Starcraft Nova Voyage #2...Kings Canyon

[austinado16]

Just getting back from a 2 dayer in Kings Canyon National Park, which is about 200mi northeast and at 7,000' in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Man was the climb to 7,000' paid for all at once!  Unbelievable the grade that gets you from Fresno Valley up and over the mountains.

No camping reservations needed at any of the campgrounds within Kings Canyon or Sequoia National Parks and there was plenty of space available.  Made the mistake of bringing our 2 (smallish) dogs, which I should know better than to do.  I wish the park service would just post a huge warning on their website and anywhere else they can think of:  "Your dogs are not allowed anywhere, and can't be left anywhere, so how 'bout you leave them at home?"

Needless to say, we didn't get to see too much, but still had a good time.  

Stayed in the Sunrise Campground about 2mi from the HUGE General Grant Tree (got to see that!) and it was clean, nice, flush toilets and running water every few campsites (no hookups of course).

Bear boxes at every campsite and big signs everywhere saying don't leave anything out, or in your vehicle, including empty coolers, and child seats.  It's all gotta be in the bear box.  We kept the food in our fridge, but EVERYTHING else that smelled or was food went in the box.

Temps were in the mid 80's during the day and dropped to 53*F at night....which felt more like 40 for some reason!  I got to finally use the Duotherm furnace that I found on ebay.  It was out of an earlier version Starcraft, but was plug-n-play in mine, and fit cleanly into the location where the optional one would have installed.  With the analogue t-stat to 65*F it would come on about every 30min all night long and shut down after 5-10min.  No issues with running out of propane or battery voltage after 2 nights.

Another thing I got to try out was to keep the remote tempurature sensor for my Acu-rite weather station, inside the refrigerator while towing.  Nice to have the base unit in the truck and be able to monitor the fridge.  During the 4hr total trip time, in 100*F temps, the fridge temp actually dropped 4 full degrees from where it was when we started out.  Not bad for a 20 year old fridge running on 12 volts from the truck!

Did a test of the fridge with and without the little baffle I had installed. With the baffle it lowered the temp about 1 degree.  Also tried putting a little 5" battery powered fan just inside the bottom of the fridge controls compartment and letting it blow upward over the coils. That didn't seem to do much other than to really cool the coils off until they were no longer even warm.  Maybe it was moving too much air, even on the low setting.

Couple things that will be future mods:  
1) The Popup Gizmos bunk end covers!  Man, would those have been nice! We were really soaking up the heat during the day and at night you could feel the cold coming through the canvas.

2) Some heavy-duty "oven" insulation inside the cabinet space that the furnace is in for both sound insulation and to better protect the fridge.  

3) Maybe some sheets of "Reflectix" insulation under the bunk bed mattresses so the cold doesn't come up through the beds.

4) I did pick a 3" memory foam mattress topper for our queen bed, but will now grab a twin sized one for our daughter's bunk.

5) A second "quiet" heater.  I've got a line on an Olypian Wave 6 Catalytic.

[AustinBoston]

3) Maybe some sheets of "Reflectix" insulation under the bunk beds so the cold doesn't come up through the beds!

Another thing to consider to keep cold out of the bunks would be to glue foam insulation on the underside of the bunks.  Reflectix works best with radiant heat (a.k.a. infrared light).  When it comes to cold under you, convection/conduction tends to be a lot more important, which is where foams and fiberglass (i.e. traped air) come in.

OTOH, reflectix under the bunks makes the mattress just a bit more comfortable.

Austin

[austinado16]

I don't think I could slide the bunks out if I put anything under the plywood, so I'm sort of thinking the reflectix on top of the plywood, with the foam mattress on top of that and then the 3" memory foam on top.

I was also reading in the archives someone's suggestion about using the foam strips that you install in your window when you mount a window A/C unit, and putting those around the perimeter of the bunk to seal against the canvas sides.  Hadn't thought about that as a "leak" source.

It'll be fun to fine tune things as we get "more practice."