Lessons we've learned over the years

profdant139, that ritual is very true. On the first sunny Saturday beginning in late Feb or March, everybody in our RV development fires up the lawn mower and the BBQ. Could be a month til we can do it again. We've had a string of sunny days lately, and one local school cancelled classes and gave the kids a "sun" day. On the 3 or 4 sunny days per year, you feel guilty if you don't go outside and enjoy it.

A piece of advice. Check for water leaks. When you live in a dry sunny climate, the caulking on the RV tends to shrink some and leaves little gaps. When you travel to a cool rainy area, the rain will find those gaps. A few years ago we bought a Roadtrek Class B motorhome in Irvine and took it home to Las Vegas for year. Then we moved back to Blaine (on Canadian border) on New Years day (rainy season). After the first rain, the entire cab was soaked. the rubber gaskets had shrunk around the upper roof windows so the water just poured in. Luckily it was under warranty.

I have lived in So. Cal and Las Vegas, sure do miss it. Wife doesn't want to move away from our kids, go figure.

I now carry a box of disposable examination gloves in the storage bin closest to the dump area of the TT.

Tell all your family members only three things are permitted in the RV toilet (besides the Black Tank Chemicals): What comes out of your body, water, and RV toilet paper. Unlike home sewer systems, It’s not “out of sight/out of mind.” It’s more like “out of sight/you’ll discover it causing trouble later.”

After nearly 25 years of blissful marriage to my wonderful DW (and the last 15 of those camping in some type of trailer), I would have thought our communication skills would be better when it comes to backing up TT. I still don’t understand the “swatting flies” hand signals I see out the side view mirrors.

When using the dump station, realize that when you pull the black tank valve, it often gives a slight jerk to the stinky slinky, and even enough to cause it to come out of the dump station inlet, leading to the hinged metal dump station cap closing up, and a “black tank lake” quickly being forming in the basin around the cap. Best course of action is to quickly close black tank valve, reach in newly formed “black tank lake” and lift open dump station cap and reposition stinky slinky. Always good wear those rubber gloves. After removing gloves, I washed my hands all the way up to my arm pits about a half dozen times.

When leaving the campsite after following the detailed breakdown camp list, the last thing on the list is now, “pull up a few feet and go get those leveling boards.” Left a beveled wood set I had built and didn’t realize until next trip they were missing.

We often use a plastic grocery bag for the last bag of trash when packing up. With the used rubber gloves and other unfriendly trash in bag and with no dumpster close by, I didn’t want to store the bag in the TV while we drove out of the campground, so I placed it on the hood of the TV ready to throw out at dumpster when leaving. After sliding off the hood, I thought best to place the handles of the bag around the radio antenna on the TV to hold it in place. With short term memory problems and the heavy part of the trash bag sliding down the side of the TV and basically now out of view of the driver, one can drive for over 100 miles before stopping for lunch to notice the bag (and its contents) still there. There’s now a new last thing to check on the breakdown camp list.

Not a TT but a utility trailer story: When unloading mulch at house, I was trying to unhitch utility trailer (no jack) and it would not release. I figured it was tongue heavy, so I tried pulling it off hitch. No luck. So, I placed myself in a better position by straddling the tongue and lifting with arms on either side of the hitch. Still no luck. Fiddled with it a little more, and presto, it disengaged and the tongue headed straight up! It was tongue light (apparently most of the mulch was in rear of trailer.) Fortunately, I had abandoned my straddled position or else I would have been singing two octaves higher and no longer been able to pro-create.

Larry, it gets worse -- that same sunny Olympic Peninsula afternoon, we were on a bike ride and passed through a residential area on our way to a bike trail. It was a Tuesday. Everyone in the neighborhood -- I mean EVERYONE -- was out mowing the lawn. Old people, young people, power mowers, riding mowers, you name it -- all out mowing at the very same time, around 3 in the afternoon.
It looked like a Lawn Cult: the Tuesday Afternoon Mowing Ritual.

I finally got the courage to ask someone to explain the lawn frenzy. He looked at me like I was crazy and said, "Are you kidding?? This is the first time the grass has dried out in two weeks. It's now or never!"

How was I supposed to know? I'm from California -- we got 5 inches of rain this whole YEAR.

profdant139 wrote:
Speaking of awnings, on our first trip to the rainy Pacific Northwest from bone-dry Southern California, we pulled into an RV park on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. I looked around at the other RVs and smugly mentioned to my wife, “Look at these idiots – they don’t even know how to set up their awnings. All of the awnings are crooked, rather than set up nice and level like ours.” (I am ashamed to say that this is a direct quote -- she did not let me forget it. You know where this story is going . . . . )

That night, it rained pretty hard. The next morning, our awning was sagging badly, holding many heavy gallons of rainwater. The local “idiots” and their crooked awnings were perfectly dry because the awnings (of course) permitted the rain water to drain off.

We were just lucky that our awning didn’t break with the weight of the water. And in addition to learning a little humility, I learned something else from the “idiots” – make sure that the lower corner of the tilted awning is as far away from the front door as possible, so as not to flood the area in front of the door.

I had to laugh with you on this one. Those of us that live in the damp old rainy far north have had the awning thing figured out from day one. Plus you were in the wettest part of the state, the Olympic rain forest. Had we been there, us native campers would have taken bets on how long before your awning collapsed, cause we know you wouldn't of accepted any of us backwoods idiots advice to unlevel it. Of course I was the one who had my awning flipped up on the roof in the dry desert by the rogue wind.

So true so true. Thanks for the laughter!

Since we seem to have some "water" episodes...:R

Was the end of the campout at the dump station... (you know this is going to be good if it starts at the dump station. Robert Williams would be proud! Right out of a movie...:B)

Hauled the hose and tank wand in the camper. Stuck wand in the toilet and went out to turn on the hose.

Went back and and I just touched the wand handle and "Poof"!!! :E The darn plastic shutoff valve stem blew right out....:M

After about 3 seconds of pure astonishment to even figure out what had happened, the 3/8" hole in the side of the plastic shut off was gushing water out like crazy. The new full role of TP took a direct hit and "poof" it is flying everywhere....:(

I put my hand over the hole and, bame, up it fly's right in my face about drowned me. This is now at elapsed time about 6 seconds....:p

I holler to the DW. "Shut it off!" She hollers back, "Shut what off...." Oh boy this ain't good...:R

It finally dawned on me to shove the wand down the toilet and cuff my hands over the gusher and most all the rest of the water was piling down the toilet.

By now DW come in. OMG!!! :E She runs out and turns the water off.

Lesson Learned: Always use a back up hose shut off valve on the wand and make sure it is metal with a metal valve stem. I do not care how $$ it is.

We look back and laugh, but it was a handful that day. Had to mop up the floor, carpet, etc. In a camper 2 to 3 gallons of water on the floor seems like about 100 gallons trying to sop it up with towels.

Happy camping

John

That is really good my DH "Bonefish" had to tell that one. He did not say what he has done.

Sharon

Where's the "like" button on this forum ?

1 - BEFORE dumping, check the connections on the sewer hose.

2 - Walk around before puling out, even for a short trip. Embarassing to be dragging a 100' extension cord down the street.

3 - Remember to check 3 dimensions, not just ahead and to the sides. Air vents are cheap but other stuff on the roof isn't.

I'm sure there are more I've chosen to forget, but I'll remember soon enough.

Just because your smaller RV fits in a familiar site does not mean your new, higher RV will fit in the same site.