May 26, 2014 by Lee and Tracy

First Time Having Guests at the Seasonal Site

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks since we got back from the rally. I have worked out-of-town both weeks and the weekend in between we finished getting our house ready to sell. We definitely did NOT want to miss the Memorial Day weekend house hunting traffic, so we scheduled two open houses; one on Saturday, and one on Sunday. The downside was no camper time while we got it ready for that. Lee snuck out a couple of times and setup some basics and he put the new reclining love seat in and removed the original couch, but there was still lots of work waiting us when we hit the campsite Friday night. The first day and a half was spent squaring things away and it was weird unpacking for a seasonal stay versus moving around all the time. When you’re on the go everything is placed for ease of packing up and making sure it’s secure. When you’re stationary you can put anything you want wherever you want, which is nice, but totally different from the rally arrangement. While I situated things Lee worked on the support box under the couch. In the pictures below you can see we bought a love seat with zero clearance so each side can tilt back and out. It’s SUPER comfortable but does look pretty weird in that small a space. That being said I don’t regret the purchase at all and until we can get to Amish country and buy a custom couch I am super happy. I started down the path of thinking where would guests sit…how it looked etc, but as Lee quickly mentioned guests will mainly be outside and “Do you want to be comfortable or not?” The man had a point and once I sat in it I was sold…slightly weird looking or not. One last note Lee built a box for below the couch because the new one sticks out a little farther than the old one, so it needed something to rest on. The box didn’t look very good until he removed the padding and leather from the old couch and used it to upholster the new base. It looks great. The man is a genius!! (It’s true. I am a genius. – Lee)

Here’s the wooden box he built

Finished box on the bottom

My daughter Kay curled on the couch

That was the other thing..my daughter who is 18 gave up her Friday night and came out to visit us right after work. It was so fun, we had hot dogs and marshmallows and she kept us entertained all night with weird facts from an app her phone has. She’s a good girl and it was sweet she came to hang out. The lack of wifi was a bit of a bummer for her though.

One of my other favorite things was I got my rock collection sorted out. I like rocks and have collected neat ones in all my travels. I really thought I was going to have to give up my rock collection…partly for weight and partly because vision of rocks flying around the camper was giving me nightmares. Lee and my in-laws all threw themselves behind solving my rock problem though (so sweet) and helped me find these very nice plastic containers at The Container Store. I will be able to strap these in when we move and I now have three different rock carriers with plenty of space for more to come!! I don’t know about you, but it’s the little things in life that give me true joy…so thanks to Lee, DeDe and especially Denny for helping me make this happen. (If you’ve never been there, I highly recommend The Container Store. It’s my personal mecca. The have anything you need for putting anything into anything. They even have little boxes you can put littler boxes into. – Lee)

My rock collection…left to right Gold…Black…Red

Finally on Saturday Lee hung my Audrey Hepburn picture (which I fretted would not work and make the room smaller and turned out to be perfect) and covered the cabinet mirrors with Artscape Window Film. I really hated the fact that the cabinets across from the bed had mirrors for a variety of reasons…not the least of which is that I am not that crazy at looking at myself all the time. (I am not nearly as happy as she is about it. Who doesn’t want a wall of mirrors facing the bed??? Bow chicka bow bow, baby. – Lee) So I did some research and found a window cling at Home Depot. We weren’t sure what it would look like on a mirror since it’s made to go on a window, but Lee, ever practical, said buy one roll and if it doesn’t work you’re only out $22. Not only did it work…it completely surpassed my expectations…LOVE LOVE LOVE it. And, again, the room does not look smaller which was a concern. So here’s my updated bedroom thanks to my great handy-man hubby. (The Artscape window film is really easy to work with, and looks great on windows, and apparently, mirrors, although the more colorful and detailed patterns probably wouldn’t look as good on a mirror as a simple etched or frosted glass look. All you do is rough-cut it to fit, spray the glass with water that has just a few drops of liquid soap in it, and then position it and squeegee it until there are no air bubbles or water left. There’s no adhesive, it just works based on the laws of fluid mechanics. Or magic. Then you use a very sharp razor knife to trim the edge, and sit back and enjoy the adulation and kisses from whoever you did it for. Hanging a picture is even easier and hardly ever requires squeegeeing anything, so the work-to-kisses ratio is more in your favor. – Lee)

