Lake Havasu

As we settled into our temporary neighborhood in Lake Havasu City, AZ, we still had to figure out our refrigerator situation.  We were down one fridge and only the truck refrigerator was working properly.  Jacob had to order a specific 60amp inline fuse for our 1000W inverter to complete our camper refrigerator project.  Fortunately Amazon has hub lockers all over the country and there were two available locations for us to have items shipped to an Amazon locker in Havasu.  We used the heck out of those lockers while in Havasu; it was certainly an adjustment as we transitioned from a permanent address to no address.  Side note – Amazon hub lockers are only available if the item is small enough to fit inside a locker.  Nonetheless, still a convenient solution when needing items in a pinch.

Lake Havasu Sunset

After picking up the inline fuse to complete our refrigerator project, we installed the fuse and tried turning the refrigerator on.  Nothing.  Turned the inverter on and off, still nothing.  Both confused, wondering why our refrigerator wouldn’t work after going through all the trouble with tapping into the wire and connecting to the inverter.  Our brother-in-law Tim suggested plugging the main cord of the refrigerator into an extension cord and running the extension cord straight to our inverter to prevent any back loading.  So we made a special trip to Lowes (on the other side of town) and bought ourselves a nice extension cord plug.  After removing the T-Taps and installing the new plug to our extension cord we plugged the refrigerator into the inverter.  Still nothing.  Now confused and frustrated, we sat at the dinette trying to come up with other solutions.  Nothing.  Roughly 45 minutes later we heard the inverter kick on!  Something was working, not sure if it was our refrigerator or not, but it was a good sign that the inverter kicked on!  Turns out, our refrigerator was working!

Our home in Lake Havasu

The next morning we got up for work (Central Time) and watched the first of many sunrises together. Being on Mountain Time was an adjustment as our companies both operate on Central Time and Stasia is not a morning person.  At all.  Stasia’s Sprint phone was not picking up any service and fortunately as a backup plan, we purchased a cell booster for our travels (installed on top of our camper).  It’s called the SureCall Fusion2Go 3.0 RV cell booster mounted on a 16ft mast.  And wow does this cell booster work!  Once turned on, Stasia was able to join a conference call and continue with business as usual.  We were able to stay put at our campsite because of this cell booster, otherwise Stasia would not have been able to work.

Day 2 of working remote inside our camper, and Stasia’s boss called via Microsoft Teams video chat.  He couldn’t help but notice Stasia’s background:

Reality of working remote in a tiny dinette

Boss – “Are you sitting in a camper/RV?”

Stasia – “Uhhhh mmmm wellllllll yeaaaaaaa……..”

Boss– “Is this your camper or did you rent a camper?”

Stasia – “We bought a camper.”

Boss – “So where are you?”

Stasia – “Lake Havasu, Arizona.”

Boss – “How long will you be there?”

Stasia – “Until I have to go back into the office.”

Awkward was an understatement.  Stasia’s boss basically pried it out of her that we were living in our camper.  Remote work is remote work though, right? 

Up to this point, our camper was still winterized and we filled the 27gal tank but did not pressurize it yet.  We used the toilet only to pee and had to manually pour water down each time to flush.  As for pooping, we used a special toilet seat that is made to fit on top of a 5gal bucket.  Additionally, we bought Wag Bags.  They’re dedicated pooping bags that are biodegradable and made to fit 5gal buckets; perfect for overlanding/camping/floating.  As far as price goes, they’re pretty pricey but well worth the investment.  We used the heck out of these bags until we got our plumbing to work, and we even bought another pack of the Wag Bags to have as backup. Click on the link to purchase your own Wag Bags for your adventure. By purchasing these Wag Bags, you’ll help us continue to fill our tanks and share our adventures with you!

For the smell, we light a match each time either of us uses the restroom in our camper.  Lighting a match helps to neutralize the smell, just make sure to not throw the match away immediately to prevent any fires.

Lake Havasu

During our lunch break, Jacob decided to assess our plumbing situation in the camper.  We were ready to have running water at our disposal!  What ensued next was two days of pure comedy.  We turned the water pump on to pressurize the lines.  We heard the water pump running but also heard rushing water.  Jacob opened the camper door to look outside and saw water shooting out of our water heater.  Turns out, we forgot to reinstall the water heater anode rod.  We lost precious (and free) water, as we quickly found out water is scarce in the desert.  We turned the water pump off, and Jacob rushed to install the anode rod only to find out we didn’t have a socket large enough to tighten it down.  It required a socket sized 1 1/16” and we needed to buy one at Lowes.  So still no running water and having to use Wag Bags.

The next day we went to Lowes, bought the right sized socket and went back to our camper to try again. Jacob successfully installed the anode rod and we tried turning the water pump on again. The pump came on but for some reason we weren’t seeing water coming out of our faucets. Jacob made sure the caps were removed from the outside drain lines and he inspected the water pump, thinking the gate valves were closed. Stasia turned the water on again while Jacob was outside and Jacob noticed water rushing out from under the camper where the water pump is. Not a good sign. Stasia, frantically, shut the pump off. What Jacob thought was a gate valve turned out to be a quick disconnect for pump replacement. There was water everywhere. We had to air out the area under the bathroom vanity. Jacob ended up closing the quick disconnect and we closed all our faucets while leaving the drain lines open and turned the water pump back on until water came out of the drain. We capped the drain and then individually turned on each faucet (and toilet) until water pressure was continuous. After all that, we were left with 13gal (of 27gal) and learned the hard way how to pressurize our water lines. Nonetheless, we finally had running water!