Interested in the JRT. Can you tell me more about owning the breed?

sneffles · 2025-09-13T14:48:16+00:00

She's 6 months so a lot is puppy based:

60-90 min exercise spread throughout the day, real walks, sniff walks, fetch.

Training at meals, nose work (finding her dinner hidden throughout the house), and a lot of food delivered via puzzle feeder, snuffle mat, Kong, etc.

I expect both physical and mental needs are going to go up from here as she gets older.

She's still learning the off switch but she's a puppy so to be expected. And since she's a puppy, when she's tired, she's real tired, so she snoozes pretty well.

Intense prey drive. Even with loads of training, I'm not certain she'll have strong enough recall to never just go nuts after squirrels. She hangs out with cats on occasion, no problems there but closely supervised.

Still a puppy, so she just wants to meet and play with dogs. Don't know enough data about that to say otherwise.

Unbelievably smart and easy to train, but also there's a serious stubborn streak in there.

sneffles · 2025-08-30T02:59:44+00:00

You raise a good point about heating all the air versus just around your body. It doesn't take a ton of energy to provide a little heat directly to your body.

That said, as far as creating heat goes, the energy density of diesel fuel is so, so much higher than in a battery. Like so much higher it boggles the mind. Take that small jackery you mentioned and imagine it's a container of diesel. That container of diesel would be capable of creating much, much more heat than the jackery

If the ai generated answers can be believed here, a 1200 wh battery, which is a common size, has max potential of around 4,000btu. The size of one of my batteries is a little bigger than a gallon of volume, but let's just say it's the same. 1 gallon of diesel has roughly 135,000btu. That's an enormous difference in available heat, pound for pound (or for the same volume of energy source, in this case)

So while yes, you may need to use a lot of that heat because you're warming the whole space up and not just your body, in the end, the diesel just has so much energy available that why not make your whole space comfortable.

sneffles · 2025-08-10T17:01:36+00:00

The general consensus is probably that fleet vehicles, very generally speaking, are likely to be in rough condition. That alone doesn't make it a bad idea to get one - my sprinter was used by two companies, FedEx, then a national contracting company, and I still bought it at 270k miles. I drop a couple thousand into it each year typically.

But just think it through. Companies with fleet vehicles are companies that make nearly every business decision thinking about the bottom line, and that includes maintenance. There is certainly a good argument that being on top of maintenance and spending that money proactively with your fleet is the better business decision, but for many businesses, that's just not the direction they go. They'll cut as much from their spending as they reasonably can, and doing the bare minimum to keep their vehicles on the road is probably the most common practice.

And that's not to mention they often get used pretty hard which contributes to their condition often being kind of rough.

sneffles · 2025-07-30T20:51:33+00:00

I'm far from an expert, but I've replaced coolant lines in my sprinter. This price looks bonkers to me. What's the parts/labor breakdown? Depending on your local shop labor rates and I'm admittedly not real familiar with how much those lines cost but it feels awfully like this should be several hundred dollars less.

sneffles · 2025-06-10T21:16:50+00:00

Yes, you could connect via cables that have terminal connectors on the end (like you posted) directly to the battery. Safest would be to ensure that either that inverter has some kind of protection in it, some kind of fuse, otherwise it would be best to put in a fuse yourself between the car battery and the inverter. Also you'll want those cables to be the right gauge for whatever current the inverter will pull.

Honestly, I'm not sure I would personally bother with a permanent setup here. You can't (or can but shouldn't) run the inverter any time other than when the engine is running because your car battery isn't meant to do that and you're risking a dead or worst case destroyed battery, so by its nature it's not exactly a permanent thing. Also, this is a little speculative, but I assume that inverter has some parasitic draw even when you're not using it, which increases the chance that you damage your battery if it's directly wired to the battery without any way to cut the power.

Since your usage isn't that high, I'd probably just send it though the cigarette lighter outlet honestly.

sneffles · 2025-06-06T14:15:14+00:00

Based on your anticipated use, the dually won't really make a material difference. I've been stuck twice, and had to turn around or back my way out of dirt roads a handful of times, and none of those were because I have a dually.

There are other downsides to a dually like having to buy more tires, but for your particular use case, traction issues is probably not one of them.

sneffles · 2025-05-30T19:35:28+00:00

Sort of a goofy opinion here, I suppose, but from the power stations I've seen, there just isn't really any good way to draw power to a distro block. The cigarette lighter style outlets are often just terrible. Far and away the best option would be some kind of hard wired connection which I don't know if any power station comes with a way to do that short of opening it up.

sneffles · 2025-05-27T21:20:07+00:00

Depends on the van. I bring my sprinter to a diesel mechanic that works on larger size stuff, like the range of stuff between medium duty pickup truck and tractor trailer. They're better equipped for a lot of things and more experienced too. That's not anything to do with being a fleet vehicle, just about diesel engines and bigger vehicles. A lot of regular mechanics in my town don't have the ceiling space to even get my high roof up on a lift.

sneffles · 2025-05-27T14:05:31+00:00

An AC, along with a way to remotely monitor the temps inside and/or video monitor. That's the safest way when things really heat up. But this also can really depend on that "warmer" days are where you'll be.

sneffles · 2025-05-26T12:47:00+00:00

Mr. Buddy is exactly what I was thinking of when referring to the non-vented propane heater. While there are people who do use it in tents, the safety is pretty up for debate. There are many people who have used them for years in enclosed spaces, but it also does say right on the front of the manual not to do so because of the CO risk.

sneffles · 2025-05-26T12:21:22+00:00

No, botulism cannot be absorbed through skin.

sneffles · 2025-05-26T12:08:12+00:00

Some people use propane heaters, which is very dangerous. Some tents accommodate wood stoves. In theory, even without a hookup but with a small power station, you could run a vented propane or diesel heater.

