Our habitat sure is cozy. We are really appreciating the insulation of the walls and windows as we enter the Arctic. While we are up and about doing things, we are pretty comfortable even with a window cracked open. We have been finding that we only run our little Planar heater in the evening and when we first wake up in the morning. It’s really nice to reach up from bed and turn the heater on to let it warm the habitat while we wake up.
Fuel availability has been adequate on the trip, but it does require a little bit of planning. We prefer to not fuel up all of our supply from one location in the event that they have contaminated fuel, so we’ve been pretty conservative in not letting the tank get too low. That occasionally means boosting our main tank with a jerry can of diesel between fill ups. It’s been working really well and we always have significant margin on range with what we have in the tank. We have also started the habit of adding a lubricating cetane booster diesel additive every other fill up. We can audibly tell that the engine likes it. It doesn’t improve mileage, but we can tell the engine runs smoother with a little more cetane added.
On the trip it has been interesting that there are long expanses with no wildlife and then we’ll come through an area and encounter a lot of wildlife in a short amount of time. We have definitely been enjoying spotting bears, moose, sheep, bison, and elk. It’s impressive how the miles slip by while we are looking for wildlife along the way.
The weather has been really exceptional and there have been very little mosquitoes. There have been some really nice afternoon rains. They make everything look fresh and rinsed and produce some seriously amazing rainbows.
As we crossed the Arctic Circle it was pretty cool to see the sun staying up all night. There is beautiful golden sunlight from about 8pm to 8am. Having it be light all night makes us really appreciate the built-in light blocking blinds in our windows.
Wabi-sabi Overland 