Lessons from our Maiden Voyage!

[Alice]

1. Turn off the battery when you park her for weeks, or it dies.

2. How to bypass an electric tongue jack and hand crank it.

3. Buy any necessities before the day you are supposed to leave.

4. There’s always a Wal-Mart within a half hour’s drive.

5. Other drivers suck.

6. When buying used, flush all the water lines – thoroughly.

7. Pre-cooling a fridge and freezer with jugs of frozen water really helps – and also gives you good drinking water when you buy a used trailer, do not flush all the water lines thoroughly, and your water smells like sulfur.

8. Turn on the campground water for a few minutes before you attach your drinking water hose and filter.

9. Run lots of water through that hose – even brand new – before you hook it to the trailer!  (Thankfully, I did this as black nasty gunk came through.)

10. Even ducted AC is loud.

11. Camping is fun.  Camping with air conditioning is more fun.

12. No matter how many times you say you're not going to watch TV and post on Facebook when you're camping - you will watch TV and post on Facebook.

13. A heated mattress may sound nice for fall and winter – but memory foam sounds way better!   

14. Even on the best, heavy stoneware pan, turn the biscuits half-way through cooking or eat black-bottomed biscuits.

15. If you don't run the exhaust fan when cooking, you will set off the smoke alarm.

16. Tank sensors are just totally guessing and they aren't very good at it.

17. Get a good checklist for set-up and break-down that says things like...

18. Raise the tongue jack before you start driving!

19. Furrion backup/observation cameras only work if you turn your headlights on.

    20.  Sanidumps LIES!  Verify before you leave.

    21.   Dumping your tank isn't nearly as bad as I expected.

    22.  Those sewer hoses do NOT fit in the bumper.

 - Alice

 

Edited August 19, 2019 by Alice

[$ Spot]

LOVE IT! What an entertaining and realistic read. On #15, so then I'll stop using the smoke alarm as a timer And on #19, I thought just the parking lights activated the cameras. 

     Spot

[Barbaraok]

#1 -  You shouldn't have to do a shut off of your battery unless you run stuff in your rig off of the truck? 

[hemsteadc]

#13.  Not sure what Mf has to do with a mattress heater.

[2gypsies]

Hope you had a great trip and a good learning experience!!!

[Darryl&Rita]

Thank you,  Alice, for a humorous look back at all the things we have learned along the way. Our Monday is complete. 

Edited August 19, 2019 by Darryl&Rita

[Alice]

19 minutes ago, Darryl&Rita said:

Thank you,  Alice, for a humorouslook back at all the things we have learned along the way. Our Monday is complete. 

Thanks.

2 hours ago, $ Spot said:

LOVE IT! What an entertaining and realistic read. On #15, so then I'll stop using the smoke alarm as a timer And on #19, I thought just the parking lights activated the cameras. 

     Spot

Ours runs off the lights at the top of the trailer and those don't come on unless we turn the headlights on.

2 hours ago, Barbaraok said:

#1 -  You shouldn't have to do a shut off of your battery unless you run stuff in your rig off of the truck? 

I meant when parking it for weeks.  All the little things like the microwave lights and other little energy sucks killed it.  (I edited)

 

1 hour ago, hemsteadc said:

#13.  Not sure what Mf has to do with a mattress heater.

The mattress is a heated mattress...and hard as a rock.  It will have to be replaced or at least topped, with memory foam.

[Barbaraok]

Alice, thanks for clarifying.  The  microwave doesn’t run off of batteries, but yes the phantom loads will drain rig batteries if you don’t throw disconnect switch.  Things like propane detector and CO detector, as well as TV antenna booster,  are among those small things we don’t see as we go about daily activities. 

[sandsys]

53 minutes ago, Barbaraok said:

The  microwave doesn’t run off of batteries

If it has a clock it probably does.

Good, and fun, list. Thanks for posting it.

Linda

[2gypsies]

Nothing works on the microwave if the RV isn't plugged into electric.  The clock doesn't run.

[SWharton]

Great read. Now take what you learned and start a check list(maybe multiple). Always use it, even if you think you have it memorized. If interrupted going through your list, start again.

Just think of the "around the fire" stories you have!!!!

[hemsteadc]

1 hour ago, sandsys said:

If it has a clock it probably does.

no. Go unplug yours.  No clock.

Edited August 19, 2019 by hemsteadc

[Chalkie]

#4 - YUP!! Our maiden trip was to a campground that was both near our home and a Walmart.

#5 - This is a cardinal rule no matter what state, county, city, town, village you are in! 

#10 - Not so (at least in our RV)

#16 - True that!

#11 - Absolutely true!! I have even managed to convince my son that "glamping" in his TT is better than boon-docking all the time. 

 

[Kirk W]

9 hours ago, Alice said:

Pre-cooling a fridge and freezer with jugs of frozen water really helps –

I always start the refrigerator the night before we pack up to travel.

9 hours ago, Alice said:

Run lots of water through that hose – even brand new – before you hook it to the trailer!  (Thankfully, I did this as black nasty gunk came through.)

The black stuff probably came from a new, carbon water filter. They suggest flushing them for 3 to 5 minutes before each use. A new water hose will both smell and taste when you first connect it but only needs flushed for a few gallons of water. 

9 hours ago, Alice said:

Even on the best, heavy stoneware pan, turn the biscuits half-way through cooking or eat black-bottomed biscuits.

