For better or worse, electronic devices play a big part in our travels. Keeping all our equipment charged and ready to go can be a nightmare. The solution? Mains power in the truck. It was time to go shopping for a power inverter.
After spending the best part of two months in Alaska and Canada we were used to having plenty of daylight as we setup camp and prepared the evening meals. Unfortunately, as we headed further south, the nights got darker and we were forced to start using our head-torches. It wasn’t long before we realised that our head-torches and our single underpowered lantern were not going to cut it for lighting our camp sites.
Who doesn’t like a new pair, or four, of shoes?
Somehow the 4Runner was filling up with stuff (more than could fit in the front seats if we needed to sleep in the back). Also, our spare fuel container had leaked inside the car on the Dalton highway, which prompted us to never have any sort of fuel stored inside the car. The main roof rack was taken, we could have arranged something with the new tow hitch/bike rack. But in the end, after a visit to ReRack (a company in Portland that sells new and used roof rack systems) we decided on a second roof rack.
Oh yeah! Hot water at the touch of a button—or rather the attaching of alligator clamps… and a 15min wait for the car to warm up.
Second Battery There are a several reasons why we decided to install a second battery. The main reason being we intend to install a fridge in the car, but it would also run the power inverter and LED lighting. Although we could run it all from the main battery, it is perhaps not a good idea when you’re relying on that battery to start your car after staying in one place for a few days.
Factory Roof Rack fail. It was about six the morning of the third night in our roof top tent when we heard the first loud pop, which was followed about 15 minutes later by second loud pop but this time it was accompanied by the tent shaking … oh dear.
Roof rack… check. Roof top tent… check. …that’s everything, time to put them together!
At this stage, the number appliances requiring charging in our technological arsenal has become somewhat of an issue. So rather than visiting coffee shops and public libraries carrying arm loads of laptops, phones and camera chargers—we decided a power inverter was in order.
We already knew we would need some sort of storage/sleeping solution before we purchased any vehicle and in true flightless fashion decided to restrict planning to an absolute minimum. We already had a rough idea of what we wanted from seeing other setups, researching online and from having half built one for our old Hilux.