Ray,

Let me tell you why we crank up the generator and run it.

Comfort.

We all paid a lot of money for our generators and we pay a lot of money in fuel to drag that weight around with us. We might as well use it. Otherwise do what your converter did with OTR and pull the generator out and use the bay for storage.

We crank up the ACs, turn on the TVs, light the lights, cook, and do all the energy usage we want because we are cranking out up to 20,000 watts. It is nice to not have to worry about the state of charge on the batteries, or to have to open windows to get comfortable, or to spend time at the electric panel worrying about what switches to turn off to keep from blowing a breaker or depleting the batteries.

Mango's answer was correct. This ain't camping.