My Audrey Hepburn picture

Before and after with mirrors

Lee at work

Finished product looks so much better

Sunday night we had our friends Georgia and Jim over. They had not seen the campsite yet and we were happy to be ready to share it. I went with hot dogs and chips but I did make my Mom’s amazing potato salad. Usually I’m lazy and buy a vastly inferior product at the grocery store, but making a small batch for just the four of us was super easy and it lasts well in the fridge. I have the recipe at the bottom if you want to try it out. It’s truly yummy delicious. I also have been looking for years for that hot dogs that mimic those of my childhood memories and I finally found them. Jordan’s Ball Game Treats are very inexpensive and taste just like the hot dogs I ate when I was a kid. I am sure they are terrible for you…but I’ll take a good ole basic hot dog over one of those fancy ones any day. (Fancy hot dogs??? What the hell are fancy hot dogs? I don’t think she knows what hot dogs are made of. – Lee)

Oh I also keep forgetting to mention Lee put up a bird feeder on the window that Dede and Denny gave us and a hummingbird feeder. We have had friends in both along our travels and since they are right outside my desk window I can sit and watch without scaring them away. I included the hummingbird feeder mixture in the recipe section because it’s easy to make but I keep forgetting the ratio.

Bird feeder and hummingbird feeder outside my desk window

Georgia and Jim (two of our best friends) came over and we had a great time. Their son worked for Lee and he is the son we never had. He chose the same career field as Lee and is doing very well in it so we had a very enjoyable night talking about our kids, our plans for the future, and of course showing off our new camper 🙂 It was also cool that despite having intermittent rain all weekend it was perfectly dry all night. Thanks so much Georgia and Jim for helping us kick off our seasonal summer!! Look forward to many more nights by the fire.

Speaking of the campsite here are the pictures of the campsite and our friends Georgia and Jim.

Campsite at night

Kay and Lee hanging out by the fire

Big rock on our site

Very well wooded love that...we have neighbors but can barely see them through the tress

Very well wooded site.. love that…we have neighbors but can barely see them through the tress

Connie’s Best Ever Potato Salad

6-8 medium sized Idaho potatoes
4 boiled eggs (separate yolks and whites)
2 cups mayonnaise
2 Tbsp yellow mustard Plochman’s mild yellow recommended
3 chopped green onions (thinly sliced including greens)
1 pack Good Seasons Italian Dressing

1. Peel potatoes and cut into 4-5 pieces

2. Boil covered until you can easily cut through with a butter knife but remove before mushy. Rinse with cool water

3. Boil eggs and allow both eggs and potatoes to cool

4. Use a fork to mix egg yolks, mayo, mustard, and good seasons

5. Mix potatoes, green onions, and egg whites

6. Mix dressing into potato mixture gently stirring.

7. Refrigerate until served (best if made the night before)

Connie’s Best Ever Potato Salad

Hummingbird Feeder Solution

1 part sugar (must be the real deal)
4 parts water

Stir well prior to filling up the feeder

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June 18, 2013 by Lee and Tracy

Maiden Voyage – Rainy Day

Maiden Voyage – Rainy Day

On day three we had our first experience with rainy day camping. We were somewhat prepared as the weather channel said there was a chance of showers, so we saved a couple of Lake Placid activities until the second day. We took a gondola ride up to the top of White Face mountain and drove the auto road and had lunch at the summit, both of which worked just fine with the rainy weather. (It’s like we were on two different trips. She bought herself a nice Cabela’s rain coat thingie, while I was left to fend for myself and got pelted by rain, which in the mountains is much larger and I think has tiny little needles on each drop to punish you for being outside. All I had was a ridiculous rainbow umbrella, which I used; but I was in constant fear of being mocked and ridiculed by people who weren’t carrying rainbow umbrellas. – Lee)

But then we were done and went back to the camper. First off: the outdoor rug? Awesome purchase. Although the ground was sandy, the rain was coming down so hard that there was a lot of standing water, but our rug soaked most of it up and we had a relatively dry path to get into the camper. The rug also gave us a small dryish space to sit outside under the canopy, which was nice. Thankfully, we had brought some movies to watch. The camper has a built-in DVD player and we snuggled under our flannel blankets and watched a movie with the rain falling outside. (Lies, all lies, big… fat… lies. SHE snuggled up under her very nice flannel blanket, while I was made to suffer and freeze using the sad and entirely inadequate bedspread from the bedroom, which is decidedly NOT made of flannel. I think it’s made from the tears of dying kittens. I have ordered several of those nice flannel blankets for myself, and I intend to hide them in various places in the camper so I never have to suffer again. – Lee) It was nice, really; inside the camper the rain is very muted so it doesn’t feel like you are inside a tin can at all, and when it got too chilly we would pop the heater on for a few minutes to take the chill off. Also, one great thing about the rain was it washed the pollen away. There had been tons of yellow pollen everywhere… no wonder I was sneezing so much, and my nose was unstuffed for the first time that weekend.

