Power from above.

OK, look out, technical post.
Putting these panels on the roof is no modest task.

They are very interesting panels, made by the now defunct Uni-Solar. They are flexible and adhesive backed, 18 feet long by 16 inches wide. They were designed to lay in standing seam metal roofing.
They're not particularly efficient but very robust with a long service life. The only way to get these panels today is to buy them from retailers who bought up big lots of them when Uni-Solar went under. Installing these panels is a bit bittersweet for me as my father absolutely loved the technology and the company. He would have loved to have had an opportunity to have some of these panels but his health failed so quickly he has no opportunity. In his last days I ordered the panels and discussed my plans for them with him, it was wonderful for him.

The first issue is that the panels are 18 feet long and the roof of the coach is only 14 feet long before the curved end caps. Now these panels are neat because they can be cut between the individual cells.
Then you can find the electrical connections in the cut ends, solder wires on and reconnect the severed piece. Neat yes, simple, well mostly. Thankfully others have led the way and done this before me and documented their technique on the web. As it always seems to be my experience was somewhat different and I did it slightly differently.

Cutting the panels were relatively straightforward, the panels are several layers of plastic with copper strips down the edges to carry the juice between the cells.. By cutting back the peel off film and exposing the butyl adhesive I was able to scrape it away and see the copper strips buried in the clear plastic. At first I began digging at the plastic to expose the copper as the others had done before me but I soon found it really difficult to do it neatly. I soon found that I could use my soldering iron to melt the plastic and cut a neat trough right down to the copper. This worked very well and very quickly. I was able to tin the exposed copper with solder very well. On one side there is a diode so you have to be careful, but on the whole it was pretty easy. Then it's simply a matter of soldering on wires long enough to connect the panels on the roof. There are a total of four connections to make so I used Rubber SJOW 4 conductor cable. Lovely stuff.

All this was the easy part.
Getting these panels on the roof, aligned properly and stuck down was a nightmare. Working alone made it nearly impossible to remove the protective backing and start the panels aligned properly. Somehow it all came together well and straight. No bloody fun though.

After wiring it all up and connecting to the batteries I was glad to see the exact same current I was getting before the surgery.
All in all a great project and I love that the panels lie flat against the roof, from the ground you can't even tell they're there.
Now I can finally cut up and burn the wooden staging I've been carting around since New Orleans!

The nation's capitol!

At the top of the Skyline Drive I ran out of national parks, well any parks at all really.
So cheap, read free, camping was going to be scarce as I pushed north. Some Googling provided an interesting option. Washington DC!
Amazingly there is a national park 12 miles north of DC. Greenbelt Park.
A fantastic spot and at $16 a night I promptly booked 8 days.
I'm to meet my client in New York in 10 days and need to finish up some programming for the latest project. So a week here fits the bill perfectly.
What wasn't so convenient was that I needed big power to run my big desktop computer and the batteries were pretty low. Running the generator was an option but everyone here is so damn quiet I hated to.
The obvious course of action was to bite the bullet and finally install my solar panels. But first I just laid them out on the ground and connected them up to get some power going.
With the panels pumping about 10 amps into the batteries I decided to let them do their work and run into DC for some sightseeing.
I've only been to Washington once before, I was 8, I remember seeing all the main sights and a great day at the Smithsonian Science Museum. I spend an hour or so cruising the National Mall from the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol. There were so many people milling about it didn't really appeal to me to park and push through the crowds. I was drawn to the long rows of food trucks though, but I opted to get back to camp and to work.
On the way back I circled around to drive by the White House. Amazingly I had been able to drive right by the front steps of the Capital building but one cannot drive anywhere near the White house.

A day or two of earnest work got me itching for some fun, and I knew just where to find it. I have a few friends in DC and that night I went out on the town with Dave, we had a great meal in his up and coming urbane neighborhood, followed by some lively drinking.

Dave is a fellow Rover enthusiast and all around great guy, a few days later he and his lovely girlfriend visited me at the campground for some late night jam sessions.

Another Rover buff and new friend David met me for a pub night and then a fun morning informal car show. Dozens of fabulous cars all gather for a few hours and chat, a really great event. His Rover is a rare factory V8 called a Stage One, beautiful.

Back in the mountains

I was determined to drive the entire Blue Ridge Parkway so after Uwharrie I went back to the Parkway and carried on northward.
Thankfully the grades were never quite as steep as that memorable first day.
I was blessed with spectacular weather making the drive simply breathtaking. I took my time and spend several more days on the parkway spending the nights at look offs. Wonderful!

As it is so beautiful I tried various camera mounts to capture the vistas, On the mirror, on the roof of the coach, even on the side of the coach which wasn't very interesting.
I find it amazing that this road was ever built, it speaks to a time when great drives were of national interest. Back when even this great expense was justifiable. I can't imagine we will see projects like this in the future. Shame,...

The Blue Ridge Parkway ends and becomes the

Skyline Drive just west of Charlottesville Virginia and I climbed back up into the Shenandoah Mountains. More spectacular mountain scenery. On my last night in the mountains I finally got the banjo out and played a few old mountain tunes. As the sun set way off in the western hills I stumbled on the words as I finally met the significance of being high in the Virginia mountains.
Geordie just howled, as he always does when I play,....

Uwharrie Safari

I pulled into the group campground and was instantly welcomed by the event organizers.
A wonderful group of Rover enthusiasts and Rover event enthusiasts!
Within hours we were on the trails.
The park has designated off road trails that are well managed and maintained partly by the Carolina Rover Owners Club, the hosts of the Safari.

