off Highway 62/80 on your way to Carlsbad Caverns from El Paso, TX. This would be a grueling ~15-mile hike utilizing the Tejas Trail.

The other way to get there is also the only way to get there in a vehicle. While physically 12 miles from the Pine Springs Visitor center, one must drive 102 miles from Pine Springs Visitor Center to reach Dog Canyon Campground, incurring an additional 2 hours of travel time.

Once there, however, you’re greeted by amazing views and weather unlike whatever area you left. Trash receptacles and water are available but no hookups of any kind. 9 tent sites and 4 RV sites. Fresh water is available at a couple locations from a spigot. Gray water can be dumped into a large wash-basin sink located next to the tent campground if you can carry it in a bucket. We reserved site RV A.

When we cleared out the Lance, it was as if we were moving out of a house. So much stuff! There was no way it was going to transfer over to the Airstream. We knew this going in. We also kept a list of things we needed along the way that we didn’t pack. We are now working off that list to make sure we have everything needed for a next trip.

No charcoal burning is allowed at any campground in the GMNP so a containerized propane grill was brought along and did the trick. Hot dogs twice and hamburgers once. Along with some potato salad I made a couple days prior to the trip.

Saturday we hiked the Tejas Trail up to where it falls below Lost Peak, about 3 miles. Once directly under the peak we left the trail and headed up (about another .2 miles), eventually finding the geological survey marker and very large cairn. From the trailhead to the peak was just over 1550 feet of elevation according to my AllTrails app. This was quite satisfying as we had not hiked that high in a couple years. Maybe more.

Sunday was another hike. This time along the Bush Mountain Trail. This one was only about 5 miles out and back and around 800 feet of elevation.

Monday was our travel day taking us back home. Leaving the site consisted of simply latching the drawers, putting chairs/table inside the van, and securing the gas cans to the cargo rack on the hitch of the van. Was pretty sweet not having to hook up a trailer anymore.

Eagerly awaiting our next adventure. Hopefully one where charcoal is allowed so I can bring the little green egg along.

Our first real camping trip in Rio Grande was at Guadalupe Mountains National Park: Dog Canyon Campground. Over the long Labor Day weekend.

No hookups. Generator hours from 8AM-8PM. A prime place to attempt boondocking for the first time where we aren’t too far away from home – just in case some things didn’t work out.

My main concerns transitioning from the our Lance to the Airstream were the tanks, solar, and battery.

Tanks
Lance had 45-gallon tanks for all three – fresh, gray and black. Airstream has 28, 19, 12, respectively. Initial edge to the Lance. Real world practice tells a different story. In all our 3-4 day camping trips, which are the majority of our trips, I never filled our fresh water tank with more than 25 gallons and I still emptied some when we were done. 28 gallons will be sufficient for most of our adventures. Black and gray tanks should never be more than your freshwater capacity anyways. When hitting multiple sites, there is always a place to dump and refill water if necessary.

The one trip a year where that might suffer will be our annual Big Bend Ranch State Park trip. Years ago we would spend 10 days in that park without needing to hook up and drive to dump/refill. We haven’t spent that many days out there for the last 4 years. We’ll manage.

Solar
Lance has 400 watts of solar while Airstream has 200 watts. Edge to the Lance. This will have to be increased. 200 watts on the Lance was sufficient when the fridge, furnace and hot water tanks used propane. 200 watts of solar was enough to charge our battery back up to 100% by the new day’s end.

The Airstream uses no propane. The fridge is a 12-volt compressor which draws 3-8 amp hours depending on how hard the compressor is running any given moment. Propane fridges barely uses .5-1.5 amp hours depending on whether it is actively burning propane for the absorption. The Airstream’s furnace and water heater is a single Timberline 2.0 hydronic unit that heats up a glycol which then transfers the heat to your water for instant-on hot water or runs the glycol through a radiator with fans for your furnace.

While the hydronic heating system uses no propane, it does use gasoline from the Airstream’s gas tank at a rate of about .18 gallons per hour when run on high. So maybe 2 gallons consumed overnight max. And from the battery, about 5 amps per hour on average. I expect to lose 40 amps hours overnight from the battery.

I will be looking into seeing how to get an additional 200 watts of solar on the roof. I know the controller can handle it.

Battery
Lance has a 200ah lithium. Airstream has a 270ah lithium. Airstream is the clear winner here in specs, but is necessary considering the draw from the battery will be considerably more than what we are accustomed to.

Summary
Even though the solar isn’t enough to charge the battery during the day, it does manage to keep the battery loss to a minimum of 5-6% loss throughout the day as it keeps the fridge and exhaust fan running.