RV ovens do not have enough mass to heat evenly but if you put either an unglazed tile or pizza stone into it that will cover nearly the entire bottom of the oven will make it heat much more evenly. 

Thanks for sharing the list! It is important to remember that the main reason some of us know many RV answers is that we have made more mistakes than you have. But I like to think of them not so much as mistakes, but as learning experiences!  😁

One day we should share a list of things that RV folks either have done, or will do at some future date. 

[Barbaraok]

We had LOTS of learning experiences 😋

[Dutch_12078]

76 years of camping and RV'ing and still learning!

[Alice]

34 minutes ago, Kirk W said:

I always start the refrigerator the night before we pack up to travel.

The black stuff probably came from a new, carbon water filter. They suggest flushing them for 3 to 5 minutes before each use. A new water hose will both smell and taste when you first connect it but only needs flushed for a few gallons of water. 

Our trailer is in a storage facility, so we can't plug in to run the fridge.  It definitely did help to cool it down though. I thought about trying to do it on propane but didn't like the idea of leaving it on.  As I understand it,  the battery still needs to work for propane to run the fridge,  and we killed it,  so it wouldn't have worked. 

I did hook the pressure regulator, then filter, then hose.  I just assumed it was the hose but i bet it was the filter now that you mention it.  

[Ray,IN]

On 8/19/2019 at 12:30 PM, hemsteadc said:

#13.  Not sure what Mf has to do with a mattress heater.

Plus, a memory foam mattress can accumulate moisture on the bottom side in certain situations, which may cause mold.

[sandsys]

1 hour ago, Ray,IN said:

Plus, a memory foam mattress can accumulate moisture on the bottom side in certain situations, which may cause mold.

I've been using memory foam toppers for years without having mold. But that's a topper not a full mattress. I prefer the support of a regular mattress with the comfort of a memory foam topper.

Linda

[hemsteadc]

1 hour ago, Ray,IN said:

Plus, a memory foam mattress can accumulate moisture on the bottom side in certain situations, which may cause mold.

Those certain situations are usually too much moisture and not enough ventilation.

[$ Spot]

On 8/19/2019 at 11:26 AM, Alice said:

1.      19. Furrion backup/observation cameras only work if you turn your headlights on.

On 8/19/2019 at 12:05 PM, $ Spot said:

And on #19, I thought just the parking lights activated the cameras. 

On 8/19/2019 at 2:24 PM, Alice said:

Ours runs off the lights at the top of the trailer and those don't come on unless we turn the headlights on.

Yes, the lights at the top of the trailer are the running lights/marker lights that get activated one click shy of the headlights. Give it a try next time you get a chance as I'm interested. 

     Spot

 

[Alice]

27 minutes ago, $ Spot said:

Yes, the lights at the top of the trailer are the running lights/marker lights that get activated one click shy of the headlights. Give it a try next time you get a chance as I'm interested. 

     Spot

 

Tried.  Have too be fully on,  not just on auto. 

5 hours ago, Ray,IN said:

Plus, a memory foam mattress can accumulate moisture on the bottom side in certain situations, which may cause mold.

I assume you can't use the heated mattress with a topper.  And this sucker has to have a topper.

[Kirk W]

9 hours ago, Alice said:

Tried.  Have too be fully on,  not just on auto. 

I don't believe that he means the auto position of the light switch but most also have a position for running lights only as well as for headlights (and running lights). I usually tow with the running lights on even in daylight hours. With the tongue jack, if it doesn't run due to a dead battery, leave your tow vehicle running but close to the tongue and connect the power cable from it to the trailer and the electric jack should work.

[Alice]

2 hours ago, Kirk W said:

I don't believe that he means the auto position of the light switch but most also have a position for running lights only as well as for headlights (and running lights). I usually tow with the running lights on even in daylight hours. With the tongue jack, if it doesn't run due to a dead battery, leave your tow vehicle running but close to the tongue and connect the power cable from it to the trailer and the electric jack should work.

Eh, maybe, maybe not on the lights.  All I know is until I had hubby turn them all the way on, we had no camera.  He might have skipped over that setting.  It's safer to run with headlights, even in daylight, so it's all good.

As for the battery/jack - I'm glad to see I thought of everything LOL because we tried that!  But, no, didn't work.  Not even a little and yes, the truck was running.  We killed that battery good and dead and nothing was going to work until it started charging apparently.  The truck did nothing.  All the way there we got an annoying little chime and a message that the "Trailer Battery Is Not Charging".    It took hooking it up to shore power to get anything to work and thankfully, to charge the battery.  Once it had a charge, on the way home, we didn't get that notification, so I guess the little charge from the truck was going into the battery then.

[$ Spot]

1 hour ago, Alice said:

Eh, maybe, maybe not on the lights.  All I know is until I had hubby turn them all the way on, we had no camera.  He might have skipped over that setting.  It's safer to run with headlights, even in daylight, so it's all good.

While driving the light setting isn't an issue but very well could be as you back into the site with the headlights on the neighbors. Have a look at your headlight switch & see if the camera works without the headlights on. As mentioned, I'm not referring to the auto setting or the headlight setting. There should be another light setting that will run the camera without the headlights, helpful in neighbor relations. This is all new to you & I'm simply trying to help

     Spot