"Must have's" for vandwelling

[Snikwahjm]

A lot of states no longer give out maps at the unwelcome centers but some sites will have maps occasionally. AAA still has maps.

Sorry to hear of your broken spring. Lesson learned? I worry about my junk being over weight for my Connect but I think it is ok.

I have made my own dehydrators many times. They are more effective when it isn’t raining or high humidity. I bought ‘needlepoint plastic canvas’ from a craft store. I use those to put food on. They are floppy so I put pieces of board or dowels under to keep them from sagging. Then you need something to shelve the plastic canvas. If you are making leathers or drying purée you can use a cookie sheet covered with Saran Wrap. I used a wine rack from ikea to make a small dehydrater shelves. it held 4 or 5 trays. You can stack those and make more space. It is small but worked great. Stand it in an empty closet. Having dowels sticking out helps drape the cover so it has airflow and doesn’t get the cover into the food. After you put food on there you want to cover the whole things with a sheet or something. I’ve also used plastic but you don’t want air tight because it takes too long to dry. Then you need a slight heat source. An old fashioned lightbulb or two will throw enough heat. Take care not to overheat or burn something. The key to it working is having some thing to circulate air. Stand the whole thing under a clean ceiling fan turned on low. Check for sticky or dry after at least 24 hours. You can dehydrate about anything. You won’t get the same results as freeze dry but you can dry a lot of fruit and veggies. If you make leather pour it out of a funnel in strips. It needs to be kind of thick so it will peel off the Saran Wrap. If you just do sliced carrots or zucchini you don’t need Saran Wrap on the canvas. Foods that discolor won’t look very pretty... onions will gas your whole house and takes forever to go away. I haven’t done meat. Anything not totally dry will mold. If you use a closet leave the door cracked open to get air moving... if the closet doesn’t have a ceiling fan you will need some fan or another to ventilate/circulate the air so things dry somewhat evenly. If things don’t dry evenly you can rotate trays.