It was a rain day yesterday. Never saw the sun at all, and even though it stopped raining around 2pm, it was overcast and cool. July 1st and the temperature never got above 15C (60F).
Good opportunity to be able to test out Max's battery system though. We have two 100 amp hour 12 volt AGM batteries, and two 100 watt solar panels. Obviously the solar panels didn't do us much good yesterday, but even by the time we went to bed last night the batteries were still reading 12.4 volts, so lots of power remaining.
The sun is shining through some scattered clouds this morning though, so things should get back to fully charged without a problem.
Due to the weather, it was a pretty lazy day until we decided to go get some grocery shopping done. We went to a big Kaufland grocery store where there was an Aldi and a Lidl across the road. The last time I bought that nice Radeberger beer was at a Kaufland store, and I haven't seen it since. Turns out that this Kaufland store didn't have it either, so I was a bit disappointed.
Even though it was a big store, it was pretty crowded. It was pretty tough to try and keep your distance from other people, although everyone was wearing masks. Still, it was too crowded for our liking. And it takes forever for us to do our shopping because of trying to decipher the labels on the products we buy.
Because of the rain, we hadn't seen much of the city of Bocholt (pop 71,000) so we decided to head back to the same spot we had been the night before.
Good morning! It's nice to catch up on your posts and read that you are settling nicely into Max! He looks adorable, I have to say, nice and compact and with everything you need. We are now parked up in Tallinn, Estonia with Barbara as our neighbor! We have not traveled with her as you know how independent she is, but we meet up in every city. As for moseying around Germany, we really enjoyed our slow roll along side the Mosel. There are stellplatz every few kilometers and always lovely little villages to explore. A trip to the Rhine sounds lovely, too. Where ever your "winging it" takes you, enjoy!
ReplyDeleteAnd good morning to you both!
DeleteYes, we are settling into Max nicely and really enjoying him. It is such a difference to drive him compared to Sherman back in North America, Kevin said driving Max is like driving a go-cart after having driven Sherman for so long. He is very snug and comfy and has everything that we need.
We are so happy that you made it to Estonia without any issues and that you have been bumping into Barbara along the way. She was nice company, especially at "happy hour" and Oscar is such a sweetheart.
When we are down in that part of Germany then we will try and do the same, it sounds like a lovely river to follow with lots of opportunities for overnight parking along the way. We have certainly enjoyed our afternoon and evening beside the Rhine River and if we didn't have to go and find a place to empty our cassette toilet we would most likely have stayed another night here. It is into the Netherlands today. :-)
You may well find your solar also charges a bit from daylight and street lights as many new ones do.
ReplyDeleteWe will have to remember to check the input if we are ever parked under a street light just to see how much light the solar panels grab!
DeleteHow do you find your beautiful camping spots?
ReplyDeleteKevin said it takes a bit of work. There are three or four different apps that he will look at and then he checks them out the different spots on Google satellite as well. Unfortunately Google street view is almost non-existent here in Germany!
DeleteIf I had a husband who would play games I'd play cards "Hand and Foot" a form of canasta or crib. Nice you have something competatively social to do 😉 Congrats on your new ride!
ReplyDeleteWe have heard of "Hand and Foot" but we have never played it. We have friends that play the game though and hopefully we will get together with them this winter so we will learn the game then and play it throughout the winter.
DeleteWe are definitely missing our Backgammon games!