Wacky Wanderers

exploring on the road as a family

Author: Justin

Airstream electrical system upgrade: Phase I

The electrical system that our 2018 Airstream Sport 22′ camping trailer came from the factory with was pretty basic.  It had a single open cell lead-acid battery capable of powering the lights, the furnace blower, water pump, stereo, and a few USB outlets.  However, it didn’t come with an inverter, needed to run any AC appliances (microwave, toaster, blender, etc) while off grid.  It also came with only a very basic voltage-based battery monitor that doesn’t give much information about how much battery capacity is being used or is remaining.  In this post, I’ll describe the first set of electrical system upgrades we’ve installed in the trailer.

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First weekend trip in “Wobbles” the Airstream

Our first trip in Wobbles was a one night weekend trip to Champoeg State Park, just to try things out.  The trip was great, we found a few warranty issues with the trailer, and we learned a lot.

We had a number of areas where we wanted to try things out on the first trip:

  1. Cooking
  2. Bath time
  3. Showering
  4. Movie Time
  5. Bed time
  6. Using the toilet
  7. Dumping the grey/black tanks

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Meet “Wobbles”, our new Airstream travel trailer

When I first proposed to Sarah that I quit my job to travel by RV for 6+ months, she was naturally a bit nervous.  It didn’t take long, however, for her to come around and realize the opportunity we had.  From the day that Sarah said “ok, let’s do this”, it was only a few weeks later that we found ourselves towing home a new Airstream camping trailer.  Let me tell you about how we made the decision.

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Meet our GTRV Camper Van

When Sarah and I got married, for our honeymoon we did a 3 week road trip to many of the western national parks.  We considered tent camping, but since it was our honeymoon we splurged and bought a camper van.  The van was a 2001 Ford Econoline cargo van that had been lovingly converted to a camper by its former owner, a man named Vince who we met when we responded to his Craigslist ad.  On the outside the van looked like a generic plain white cargo van.  On the inside was a simple yet very functional camper.

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Putting the career on hold to explore as a family

Two and a half months ago I put in my resignation for a job I’ve had for the past 8 years.  My last day is in about a month.

I enjoy my line of work.  I work with great people, I work on interesting problems, and my work makes a real difference in peoples lives.  However, right now given the choice of going to work 40 hours per week vs. not going to work at all, I choose the later (actually, my wife Sarah and I made the decision together).

Why?  Read on.

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