What was your first newbie moment?

[Bill_and_Marie_]

As per BillHoughtin's response to my newbie moment post, please share your newbie moment!

[Bill_and_Marie_]

Thank you all for sharing, very enjoyable read and also many lessons learned. We will try our best not to hit or back into anything on our upcoming trip.

[eddard49]

I had my old class A in my daughters driveway and needed to turn around before entering a busy hiway. My wife asked if I wanted her to spot for me, but she had recently had knee replacement surgery and it was difficult for her to climb through to do that. "No, I'll be fine"......did a few adjustments back and forth, got nearly straight.....last trip rearwards and CRUNCH. I had a homemade wood box in the hitch receiver and it smashed into the garage door. Took out my roof ladder, some trim on the garage overhang, and $600 worth of new garage door. No damage to my woodbox, I build things heavy duty!

The worst part is my SIL and 4 grandkids saw the whole episode.

[navegator]

I have been RV'ing with the C class since 2001 and today I made a newby do do, I was playing with the TV antenna last night and forgot to lower it, stopped for fuel and saw it, sheepishly went inside and lowered it, no damage.

navegator

[jblz51]

When I first drove my parents Class C, it felt like it was 40 ft long. I totally did not trust myself to change lanes without my sister in a car behind us using a walkie-talkie to tell me it was safe to get over. Now that I look back on it, I have to laugh at myself. Why? Well, the camper is all of 20 ft., bumper to bumper! I've since had a pickup longer than that thing. A couple years later, I completely forgot to put the house battery back in it after putting it on the trickle charger. 350 miles and 7 hours of driving later, no lights were to be had. Oops.

[Ductape_Dave]

Was at the factory having some work done and just finished giving some newbie's some tips. We left to get a bite to eat.

Not in my normal camping pack up, left the parking lot and going 50 mph down a 4 lane highway my wife suddenly says "Oh $hit the awning is out" I quickly pulled over and retracted it and said "I just wanted to keep the sun out of your eyes" well we had one heck of a laugh over dinner after she calm down.

When we returned to the factory the newbie's I spoke with said they were trying to chase me when I was leaving the parking lot, I told them I was doing a wind test on the awning!

[derh20]

drove to a gas station and did not think about the "tail wag". went to leave the gas station and the rear of my MH hit one of those cement post that are used to keep cars from hitting the pumps. No serious damage, so i was lucky.

[Mr_Biggles]

First trip in the TT . Drain plugs were not installed , and grey and black water valves were both open. Couldn't figure out why the water tank wasn't filling up at first. And the first visit to the dump station was messy. That's also when I discovered we needed rubber gloves.

[mm047]

This one is easy. We pulled into a camping area near a lake at just after dark. We got lost on the way to it.

So I backed into what I thought was a camping site. None of the "sites" were organized, you just found a flat spot and set up.

Early next morning I discover I had set up in the middle of the only road in and out of the area. There were only 3 or 4 other campers around, and one helped me move to a real spot.

[DrewE]

ron.dittmer wrote:
First time using the furnace I asphyxiated my wife.

RV closed up with wife inside. The furnace would not turn on so in desperation I went outside and removed the furnace access cover to snoop around. I find a switch, flip it, and "Whoa" the furnace starts running. Before replacing the access cover I get distracted. It didn't take long before my wife is screaming that the inside of the rig is filled with fumes.

That was a quick lesson... NEVER run the furnace with the outside cover removed.

I hope you repaired or replaced the heat exchanger after that incident! Even with the outside cover off, the furnace should not permit any combustion gasses to enter into the ductwork. (If there was a window or door or something open near the furnace, the exhaust could of course enter the motorhome that way.)

Edit: It's a heat exchanger, not an air exchanger. 1 demerit to DrewE for not even superficially proofreading before hitting the post message button.

[Duck]

So many in the first year I can't count them. On the way home from purchasing our first trailer I didn't lock the door. Going down I-95 the access door opened.
Thank goodness it didn't hurt the door hinges.
Don

[ron_dittmer]

First time using the furnace I asphyxiated my wife.

RV closed up with wife inside. The furnace would not turn on so in desperation I went outside and removed the furnace access cover to snoop around. I find a switch, flip it, and "Whoa" the furnace starts running. Before replacing the access cover I get distracted. It didn't take long before my wife is screaming that the inside of the rig is filled with fumes.

That was a quick lesson... NEVER run the furnace with the outside cover removed.

[Grandpa_Joe]

While backing into our site at dusk, my wife asked " should I go back there and make sure you don't hit the only tree on the site? I said, no, huge site no way! Well guess what happened!!!:o Was able to straighten out the square tube in our tool room at work.

[stargirl96]

We made a big impression at a beautiful little campground in Chama, NM. While trying to back the 5th wheel, we accidentally ran into an rv neighbor's satellite dish. The next day we rode the Cumbres and Toltec scenic train. After arriving back at the campgrounds we heard from several sources that our two dogs somehow escaped the 5th wheel and roamed free part of the day. We mistakenly thought the door was closed and locked tight, but our larger dog was able to push the door open. We took a little kidding from our fellow campers.

[SarahElizabeth]

On day 2 of owning the RV (three days ago) we decided to open the awning for the first time and immediately broke it. We had to get help from our local firefighters to get it unstuck. It was embarrassing to say the least.