I'm normally quite hesitant to take the truck off road as I've had years of experience busting my trucks and this truck must be preserved. However the organizers described the trails and without deep mud and close trees I was confident to hit the trails.
The trails were great and the weather perfect.
Back at the camp we spent the evening around the campfire making new friends.

Then the night run,...
I was treated to a ride in the "Buggy" a rock crawling, hydraulic steered, crazy articulation machine. I had the pleasure earlier of driving it off the trailer. Now we're deep into the extreme trail and powering along. Quite a ride.

More campfire, more friends, more,....local liquid specialities,...

Friday morning started with a massive community breakfast amongst the event hosts and their families. The demon chef and his cohorts offered up such delicacies as "Egg Mountain"

Then back on the trails. There is vast network of interconnected trails so even as the groups get larger there is lots of opportunity to split up and keep moving.

By evening I can say confidently that I have met, here in North Carolina, some of the finest people in the Land Rover community. Their kindness and genuine hospitality was overwhelming.

Friday evening we were treated to a Creole
shrimp boil. Fabulous. And the "Chemist", as he began to be known mixed up some splendid offerings along with some other local favorites such as "Apple Pie"!

The traditional night run was another fun ride in the buggy, open air motoring at it's best, with some fun rock climbing thrown in for good measure.

Saturday was the marathon.

Trucks were arriving in droves, this is a huge event, I took no tally, but there were well over a hundred trucks, possibly double that, with many hundreds of people.
Saturday is also the heavy trail, at first hesitant, my new friends assured me I could easily do it without damage and I have grown to trust them.
The trail began with a good steep rocky climb that tested the Rover, but I was pleased to be able to manage it easily. Several more rocky accents made the day just fabulous.

Then the big event meal and awards. A few of us had kilts so it was certain we must wear them.
I think next year the entire crew should be sporting kilts, Eh?
Dinner was an amazing BBQ pulled port and the raffle and awards afterwards were lots of fun.
I won the oldest vehicle award!

Sunday came all too soon, with packing up and goodbyes. I made some fabulous friends at Uwharrie!

 

The mountain bites back

Woke up at 5400 feet and after a lovely breakfast I did my walkabout and found a huge blister on the side of one of the coach tires. I don't carry a spare for the coach. Airstream says to just remove the wheel and carry on at reduced speed on one axle. Rather than do that I lowered the pressure and dropped over 300 feet to a little town that amazingly had a new tire.
Then climbed back up, a long slow haul.
Just north of Ashville North Carolina the Parkway was closed for a 60 mile section. This actually worked out very well for me as I had already planned to travel about three miles east to the Uwharrie National Forest for the Uwharrie Safari Land Rover Event.

I arrived a day early, so before joining the Rovers in the big group campground I spent a night at a regular campsite right on the lake. Beautiful!

Mountains

The Blue Ridge Parkway pulls no punches!

 Right from the get go uphill. Two hours of intense grade, 2nd gear, and down to 1st at 8 MPH at some points, this is a steep bloody run. But the scenery is unbelievable, The Smoky mountains are more and more beautiful as I climb, until I climb up into the clouds and can see no more than a few hundred feet. Half a dozen gorgeous stone tunnels and I'm a mile above sea level! At 5000 feet my suction cup cell phone mount fell off the dash, not enough air pressure! then when I stopped for the night at a lookoff my milk jug was about to burst! Oddly, other than my ears popping I can't sense the altitude, but 5400 feet isn't really all that high. I'm writing this at the lookoff and it's dead silent, no wind, no traffic, no noise or light at all, even as I look out across the landscape that the sign says I should be able to see Virginia I see nothing, absolutely nothing. No noise, No light, No cell service. Neat,...

Hills

I love the ocean, but I'm yearning for some hills and valleys. The sea coast, at least in the southern US means dead flat terrain, I haven't stood more than 10 feet above sea level for months. In fact I've been  5 feet below sea level for the last month! So I'm heading inland for the route back north. As a Canadian, I can only be in the US for 6 months in any calendar year so if I want to save two months for this November and December I need to be out of the country before May 10th. So I'll meander north up the Appellation trail. A continuous two lane route over the backbone of the eastern mountains. The trail is documented several places but I'm following a route recorded by Jamie Jensen in his books and website.

This road route follows very closely the actual Appellation hiking trail. The southern terminus in Atlanta Georgia, so I'm off!

It took me two days to drive the short run up to Atlanta, it simply poured rain at such a rate driving was impossible, I spent lots of time doing office work.

On the morning of the third day I woke in Athens Georgia and was finally on the trail. Truthfully, this lower section is mostly highway working up to the foothills on the Great Smokey Mountains. But the drive was wonderful none the less. The terrain became undulated with green hills and deep valleys, white horse fences and endless huge rhododendrons in bloom perfume the entire countryside.

As I crossed into North Carolina I began to get a taste of what mountain driving was going to be like with this rig. The V6 in the Rover is stout but steep grades and a heavy coach will really slow me down.

Climbing out of Franklin North Carolina I powered uphill in second gear at 20 MPH for 45 minutes! I could have gone quite a bit faster but I'm not going to remember this trip as the death of the Rover. In the lower gears the torque at the transfer case, driveshaft and axle is immense. So I'm only using about 1/4 throttle. I'm in no hurry and there's a passing lane.

 As I move into the foothills on the Smokies I can see why they're named so, it's as if there are hundreds of forest fires all over the hills, it's completely amazing!

 By 5:00 I was on the Blue Ridge Parkway and climbing,.....hard,...