CAMPGROUND REVIEW- Ada Lake in the Chequamegon Nicolet National Forest near Wabeno WI

Midweek camping in the National Forest is a wonderful way to get away from it all. We love the peace and quiet of the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. Many of their campgrounds in our area are about 60 to 80 miles away from our home. The National Forest accepts the Federal Senior Access Pass, which allows for half price camping. The rustic camping at this campground is $15 a night, after our pass that brings it down to $7.50.

We headed to Ada Lake which is a National Forest Campground about 6 miles west of Wabeno WI. 

There are 19 sites that are available and the host site which has electrical hookups. The rest of them are all rustic with no hookups. Sometimes that's the way to go--- to get away from any noise and music and singing out loud neighbors! See my previous post for more on that!!! Lol

We tossed in our gear and headed out on Wednesday morning. It was a beautiful ride up and we stopped first in the little town of Suring for a breakfast at Laverne & Gail's Diner.

We pulled into the campground about 1:00 p.m. there were only three other campsites that were occupied out of the 19 sites. They are spread far apart with a lot of natural undergrowth and tall trees separating the sites. There is also a very nice swimming area marked off with a sandy beach for visitors. 

Here is the website:

https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/cnnf/recarea/?recid=27923

Everything is just starting to green up at this time in May in this area of Wisconsin. 

Here is a campground map, about six of the sites are waterfront and very beautiful. We were lucky to nab number 8. Number 10 on the other side of us was still open all the while we were there.

There is usually potable water available at a faucet spigot right at the entrance of the campground near the pay post. For some reason it said not available yet, even though the campground opened up on May 5th. They may be doing well water testing yet or perhaps there's a problem with the pump. The campground host site does have electricity and has access to the water at the spigot from the pump house. The rest of the sites are rustic with no hookups. There is a well-type pitcher pump located part way through the park and two sets of clean out houses. There is no dump station.

Cellular service is very thin. We had one bar that would fade in and out. But using our Weeboost antenna booster in our rig we were able to pull in two and three bars if needed. Television stations were available from Rhinelander during the day and then at night from multiple areas including Green Bay. Those other stations faded out during the day.

The nearest town is Wabeno which does have a small convenience type gas station store and a few little bars and an ice cream stand.  There's also a casino nearby and a few other restaurants and supper clubs within 20 miles. We don't go for those type of touristy amenities, we just go to get out in the woods. 

This National Forest campground is first come first serve. Once you occupy a site and put your money in the post it's yours until you are ready to leave. You can stay up to 14 days. You can pay day by day if you wish or pay for the full two weeks if you wish. We paid for 2 days and got ourselves set up. 

This is the lakeshore right at our campsite. Absolutely beautiful and serene and quiet. There are cabins on the other side of the lake. The lake is an "electric motor only" lake, no gas motors. One person did have a canoe that went out one day, but that's about all we saw during our stay. 

The shoreline is rugged and full of tree roots. It's kind of fun to walk along and look at all of the different shapes as the erosion has removed a lot of the dirt around these roots. Very interesting... 

While we were walking around, we came across this huge mushroom. At first I thought it was a coiled up snake on the log! I've never seen a mushroom like this. Steve put his hand out next to it just to show the size of it. No, he did not touch it. And of course, we did not pick it nor did we eat it! We later found out it's called a pheasant back mushroom?

We could hear loons calling across the lake over near the boat landing somewhere. We think they are nesting somewhere cuz at one point they were squawking furiously. That usually happens if somebody comes near their nest. It's best to stay away and leave them in peace.

Walking over from the campground towards the boat landing there is a marshy area and a cute little stream rippling down through the woods. Steve could hear the water running before we even got to it. It was kind of like a little mini waterfall. A nice footbridge is built across it so we could complete our walk to the boat landing. 

Over at the boat landing there were a few turtles that had been up on this log. As we approached, they quickly slipped into the water. We observed a few fish jumping, but because we haven't renewed our licenses yet for this year, we did not drop a line in. 

