Hello, we are the mountainborns, Larry & Betty Harmon from Vandervoort Arkansas.

Though we were raised in the large carbon footprint era, ( we are a bit older than baby boomers ), being off of the grid isn't a new thing to us. Living most of our lives in the Arkansas outback, we are more comfortable in remote boondocking campsites. Because we are entering the retirement phase of our lives, ( Betty already & I am nearly ), we have, in the past, only been off of the grid for vacation camping trips, ect.

Our first retirement work camper job will be at a lake above 10 K feet of elevation, with no electricity, a septic tank and water is piped down from a spring on the mountainside. It will be our longest time todate of being off the grid, 107 days, and getting paid to host the campground !

Our camper is a 17' 2008 Oliver Legacy Elite. Our tow vehicle is a 2008 Jeep Wrangler with expedition racks, ect..

Our batterys are Optima fiberglass wrapped gell filled RV type, two of them. They are charged by two solar panel arrays, four panels to an array, for 120 watts of charge.

We love using technology to improve our lives and reduce cost while off the grid.

We are newbies at this and are learning, so any and all advice will be appreciated. For example, we chose the gell filled batterys for the less maintennance aspect, instead of the more efficient flooded ones that are available.

Thanks for this forum that I believe we will be able to learn so much from !

 

Here is a link to a you tube video of our trailer/tow vehicle before adding the genset, higher axle and expedition racks on the Jeep

Larry and Betty - welcome to the site!! Love your rig setup - Technomadia here on the site has a killer Oliver as well. Ang and I are 4 door JK owners too - love it!

That was a great intro you posted. I am anxious to read more about your workamping position - sounds adventurous and challenging!

And great job on the video. That was funny as hell about the Sam's Club Alarm Clock. Ain't that the truth! I remember my first experience with that - I had driven so much, was exhausted. Finally crashed out around 3:30 - wasn't asleep maybe an hour and this DAMN suckertruck started orbiting my rig. It sounded like he was doing circles around and around my parking lot palace. But, what's a guy to do. Sometimes I am just grateful to get a little shut eye without 18-wheelers camped out on either side of me :)

Again - welcome to the site! Looking forward to seeing more of your stuff!


--kev

Thanks, Kev ! As a fellow vaccum cleaner truck reville victim, you will likely understand when I say that I sat straight up in bed, thinking that a

gocart had lost controll and run up under our trailer !

Technomadia's trailer is quite a bit newer and a lot more tech than ours.

We also use a cell phone amplifier, but ours isn't permanently mounted in the trailer. We plug ours into the Jeep's power socket and use a magnetic portable antenna on the roof. The magnetic antenna will work for us because of the expedition rack.

This is our first work camper experience so we don't know much about it, but will update on here if there is intrest.

Again, thanks for the warm welcome to a couple of geezers just learning how to go off of the grid.

Thanks for joining us here, Larry & Betty!  Two Olivers here now.. lessee who else we can lure over from the Oliver Forums? :D 

For geezer's, you guys sure are getting around the net - I think we're connected here, OliverForums, Facebook, Twitter?  Fabulous!

 - Cherie