You probably guessed this already. Those mountains in the background of the photo above are not a new landmark in Rehoboth Beach. Those are the Colorado Rockies. I snuck out of Delaware for a couple of days to join a friend on a road trip. We grabbed our coats and long underwear, jumped in his Ford E250 van and headed west.
I should mention something about this ordinary van; it has an extra-ordinary addition – it’s topped off with a ginormous toupee made of solar panels, strapped right to the roof! Every day the panels eat a bunch of sunshine and recharge a pair of golf cart batteries (hidden in an unassuming Igloo cooler). The batteries in turn power an inverter that gives us regular old 120 VAC to keep our laptops and phones and cameras and TV alive and kicking on this cross-country expedition.
The solar panels were provided by the awesome people at Clean Energy USA. Normally they install these things on homes that sit still, but they were excited to play along with us for this mobile experiment.
On our adventure, we spent the first two and a half days driving from Delaware to Colorado. We “road-roughed” it, stopping at highway rest areas at night, cramming custom cut-out silver insulation panels against the windows, and zipping up inside our sleeping bags to keep warm while we watched movies on our 22″ TV (thanks to our solar-charged set up). When we hit Denver, it was time to upgrade our digs and shower in something larger than a sink. It’s amazing how clean you feel when you finally shed “last night’s” clothes after 3 days. I don’t think I’ll ever make it as a real mountain man, or even a bona fide street bum.
I might do okay as a ski bum though, especially in Breckenridge – but I’d have to pick up skiing first. One afternoon, we ventured out from Denver to the small ski town, up into the mountains along a scenic route. On the way we met horses and passed through the real South Park, where everything is unfortunately not made out of construction paper.
One quick tip – if you find yourself in downtown Denver one morning, in need of food and an injection of hipness, head to Snooze on 23rd and Larimer. Best breakfast ever.
I’m back in Delaware now, but the SolaRolla (our juvenile attempt at a clever name for the van) is still out west, collecting free energy from the sun and exploring the great outdoors. You can follow @SolaRolla on Twitter for updates and photos.
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