07 Seattle, Washington, October 30, 1437 Hrs (2130Z)

Seattle, Washington, October 30, 1437 Hrs (2130Z)

Samantha was out working on getting the camper ready to roll as soon as Michelle got home. Rebecca was inside doing some quick cleaning so it wouldn't have to be done when they got back from their camping trip. Monday was a regular school day for Samantha, but she was in what the district called Hybrid learning. That meant that she was on-line for three days of the week and in person for two. Since the camper had a cellular booster and it's own cellular modem, Samantha could do her school work from the camper as long as they had signal. Since the only time they actually went remote was in the summer when there was no school, it wasn't a big deal. They usually didn't venture that far even then on account of Samantha's medical issues. Samantha peered in the top of the white water tank and saw that it as almost full. It held forty gallons of water when it was full. The gray tank held forty gallons as well, but they rarely used it as they almost always stayed places where they had a place to dump the gray tank. For a toilet, they had a cassette toilet that they used largely for urine, but for solids they used the facilities at the places they stayed. Samantha closed the valve on the hose and screwed the cover on the white water tank. Samantha very carefully climbed the ladder on the back of the van to do a quick visual inspection on the solar panels on the roof. They looked clean, so she climbed back down and went inside the van.

It was sitting outside the garage that it lived in so she could prep it for the trip. Looking at the control panels for the solar power and battery health she saw that both were good. She did her normal test of all of the systems in the van, namely the electrical and the plumbing. Buried in the garage of the van were the pair of two hundred amp hour batteries that powered the whole system as well as the the solar charge controller, the battery isolator, the slow charger for when they were on shore power and the inverter. There were numerous power outlets all over the inside of the van. A mix of 120 Volt AC, 12 Volt DC and 5 Volt USB outlets all placed in clusters. The inverter would only run the 120 Volt outlets if it were powered on and usually it was on for long enough to run the air fryer or something of that nature. The laptops could (and usually were) powered off of 12 volts. Since it was an option on the the state issued laptop that Michelle had, she had researched it and figured out that if they bought Lenovo ThinkPads, they could do the same thing and not use the inverter so much. This led to longer battery life as the inverter was a fairly inefficient way to power things that needed 120 volt.

She flipped the lights on, and all of them lit up and then flipped the switch for the water pump. Running a small amount of water she made sure that it was working and then checked the fridge. The fridge could be powered one of two ways, either by propane or by 12 volts. They had never had propane set up in the van and weren't about to start now, so it ran on 12 volts. She opened the door and stuck her hand in. She could feel the cold air and knew that it was working. It was in the low seventies, a bit warmer than normal for this time of year, but as long as it wasn't too hot, they could camp. She leaned over the counter and turned the fan on. It blew air in her face and she turned it off. She pulled the butane stove out and sat it on the counter, locked the fuel can in place and ignited the burner. Flame appeared and she turned the stove off and let it sit to cool. All of the systems in the van were working so she went beck to the control panel and examined the gages. Solar was pumping out around one hundred watts off the two three hundred fifty watt panels on the roof, which made sense, they were partially blocked by the house and the tall trees. The cellular booster had come on when she flipped the master power switch and she saw that it had connected to cellular and was now acting as a repeater to devices inside the van. Since everything was good, she flipped the master power switch off and climbed out of the van. Before she had even started her checks on the van, she had packed her bag. Michelle had taught her how to pack everything she needed for a weekend into the backpack that she carried her laptop in. She would have everything except food and a stove in there. It was perfect for the van because space was at a premium.