I ordered a few things Saturday for the Scotty – a few lighting upgrades, a carbon monoxide detector, and a bug screen to keep them from nesting in my water heater.

I got the package today so I wasted no time putting in the new natural white LED light fixtures. Instead of just changing the bulbs it was just about as cheap to get new fixtures with the LEDs built in, and they should last 50,000 hours and save my battery. They use 10% of the electricity as a regular bulb. That means you could run 10 of these lights on the power of just ONE regular filament bulb. That’s some serious energy savings and will definitely help when I am staying someplace without hook-ups. (I installed them in the ranger house I lived in down in Sacajawea State Park and I think they are a great investment and affordable.)

I got half of them in the trailer but ran into problems with the ceiling lights. It appears that the wires are packed in so tight I cannot get to the splice to tie the new ones in. Guess I will just cut the wires on the old light and splice the new one in. The ones that I did get in are pretty darn bright. They go in pretty fast and easy. I also got a new LED porch light and it comes with an interchangeable amber lens. I cannot install it until I get some mastic of some sort to get a good seal around it.

I also ordered a conversion kit for my gas water heater so it will run on shore power when the trailer is plugged in. That gives me two ways to heat the water and will save propane. The CO detector and the bug screen will be done in the next few days as well.

I got a Bluetooth FM hook-up device for my truck stereo. I’m not interested in dropping big $$ on a car stereo right now, and this thing sounded pretty good the entire 2 minutes
I listened to it. I’ll be giving that a thorough test and I am looking forward to listening to  Apple Music through the stereo finally!

I still have a few more small items on the way and a few more that I need to order but
I am definitely making progress on some minor repair items and some practical upgrades. It looks like I got the roof leak fixed and that’s a huge relief. I still have to get another new tire for it and get some caulking for the windows. I want to get some new curtains. If I knew how to sew that would help, but I don’t so I have to just find some ready to install that I like.

It’s actually quite enjoyable to do all the work on the trailer. I know that a few things HAD to be done, and many things I wanted to do to be more efficient but still keep the trailer “modified” as little as possible cosmetically. I hope to get a solar panel soon to help keep the battery charged and run some cellphone and laptop chargers with the sun. I just need to figure out which one to get.

If anyone reading this has knowledge of Scotty parts for a 2008 Hilander, I need a new table for the rear gaucho and will be needing a new one for the front dinette. The roof leak caused the front one to start de-laminating. The rear one broke so I need one of those if I can find one. Just send me a message through the blog if you can help.

That’s about it for today.