The mosquitoes were getting a little pesty as well as the sand gnats. We set out a couple ThermaCELL  units and it did a great job. If you don't know what ThermaCELL s are, here is a link to their company:

https://www.thermacell.com/

Wednesday night, we went to bed after spending a couple hours over at the next door neighbors. All three other campers were together as a group and they shared one campfire. They invited us to come over and spend some time with them. They were delightful people and we had a lot of fun visiting with them. We knew some people in common and they don't live too far away from us. I'm sure we will see them again somewhere down the line

It got a tad bit chilly on Wednesday night. When we woke up on Thursday the temperature was at 34°. We were toasty warm inside with our Mr Buddy heater. We didn't really want to run the big propane furnace because it does wear down the batteries quickly. Currently, our motorhome only has two 12 volt Interstate batteries and they do not have a large capacity nor a high number of amp hours. Just watching TV and LED lights on and things like the water pump took them down to about 60% overnight.

This is the perfect reason to have solar panels. On our last RV we had 500 watts of solar panels mounted right up on the roof. There are quite a few drawbacks to having them on the roof, so this time we opted to just get some portable sets. I wrote about them in my last blog along with our reasons pros and cons. We decided to take along 100 watts worth of the panels. We have an additional set of 100 Watts sitting at home in the garage. Steve set them up and got them hooked up to charge the batteries. 

Once the sun moved around, they were in the shade. These are amorphous panels and will still charge in daylight or cloudy weather but not as fast. So then he moved them again to another sunny spot further back in the gravel drive. We like the option of being able to park in the shade in the hot summer months and just have the panels out in the sunny areas for charging. 

While he was playing around with that, I set up my sewing machine. I love bringing along this little antique Singer Featherweight. It travels in a small case tucked away in the closet. It's so handy and I love to sit outside and do my quilting. But this time I wasn't doing quilts. Instead I was doing something for our new solar panels!

I had taken some old flannel sheets and pillow cases along. I was making soft flannel fabric sleeves to put around each solar panel. That way when they are put away in storage, they will not get scratched if they rub up against each other. 

Here is the first one, made to size. They are 15 in wide and 39 in long. The neighbors came by and first thought it was silly that I was sewing. But then when I explained what I was doing they thought it was a good idea. I have a small inverter that can run my sewing machine rather than using the large inverter for the whole motorhome. Either way I can sew.... or I can kick on the generator to produce electricity as well. 

I also made 4 small drawstring bags that the attached cords could be bundled up and stuffed inside to prevent scratching on the solar panel. With the little drawstrings at top they would not be dangling around or getting stuffed in the sleeve with the rest of the solar panel. 

Now here is a red buffalo checked one finished. I just draped them across the panel to show what I was making. They can be folded up and stowed away while the panels are set up gathering the sun's rays and generating electricity. Then when it's time to stow them in our compartment, each panel back kickstand folds flat and slides into the flannel sleeve. 

Here is a photo when it came time to put them away. There are four separate sleeves, two red and two blue. And then four little drawstring bags all red. I don't care that the fabric doesn't match. I just want the panels to be protected and not getting beaten up during travel. 

Thursday afternoon the sky has clouded over. Some of it was a result from the heavy wildfires up in Canada. 

Around supper time, we were grilling out a slab of salmon to go with our salads and mashed potatoes. We flipped on the TV and got a weather warning. Due straight west of the campground was a line of storms moving rapidly across Wisconsin. They were predicting thunder and lightning, and gusty winds as well as HAIL!

We were thinking this really doesn't sound too good. This area of the state always seems to get hit with tornadoes. Seems like they just recover from one and another comes through in a year or two and demolishes stuff again. The whole area through from Antigo to Lakewood to Mountain to Townsend etc always seems to get hit. 

It takes us less than 15 minutes to get packed up. We decided for the 1 hour to get home we could be 2 hours ahead of the storm front as we traveled East. So we did just that. As we tossed our trash into the bins near the entrance of the park, we made one more loop around to tell the neighboring folks about the upcoming storms. They were just getting ready to start their supper and said they will hunker down for a while and see how it looks on their cell phones. Only one of them was getting a signal and even then it was pretty faint. So we gave them the most updated weather report and left them to make their own choice.

