41 degrees at 8:00 a.m. / -70 amp-hours cumulative (25 amp-hours used overnight)

It was surprisingly warm last night, thanks to a blanket of cloud overhead, but the gray skies have wrought havoc with our solar budget and our outdoor activities.

We started with a ranger talk at “The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone”, in a light rain, but soon the temperatures fell and by the end of the talk we were being snowed on.   Emma was thrilled.

Despite a general chill, we dropped in on the Norris Geyser Basin and Artists Paintpots (bubbling mud pots that put on a most entertaining show of burping).

As I expected, Bert volunteered to let us   use his generator for re-charging, but my estimate at this point is that we can still easily last for five nights.   In fact, we’ve decided to stay an extra day so we can join the Gildarts for a tour of the Grizzly and Wolf center in West Yellowstone on Monday.   We’re not using the laptops much, nor the cell phone, and with stringent power conservation measures it looks like our net loss per day will run about 24-27 amp-hours per day.   That’s no problem for the four-battery bank installed in our trailer.

Work-wise I know that taking Monday off will probably cause me some grief, but I’m enjoying being disconnected so much that I’ll take my chances.   I haven’t dropped out of sight for more than a couple of days since last March, when we went to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, and Mexico.

Part of the Norris Geyser Basin  

Our solar gain report for the day:

Cloudy. At 7 p.m. cumulative amp-hours were -73.   3 amp-hours lost.

We actually lost ground today rather than gaining. It was quite cold and gray all day and so the furnace was required in the afternoon, when normally the trailer would stay warm just from the sun shining on it.   This is the first time I can recall that we’ve netted less power during the day while on solar, which just shows the huge impact the furnace has on our overall power budget.