The Battery is Fixed!

Making our way out of Idaho, the next destination was Spokane, Washington. Ben had an important presentation for work, so we booked an Airbnb for 2 nights. I actually left my first ever negative Airbnb review for this one. It was really just not worth the $300 we spent. Regardless, it was heavenly to have a shower, dishwasher, an oven and laundry at our fingertips! 

A guy stopped by our van one day to ask about our WeBoost (the cell booster antenna). We got to talking and he suggested that we check out Sandpoint, Idaho. So that is where we headed next! This might have been my favorite couple days so far in the trip. I was living my DREAMS waking up next to this lake and basking in the sunshine. 

I started reading this book I had delivered to Spokane (Amazon locker worked great!). It’s written by 2 women in the Data Visualization / Data Art field - which basically combines coding, art, and math to tell a story and communicate data. HOW COOL! I’m starting to teach myself the coding languages they use so I can try my hand at making a piece of my own!

Our time in Sandpoint was topped off by Ben fixing our battery!!!!! It turns out the charge controller was actually the culprit to all our problems. 

The charge controller has wires connected to the battery to get info about how much juice it has. We had a fuse in between those wires, which was actually messing with the signal! So the charge controller was sitting there thinking the battery was all full, and wasn’t sending any power to it from the solar panels or the alternator. Ben rewired it to avoid the fuse and voila!! The battery charged up and can handle the inverter again! We’re talking fridge running round the clock, fresh toast for breakfast, and electronics charging to our heart’s content. A very big win!

We had a big BBQ meal to celebrate! This place was amazing - recommended by Ben’s boss at the lab in California. It was an hour away in Couer d’Alene, Idaho which was also a very cute lake town.