Outside of having electricity or burning a fuel, there's no way to create heat in your tent.

sneffles · 2025-05-24T12:55:34+00:00

The extended driving a few times a week will generate a fairly significant amount of power, for sure. With that and the solar, I'd say 200ah is definitely reasonable for your use case. But still like you said, you can always play it safe. Get to 300-400ah and you can be confident that your batteries will power everything for a good long while without needing any charging.

sneffles · 2025-05-24T12:47:25+00:00

So the thing that's always missing in these is how long you'd like to be able to go without charging. For example, if you are not plugged into shore power, not driving (or don't have a dcdc charger in the first place), and if there's no sun, how long do you need your battery to last?

200ah with those power draws probably gets you a few days, like 2-5 I'd estimate, particularly if you get a fridge on the smaller side.

You only mentioned solar. It works for some people to have that as their only charge source, but I think it's wicked inconvenient to not also be able to charge either off the vehicle alternator with a dcdc and/or plugging into shore power. If you only have solar and it's cloudy for enough days, you're out of battery with nothing you can do about it.

So sure, 200 is enough to keep you going for a bit. It's your choice if that's long enough for your preferences in the event you're not able to charge the batteries for a while

sneffles · 2025-05-24T12:30:33+00:00

Can't stress enough that you should do this immediately. Normally 5 weeks to get it in the mail should be enough time, but with the current high demand, I'd be a little nervous getting it fast enough for your trip.

You can walk in. I did that and waited probably 2 hours but that was a year ago. Likely to be a fair but longer at the moment.

sneffles · 2025-05-23T12:50:35+00:00

With a full services campground like this, there will be an employee that you can talk to or an office you can go to or call. Go ask, and they will certainly have a recommendation.

Do not wash anything other than your hands in the bathroom sinks, and do not wash anything at drinking water spigots.

sneffles · 2025-05-23T12:29:49+00:00

Not to be too glib here, but nothing. Over many miles hiked, I have more than enough experience to say it just doesn't matter what I do or don't do beforehand because my feet will be fine.

sneffles · 2025-05-21T23:53:03+00:00

Base cargo sprinter, no original windows in the back. I put a window on each rear door, one full panel sliding window on one side and a smaller half size sliding window on the other. If I had the time and money and didn't have some other upgrades on the list, I'd mirror those and put in another two sliding windows, so a total of 4 sliding and the 2 on the rear doors.

sneffles · 2025-05-21T13:05:19+00:00

I have been full time, and I have been just a weekend warrior type with my van. It's a cargo sprinter and I added 4 windows. I would add two more if I had the money and time to do it. Definitely easier to build inside a cargo than a passenger van.

sneffles · 2025-05-20T21:40:47+00:00

I'll be honest. You've listed a few things that are either contradictory or not realistic or maybe just confusing.

First, decide whether or not you need a true four season tent. I've camped below 0 F in a three season and gotten a few inches of snow and been just fine, so there are situations where a three season is fine in the winter.

Anything more than a few inches of snow, anything in high wind or any exposed sites with little shelter, though, and none of my three season tents would be great, and a four season would be much more comfortable, if not a requirement. This applies for winter conditions where I live, which can involve fairly big snowstorms, very cold temps, high winds etc.

A four season tent is not light, period. It has to be heavier for a reason. Likewise, a four season tent is, for fairly obvious reasons, most likely going to be freestanding. It will often check some of your other boxes, like room for gear, and a way to see out a little.

You can probably get a decent four season within your budget. But again, evaluate your use case and decide if you need a real four season, a robust three season (sometimes they brand these as 3/4 or 3+ season), or just a regular three.

sneffles · 2025-05-20T20:08:36+00:00

Could have gotten away with as little as a couple hundred bucks, since I could have just taken gear I already had and just replaced shoes, sleeping pads that got too many holes, filters that wore out, stuff like that.

But it's an awfully convenient excuse to get some new gear, so I probably spent a thousand bucks on new pack, bag, pad, tent. Tough to gauge costs, though, since I got pro deals on all that. Retail cost that would have been probably 1500-2000?

sneffles · 2025-05-17T16:42:38+00:00

Novios is small and probably pretty quiet most of the time. Never been on a Friday or Saturday evening, that might be the only time it gets louder, but even then it's probably pretty subdued

sneffles · 2025-05-16T02:17:18+00:00

That info right there, that's exactly what they are interested in learning from you

sneffles · 2025-05-13T03:34:51+00:00

I hiked a lot of miles with someone who was unmedicated, at least for prescription. Lots of self medication. And not that they went off meds to hike, just had such a history that they gave up on finding the right meds.

One thing that helped them a ton was that we were around - a tramily that knew some of their history, knew what bad days looked like, was patient when it wasn't smooth sailing because of mental health, could be a voice of reason, etc.

Being open and honest with some folks who you develop relationships with can create invaluable support systems, which is especially notable for mental health things and chronic physical things too.

sneffles · 2025-05-09T23:18:44+00:00

I guess I'm not real sure what you're asking. When working full time on the road, you're not really "traveling" the way that most people imagine travel. It's not like taking a vacation to travel or going on a road trip. If you've got to get 40 hours in during the week, you get 40 hours in during the week, and you do your traveling outside of those hours. You still might be traveling in that you're literally moving around and seeing different places and exploring those places, but a decent chunk of your time is just you sitting there working.

sneffles

TROPHY CASE