What makes up for this is the included Onan generator. We kept some interior lights on during the evening hours. Fan on medium-high all night with the windows open. Fridge running. Fired up the Timberline briefly for some hot water. When we woke up the next morning we turned on the 3000 watt inverter to power up the Keurig coffee brewer 3 times. All this brought the battery level down to 61%, or 164 amp hours. After running the generator for about an hour, the battery was back up to 100%. That was super-impressive to me.

Next post – will be about the camping/hiking part of this weekend.

With Airstream, one can officially name their RV and have an aluminum medallion engraved with that registered name. Ours has been named Rio Grande. Fitting for our area where the Rio Grande runs through our beautiful city of El Paso, TX.

But primarily, I named it after the small shuttlecraft called a runabout from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Deep Space Nine’s first runabout was called Rio Grande. Named in honor of Gene Roddenberry who was from El Paso. This Airstream reminds of a small shuttlecraft so it only seems fitting.

On our first real camping trip in this new RV we attached the name plate. I love the reflection of the Guadalupe Mountains in our back window of this photo. More on that trip to follow in the next couple of days. Stay tuned!

Saturday was the big day! Picked up our new Airstream Rangeline. Airstream likes to put you up in a nearby RV park for your first night. How else are you going to get a proper shakedown? We did that with our Lance, but we forked over that money. AND I didn’t have the dealer at my beck and call that first night either.

With Airstream, it is truly a first-class experience from the time you step foot in their dealership until, well, seems to be an open-ended ticket for now. Andrew, the President of Airstream of El Paso, has made sure we understand that the experience does not end at the transfer of ownership. Shout-out to Andrew and John for all the assistance and answering questions. It was quite the learning experience and we are grateful for their knowledge and courtesy. Oh, and the two pups that come to greet you when you enter! Most adorable.

I am not one to camp out in an RV park for fun. Because, well, it just ain’t fun for me. I want a cool-weather camping experience, preferably next to a trail of some sort. But for this shakedown we had to compromise and set up camp in a city RV Park. In 105 degree temperatures.

With the El Paso sun beating down on your Airstream, that little 13,500 BTU AC just doesn’t cut it, especially when you have to open that sliding door up, essentially letting out all the cool air you’ve saved up inside. Turning on the coach and running that AC alongside cools it right back down pretty quick, though.

The capable (270AH) lithium battery it comes with can be monitored via the Victron app and its smartshunt. The only gripe I have is that the solar controller is not anywhere near accessible. It’s placed inside the cabinetry where you have other remove screws to take off an access panel in order to get a view of it. Makes me wonder how easy it would be to relocate it. If that’s my only gripe, I’m doing pretty good.

We were able to thoroughly put it to the test. On shore power. Off shore power. The 12 volt fridge is amazing and quite spacious for its size. City water and fresh water tank draws. Carol even tested the shower. By accident. She thought she was turning not the faucet over the fold-out bathroom sink but instead turned on the shower. I am impressed with the Timberline 2.0 Hydronic furnace used to heat up the coach and provide the instant-on hot water. Curious to see how much power that pulls at Big Bend Ranch State Park this New Years.

We are looking forward to fully testing it out over the Labor Day weekend. Until then, it rests, snuggled comfortably with a covered (5 sided) parking spot.

We’ve had some pretty harsh rains here lately, so when I saw a puddle on my front porch I thought nothing of it.

Even the next day. I came home and noticed the porch was still a bit damp with a small puddle. OK. No worries. It must have rained a little during the day.

Day three. There’s that pesky puddle. Pretty sure there was no rain. That shit should have dried by now. Closer inspection showed that it was coming from the seam of the garage on the sidewalk.

My first thought was THE ROOF! The roof is on fire! No. Wait. That’s something else. The roof might be leaking and the water is making its way down the inside of the wall separating the garage from front porch. Some bad news, indeed. The wall felt… normal. Wasn’t gushy or damp. I went inside the garage to have a look. That’s when I noticed the drip. Coming from one of the connections at the water shutoff inside the garage.

That’s some pretty good news! I don’t have to work on my roof! Simple pex and shark bite connectors. Say… I wonder if I wiggle the pex tube a little if it would settle into place and stop dripping? BAD IDEA! BAD IDEA! Now the water is spraying out. I’ve made a huge mistake. Note to self: never wiggle a dripping water line.

I run out to the water box at the edge of the driveway, pull the top off, reach in with a pair of pliers and turn the water off to the house. The spraying stops. A quick check of the time – 9:04PM – tells me that Lowes is closed. Fuck. Guess this is going to have to wait until tomorrow.

For fear of loosening up the other connectors tied to the same area as a result of me yanking the old connector off, I figured I’d replace the entire set up in that box.

Problem solved. But not before going a night and morning without running water. I can’t tell you how many times I reached for the faucet to rinse something out. Carol went to the store that night to get 6 gallons of water to hold us over. It was almost like camping. Well, tent camping. Not like our RV camping. Where we have actual running water.