Solar Scrubbing

Another great day in Arizona today.  We have had some wind and rain lately but it seems to be over for now.  Time to resume Morning Happy Hour on the deck.  Sue was the first one out this morning.  Still a tad chilly but that changed quickly as the sun peeked over the Ponderosa.

Kyra joined us shortly after and seemed to be pleased that I had put Charlies Bark Ranger badge on his collar.  I think he is pretty proud of it to because he looks like he is smiling as he walks along jingling.  That is the badge Kyra bought for him the other day at Montezuma's Castle.

The last rain we had was preceeded by a bit of a dust storm and the two together made for a lot of it sticking to everything which includes windows and of course solar panels.  I checked my amps coming in from the panels before I went up to clean them and it showed 26.4 amps.  I them went up and cleaned them with water and a squeegee and checked again --- 37.2 amps.  Now I must admit the sun may have moved slightly in the 15 minutes I was up there but I'm gonna say it made a big difference.   After I got mine done I offered to do Kyra's panels. This is the before and after pictures of her panels, which were similar to mine.

Quick clean job

before

after

We had a quick bite of lunch and headed off to old Cottonwood to explore.  Old Cottonwood is just west of Cottonwood and is done up like a 30's town.  There are lots of little shops to look at and a huge antiques store.  It had everything including the kitchen sink in it.  It looks like a small shop when you enter but it goes on forever out back.  There are about 5 more buildings out there.  Actually it had fairly reasonable prices if you were looking to do your house up in antique stuff.

Charlie and I had no interest in all the little artsy shops so we went back to the Jeep and sat in the shade and waited for the girls so we could go for dinner.  The Jeep was in one of the few shady spots on main street.

Charlie preferred to lay on the sidewalk and wait.  He hardly moved even when other dogs went by.

Finally the girls showed up and we went out for lunch just down the street.  I was a little perturbed that they had taken so long so I decided it was time that I gave Sue a darn good listening to.  Sue said "What do you mean we took a long time?  We were shopping and that is important stuff!!"  I sat quietly and ordered my lunch.

We ordered a delicious lunch and the sun shone on us the whole time we had lunch.  I forgot all about the listening to and I must admit that I do love hanging out with these gorgeous ladies.

We headed for home for a bonfire on the eve our departure for new adventures and spent a nice evening chatting around the fire.

 We chatted until we noticed the moon above the last bit of light on the horizon, so we headed off to bed.

Tonight we are camped on BLM land near Cottonwood AZ at 34.66837, -111.9620 and this is the view looking from our window.