We were the Blue Dot

We headed on home and had enough time to get in the driveway and get our gear unloaded. We unloaded the refrigerator and turned things off. The storms rolled through our area about 2 hours later. Yes, there were gusty winds and tons of thunder and lightning. As the storm front rolled through fortunately we didn't get any hail here. But north of us they did. So I'm glad we made the decision to come home. Being in an area of heavy tree branches of fully mature old trees could cause problems. Best to avoid it and give up one night $7.50 worth of camping fee. It was going to rain all day Friday anyhow so it didn't matter if we came home Thursday night or Friday morning. Better safe than sorry. 

Adding Portable Solar Panels to Our Camping Gear

In my last blog, I left you hanging with another purchase we made from Facebook Marketplace. Yes, Steve found another deal! 

We have been debating on the solar installation on our new-to-us Winnebago View. 

On our last motorhome we installed 500 watts of panels on the roof, a Blue Sky MPPT controller, a Trimetric gauge and had a bank of 4 deep cycle six volt batteries.  So we are VERY aware of what a good solar setup needs to be...   

The biggest drawbacks of putting them on the roof:

• You have to park IN the sunshine, and can't find nice campsites in the shade in the summer.  
• The panels are exposed to the elements, including hail.  
• They need to be washed regularly which means getting on a ladder to get up on the roof.  Maybe we are getting too old for that stuff.  
• Not to mention the risk of drilling holes in the roof for the brackets or using that special 3M tape.  
• Then there is the challenge of where to route the cables down through the roof into the interior of the rig out of sight, then guiding them down into the battery bay.  

Lots of installation decisions there. We had done it before, and we are thinking we don't want to do that again. 

So please don't judge us harshly on this new option we chose. 

This time we opted for portable solar panels instead of mounting permanent ones on the roof. That way we can park in shady campsites and just set them up when we need them.  We can stretch out the long cord with the solar panels set on the stands in the sunny portions of the campsite. My sister does this and it works very well for her. 

We checked out some of the "suit case" models which are more pricey, and also are aware of the limitations on the additional controllers that need to be bought to use with them. 

So here are our reasons to go with a portable setup:

• We felt at this time we weren't about to invest a LOT of money into a new solar setup.  
• We are almost totally 12 volt and have all LED lighting in the new rig. Even the two tv's are 12 volt.  
• We have a nice 1,000 watt inverter in the rig if I want to curl my hair or run something 120v AC.
• I have a small portable 400 watt inverter if I want to use my (non-computerized) sewing machine. 
• We really don't think we need a lot of battery recharging other than a few hundred watts of panels.  (we do have a propane Onan 3600 Watt generator built in if we need it)  
• The seller just put in 2 brand new 12 volt batteries, so we aren't planning on upgrading them anytime soon into a bank of 6 volt ones. We do know that 6 volt batteries hold a charge longer, but why turn in 2 brand new 12 volt batteries for a $30 core charge each, when buying some other new 6 volt batteries? 

SOOOOO those are the reasons we opted to get a small portable solar setup for the near future.  We can always sell it if we upgrade to something different later.

Steve spied a set of two 100 watt kits on Facebook Marketplace the other day.... brand new. They retail on Amazon for $220.22 or at Harbor Freight for $189.99 each.  This guy was selling them for only $100 each.  They were near his brother Pete's house, so we called Pete and asked him to snap them up for us. We picked them up from Pete on our way back after camping at Kettle Moraine on Friday. 

The price was right at approximately half of what it would have cost us to buy them new. The seller had picked them up for another reason and said that they weren't going to work for what he had intended, so he never even bothered to open them. He said his loss, our gain!

With two sets totaling 200 watts, it should be enough to top off our batteries each day. 

We decided to set up one set, and get them going to test them out.  These are the exact same ones my sister has that charges up their camper battery, their boat battery, and their cell phones via USB ports when they are camping.  Each panel has it's own little stand, and all 4 hook together onto one cable that leads back to the controller.  I am going to pick up some little tent stakes to secure them down in breezy conditions. 

