A Wonderful Morning

Good Morning!

We are still near Libby Montana, and still having a blast. We took a couple lovely hikes, ate a small picnic, and had a lovely day of rest, during which both Morgan and I got over little bugs. (Nothing major was wrong;we were just a little under the weather.)

Thus, when this morning dawned a brisk 39°F, you can imagine, we were ecstatic! Cold is our bread and butter! (It was 51°F inside our rig.)

Calcifer and Naga shot out the door to do their morning business and were happy outside for a couple of hours .Then, our little one came back and wanted in; he had gotten wet and was chilled to the bone. :-( After a short time with the towel, and a longer time in front of our furnace vent, he was as good as new.

So, with nothing truly novel, or humorous, to share, I will take this short post to update you, fair reader, on the Almond wonder as a whole.

A non-renovated, empty Sunrader weighs in between 7k-8k lbs, depending on the model and year. This is humorous, as the axles are only rated for about 6k lbs (4k before ’85). Thankfully, starting our year (’85) they upped the back axle to a 1.5 ton, thus reaching the combined rating of 6k. All this is to give context to the following:

We, fully loaded and fully renovated(basically), went through a scale(well, two, to ensure accuracy) and found our weight to be a wonderful 6850lbs! :-D All our work improved the beast and dropped our full weight to less than an unmodified Sunrader’s empty! :-) (Keep in mind this is with 500lbs of person, dog, and dog food in the mix, not to mention our “dirty” tanks being on the full side.) ;-)

So, needless to say, we are excited about that. :)

As a side note, I was sitting near our furnace (which can raise the internal temp from 50 to 60 in 20ish min while it is 39 outside) and realized that it works in a really clever fashion. It lights a fire, and heats up a plate which air passes over to, in turn, heat the camper. So, it heats the plate until it is very hot, then puts out the flame, allowing the air to pull all the heat from the plate, only then relighting the flame and beginning the process once more.

Now, I am not that familiar with furnaces, so this might be common place, but it seemed really clever to me, and a very efficient way to not have a constant flame.

Anywho, those are just the latest things we have learned about our little camper that could.

We pray that your discoveries, this day, are exciting, and may your work prove fruitful beyond all hopes.