Author - Inverters R Us

“Where we’re from, tailgating IS the sport, and this year—thanks to the electricity provided by our new power inverter—we made the playoffs.”-Karen H., Burlington, Iowa     Growing up in Burlington, Iowa, you learn to love two things: Iowa Hawkeye football and tailgating before Iowa Hawkeye football. Going to college at the University of Iowa means you really learn the ropes of tailgating, but you’re usually still a broke college student, so you make do. Then, upon graduation and getting a “real job,” you continue tailgating but are able to bump it up a notch, moving from canned beer to blended cocktails on warm days and hot toddies on the chilly ones. Nothing beats being out in the parking lot of the stadium with thousands of Hawkeye fans of all ages. However, how you do it makes all the difference. Meeting my now-husband was a big step forward in my tailgating game. He had propane heaters and a long-bed pickup truck. Our first year together, we roughed it in some areas, but stayed warm thanks to the heaters, which were a big hit with all of our tailgating neighbors. Then, each season, we started adding to our artillery. Eventually, we had done just about all we could with battery power and charcoal. It was time for an upgrade. Those who had elevated their game to the RV-level were living in luxury out on the blacktop. We weren’t quite there yet, but we were ready to bring about the ability to cook food, watch TV, blend drinks, listen to the radio and keep ourselves toasty. For that, we needed power. We pack our truck full. We're talking chairs, heaters, grills, coolers, more chairs, games and lots of Hawkeye gear. There’s no room for a clunky generator. Plus, we’d heard some stories from our tailgating friends about getting complains for their noisy generators. So, we looked into battery power for running our blenders, crockpots, foot heaters, heated blankets, coffee pots and TVs. We found out after some research that a power inverter could convert the power from our truck’s battery into AC power for our electronic, “plugged” devices. Great! We quickly grew tired of monitoring our usage and being concerned if we were draining our truck’s battery too much. Therefore, we bought ourselves some deep-cycle batteries and let the worry slip away. On those cold Iowa days, we liked having the peace of mind that our truck’s battery was going to start after a long, fun day. Having the dedicated deep-cycle batteries, we were tailgating superstars, making blended drinks, keeping a hot pot of coffee on and offering our guests heated blankets why they lounged at our tailgate station. Come to find out, we became the envy of our tailgating friends and inspired them to move to the DC to AC power inverter way as well. I guess one hot drink under a heated blanket goes a long way for enjoying your time out on the pavement in front of the stadium! Go Hawkeyes!   Inverters R Us choices for tailgating with an inverter: Pure sine wave: Aims PWRI200012120S Modified sine wave: Thor THMS1500