These are amorphous panels, that they can create a charge even in cloudy or shaded conditions, unlike the monocrystalline type panels that need full exposure with no shaded areas to get a full charge. 

The cables are long enough to extend out quite a ways from the RV.  This is nice because we can park in the shade and move the panels around to the sunny spots on the campsite. 

The kits come complete with the attached foldable stands, the cords, the solar controller, even some additional LED lights that can be hung up within the campsite. Those are kinda cute! 

We programmed the controller to use lead acid batteries, and set the parameters of normal load, boost and float.  We decided to store it in a plastic container and will cut little access slits for the cords. This will keep it clean and dry when out on the ground. 

Our motorhome came equipped with some external charging lugs that were mounted in place by the previous owner. So it will be quite easy to just clamp onto the lugs and charge up the batteries without even having to access the batteries underneath the stairs.

We set them up and they started charging right away.... this is going to be a test for taking only one set with us this week when we go up in the woods.  I am going to sew some soft flannel sleeves to store them in, so they don't get scratched.  They store easily on their sides, lengthwise in the passenger side compartment so they don't take up too much space. 

I ordered a nifty QuickLynks bluetooth battery monitor gauge that we can access via our smart phones.

https://a.co/d/1b1oHF2

 This will be a lot easier than using the OnePlace digital readout up over the fridge. 

~~~~~~~~~~

When we got home Friday from camping,

we had a surprise...  

New Neighbors moved in to the top of our wreath

on our front porch! 

Mommy and Daddy Wren will soon have four little ones to take care of.  So we will stay away from this part of the porch and leave them to raise their family in peace.  This may be the same couple who was here last year? 

I had a wonderful Mothers Day with many well-wishes from family and friends.  Our youngest daughter Heather and husband Jesse, along with grandkids Jameson and Whitney came to visit.  They brought a lovely card, a pack of Red Vines licorice, and this beautiful necklace!  

It is "missing" two pieces of my heart.......  

Why are they "missing"??

Because both of the center sections are hanging from necklaces from Heather and other daughter Erin's necks!!! Awwwwww They have the pieces of my heart! 

What a thoughtful and touching gift,

so full of family love between mother and daughters. 

The other family came over later, and brought in some gifts too. This is older daughter Erin, husband Waylen and three kids, Chelsea Clayton and Claire. They presented me with a fun camping tee shirt, and some of my favorite treats. They also gave me a dice game called Left Center Right and will teach me to play it when we go camping together. 

Then 13 year old Chelsea gave us a hand made cribbage board for our camper!  She made it in 7th grade shop class and learned how to use a drill press and woodburning software on a machine to do the lettering.

It was a gorgeous morning in Wisconsin, and the weather is finally feeling like spring.  We brought up my coleus plants that I wintered over in the basement, and also some ivy that I sprouted and repotted.  Soon they can be planted outdoors... .but we had FROST this morning, so these still have to be brought into the garage at night for another week or so. 

Tonight was sketti and meatballs and garlic bread for supper. yummmmm  now we are going to take a walk and wheel those plants back into the garage. 

Stay tuned for our next camping adventure, we will try out the solar panels and monitor our battery consumption. 

CAMPING VACATION - Day 5 - Solar Sewing Machine at East Fork Campground

QUICK NOTE- 
FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO PUT MY BLOG IN YOUR READING LIST AS A REGULAR READER, SOMETHING SEEMS TO HAVE CHANGED ON BLOGGER. I THINK YOU NEED TO RE-ADD MY BLOG ADDRESS TO YOUR READING LIST TO MAKE IT APPEAR AGAIN:

https://kareninthewoods-kareninthewoods.blogspot.com

 Now on to my blog:

What a peaceful night! No sounds other than a few owls hooting... And with such beautiful sunshine streaming in the windows this morning, I knew it was going to be a lovely day.

Freshly ground Blue Mountain Jamaican coffee beans, along with fresh baked blueberry muffins (from a mix). What a great way to start the morning.

We only went down 8% on our batteries last night. That was using either of the TVs for a couple hours, charging up the laptop and the cell phone, plus various lights and the water pump. With the bright sunshine coming on the roof this morning, we were fully charged up back in no time to 100%.  Got to love that nice quiet solar, no need to start a generator.

