The Big One B.O.

For quite a while now, we have been thinking about taking Scout to Alaska.  The trip is a go for next summer.

Many years ago, I read the book "Airborne" by William F. Buckley.  It covers the planning preparation and trip across the Atlantic in his 60 foot Schooner Cyrano.  When communicating to the members of the voyage, they referred to it as the Big One or B.O.

From now going forward the Alaska Trip will be called the BO, in deference to WFB.

The orientation of this blog will now be redirected to cover the planning and ultimately execution of this journey.  In the past, we have used this more as a travel log of our trips in Scout.  This will cover more about Scout, prep for the journey, planning for routes and destinations and trial runs around the area to try out new modifications and equipment.

What we know about the trip so far:

This will be an extensive undertaking.  Leaving from Tampa Bay and heading to Anchorage and back will cover around 11,000 miles.  That is without adding a lot in for side trips.  At this point we plan on leaving in mid-June and returning sometime in mid to late August.

So that having been said.... we have two mods/fixes to Scout.  First, we have had trouble on and off with our Espar Diesel Hydronic heating system.  This provides our heat and hot water.  It runs off of the Diesel fuel in our main tank.  The promise of a system like this, is whisper quite heating and instant on hot water.  We have not had a huge need for this while running around Florida, due to the abundance of natural heat :) and camp showers.  As we prepare for more boondockng in cooler climates, this will be a necessity.

A few weeks ago, we took the Coach to RV World of Lakeland to have the system looked at.  They found that the main holding tank for liquid used to transfer the heat was empty.  We do not know why, but they filled it and the system seems to work.  We will be testing this extensively over the cool weather trips this winter.

The second modification is to add a shelf to our small armoir in the back of the van.  This cubby has one shelf and could use another.  Photos to follow.  We have measured the space and have cut a shelf to fit.  The project today is to mount that.

Next week we will take Scout out for a test run.  We will be heading to St. Joseph Peninsula, one of our favorite spots on the panhandle coast.