A dream of mine for many years well before my love for EV's came about, was an off grid campground. I wanted a place that could be enjoyed by family and friends. The idea was to be remote and far away from the daily grind they might live in today. My goal here is to tell a story through pictures and small captions to explain the process, and where we are at today. 10 pictures per post, so I will break it up into a couple posts. Might not have any response till I get it all out there. I will direct technical questions to @nwdiver.
First. If you don't know, or are not extremely competent around electricity hire an expert. That is what I did. Highly suggested for a solar installation. Second. This forum is filled with many people I respect around electricity, and would define them as experts. Keep in mind this is a FOB (Forward Operating Base). Not a long term setup. Not a complete setup. Some of the setups here are not code. Do not interpret that we intend to leave these items this way.
So after a number of years I found my campground. Really thought about connecting, but saw the price tag. More than a mile, and a monthly fee that was higher than I wanted to pay. So went to Sound of Silence in SD. Wanted to see really two people at the event. One person I wanted to meet was sitting next to me at the first mingle. @nwdiver and I chatted, and the next thing I know he had already had two site visits done, and the plan was ready. Just had to wait till the following year.
Had to do some clearing for some benches for tents and trailers. This area was run over by fire a number of years ago. Also quite a slope.
Camping to me is solitude, but one of the issues is often power in a remote setting for periods of time. I have solar panels on my Airstream, but not enough to run a well pump, and wanted to avoid the dreaded generator. We had one that ran the well. It was on the first of the things to go. You could hear it over 3/4 of a mile a way when on.
If one looks at the front of the well drilling rig there is a drop off into a large ravine. We will talk about that later. 
Septic and well installed. Septic permit took forever with thankfully no engineering. Lot of explaining however. Things take time in small towns. Best thing is you get to talk to people face to face. A rarity these days. Don't be in a rush. Be respectful, take your hat off, and ask nicely. Goes along way.
So with swearing to not use the generator, getting water out of the creek was getting old. Down that ravine all 70 feet of it. That was end of the well truck. So the race was on to install a temporary 20 panels and wire up an RV pedestal.
There is Chris Dizon from Endless Energy. You may know him as @nwdiver. It was in the 90's so that umbrella was a lifesaver. 40's in the morning, and then the furnace started. RV Pedestal can allow charge to the Electric Bikes and run the trailer, and home office setup in the Bell tent, and of course the well pump. Will show EV later
So we lost one panel on the pallet. They did sit out for a couple late season snow storms. We figured that into the math. Very thankful to have a local neighbor have this all delivered before we moved up here for the installation.
First. If you don't know, or are not extremely competent around electricity hire an expert. That is what I did. Highly suggested for a solar installation. Second. This forum is filled with many people I respect around electricity, and would define them as experts. Keep in mind this is a FOB (Forward Operating Base). Not a long term setup. Not a complete setup. Some of the setups here are not code. Do not interpret that we intend to leave these items this way.
So after a number of years I found my campground. Really thought about connecting, but saw the price tag. More than a mile, and a monthly fee that was higher than I wanted to pay. So went to Sound of Silence in SD. Wanted to see really two people at the event. One person I wanted to meet was sitting next to me at the first mingle. @nwdiver and I chatted, and the next thing I know he had already had two site visits done, and the plan was ready. Just had to wait till the following year.
Had to do some clearing for some benches for tents and trailers. This area was run over by fire a number of years ago. Also quite a slope.
Camping to me is solitude, but one of the issues is often power in a remote setting for periods of time. I have solar panels on my Airstream, but not enough to run a well pump, and wanted to avoid the dreaded generator. We had one that ran the well. It was on the first of the things to go. You could hear it over 3/4 of a mile a way when on.
Septic and well installed. Septic permit took forever with thankfully no engineering. Lot of explaining however. Things take time in small towns. Best thing is you get to talk to people face to face. A rarity these days. Don't be in a rush. Be respectful, take your hat off, and ask nicely. Goes along way.
So with swearing to not use the generator, getting water out of the creek was getting old. Down that ravine all 70 feet of it. That was end of the well truck. So the race was on to install a temporary 20 panels and wire up an RV pedestal.
There is Chris Dizon from Endless Energy. You may know him as @nwdiver. It was in the 90's so that umbrella was a lifesaver. 40's in the morning, and then the furnace started. RV Pedestal can allow charge to the Electric Bikes and run the trailer, and home office setup in the Bell tent, and of course the well pump. Will show EV later
So we lost one panel on the pallet. They did sit out for a couple late season snow storms. We figured that into the math. Very thankful to have a local neighbor have this all delivered before we moved up here for the installation.
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. That allows the car to start charging at the rate predertmined once the batteries reach certain point. So the sun rises taps off batteries and car gets it without having to do anything.