I decided to haul out my sewing machine to sit under the awning and do some quilting today.

I joke that it is my "solar powered sewing machine". Really it's just a plain old basic household current Singer sewing machine. Because:

1. the solar charges the batteries, 
2. the batteries power the inverter, 
3. the inverter changes it from 12 volt DC to 120 V AC, 
4. and that sweet quiet free power comes right up the cord into my machine!!

While I was busy cutting and sewing and quilting, my Steveio was busy doing a few projects.

First on his list was to wash off our solar panels. They hadn't been washed since last summer. After all of the fall leaves, then all the winter snow, then of course all the ice this past April, those poor things were in need of a good cleaning. Although it rained, he wanted to get up there with some good window cleaner and a soft cloth and give them a good scrubbing.

Steve said it is to get the "Optimum Charging Potential" by having them good and clean.

He carries this telescoping ladder in the motorhome basement compartment. It was a gift I gave him one year via Santa Claus, after he saw our friends Rich and Mary having one.

He uses rubber wedges that are designed for hauling a canoe on the roof of a car, to keep it from marking up the sides of our aluminum paint on the motorhome.

He did a good job, and got it all done before it got too hot. Temperatures are going to reach up near 80 today so it was good to get this project done in the cooler morning.

Next on his list was to take a look at our water heater. He could hear it running but it was not making the correct sound --- so he decided to give it a look-see. It is good to recognize when something doesn't sound right, to take care of it before it breaks any further.

Sure enough, there must have been a spider or something gunky inside of the tube. Yes, even a spider web can mess up the Venturi tube or plug the orifice in a water heater or a refrigerator. He took that long horizontal tube off and cleaned it out and it is now operating just fine again. The tube is getting quite rusty and should be replaced soon. Next thing on our list to order and replace.

 Steve realizes that having a twenty-two-year-old motorhome means that it is going to need constant maintenance to keep it in Tip-Top Shape. I am so glad he is able to do all of these things and we don't have to pay the labor charges that some some RV places charge ---- and rip you off at the same time. We would rather just get the parts when we can at a good price instead of an inflated dealer price because you need it right now!


Today the inmates came back to the park to finish raking up all of the leaves. The state park trucks drove back and forth disposing the leaves who knows where. It seems so strange to see them working to rake them up and remove them from the park. There are still plenty on the ground under the trees and the brush.

At Steve's old job at High Cliff, they had a huge blower unit on the back of the tractor that would just blow the leaves off the roads and out of each of the campsites ... blasting them into the woods. One man could get it done in less than half a day in the huge 100 + campsite campground at High Cliff. The leaves become natural compost for the new growing shrubbery and plants. Recycling at its finest!

After lunch, we laid down for a while and took a nap during the hottest part of the day. Kind of like an afternoon siesta! Nowhere near Mexico, but it sure felt hot today. I think inside of the motorhome it was about 87 degrees.

Tomorrow and Thursday are due to become even hotter. We are looking at moving on further east to stay at another County Park, this time with electric so we can run the air conditioning. My lungs just can't take the heat, and if there's humidity combined it gets rather difficult. Three days of 80-plus weather and sunshine coming up, so we want to enjoy the rest of this week without running the generator mid day for air conditioning.

Suppertime was crispy crunchy salads and some fried Otto's steaks on buns.  Followed up by a nice walk around the campground with the dogs. They found plenty of things to sniff and were rather excited to see the camp host! The car with the tent people that came in last night never did set up their tent. I think they slept in the car all night during the rain and left first thing this morning. The people up on site 24 came back later after a canoe trip, it appears, and are settling in for the evening as well.

Steve started up a campfire and I put away my sewing things. Steve carried in my sewing machine and the little bench, and now it's time to sit back with a beverage of our choice and enjoy the flames....

Ahhhh camping 

It sure don't get much better than this....