When the rain finally slowed down and the bugs started to come out, we used the tiki torches. I have to say, these were an outstanding purchase. (Another great idea, brought to you by Lee.™) What I thought of as merely decorative was great for keeping the bugs away from the trailer. We have been positioning them in a semi-circle around the canopy and as soon as we light them bugs stay outside that circle. That, coupled with spraying the screens in the morning with heavy-duty bug spray (facing to the outside, of course), works really great for fly/mosquito control.

We have a grill that attaches to the camper’s propane tank for rainy days and Lee made us a couple of steaks. I prefer campfire cooking, but the wood was a bit wet and it was an easy alternative. That night I did start a nice fire and we sat outside and roasted some marshmallows. All and all it was a nice lazy camping day. Update: we hated this grill and eventually replaced it. It was too big, took up to much space, and didn’t work consistently.

The next morning we woke up and started to tear down the camper to leave. This time we hadn’t bought the additional day, so we had to be done by 11am, which made things a bit more difficult. When you’re up at 7:30 that seems like a lot of time, but we are still new at this and I started to feel the pressure. When under pressure I tend to stop talking and I’m all inside my head. Lee, to his credit, noticed the signs and had me stop and communicate. But it didn’t go that well. We were done in time, pulled out with three minutes to spare, but we kept running into each other and the division of labor was not that clear. In the spirit of our new adventure, we did talk about it on the drive home and decided to make sure we stuck to the inside/outside plan for tear-down. Lee also mentioned a great point: setup is fun; you’re all excited and having a good time, and looking forward to the camping. Tear down is more like work. At the end you just get to go home. If home were so awesome, why bring a portable version of your house to the woods?

Compared to the couple next to us though, I’d have to say we did pretty well. The woman sat and texted the entire time and her husband did all the work. When he gently said she might want to learn some of what he was doing she said, with a tone, “The camper was your idea, not mine.”

This bugged me–normally, I try not to make judgments, but I was outside at the time learning about sewer draining (not my favorite thing) and heard the comment. I couldn’t resist saying cheerfully to Lee, “That’s not so hard, it’s just two levers.” That shamed her a bit.

Campers are a significant investment, and hey, if you don’t want to camp, (especially with little kids, which they had), I get it. But if you’re going to try it, at least actually give it a try. It’s not very fair to make your spouse do all the dirty work. Tempting? Yes. Fair? No. (Well sure, but hogging the flannel blanket, well, that’s just allowed, isn’t it??? – Lee)

Lessons Learned

Have a rainy day plan
Bring extra movies just in case
Tiki torches are fun and functional
Stock up on flannel blankets.

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June 18, 2013 by Lee and Tracy

Maiden Voyage – Day 1

Lake Placid/Whiteface Mountain KOA

Finally! The day arrived for our maiden voyage. I traveled for work quite a bit in the interim, but Lee snuck in lots of time to work on the camper. I can’t list every single thing he did, but suffice it to say I have the best husband ever. One of the things he did that I absolutely loved was put some additional shelving in the pantry cabinet. The original cabinet is tall, and very deep (24″!) but only had three shelves. Lee added two more shelves to make more reasonable heights and significantly increase the food storage.

Here’s the original pantry cabinet, with some stuff in them to give you an idea of the scale. And because Lee is Lee, he added lighting.

There were also lots of little touches and during the first day of setting up it was like having a ton of little presents. Small touches like a wood soap container that matched the interior that really made the day special. We did find the time on our no-camping weekend to go to the Container Store. I highly recommend a trip just to get ideas for storage. The best purchase was a case of plastic shoe boxes at $1.69 each. All loose items are safely stored in these boxes, they fit great in any storage space in the camper, and they are clear so it’s easy to open the door and quickly find something. This was actually my idea, and I was pleased to see it work well.

My other favorite purchase was a condiment/vegetable tray that holds ice in the bottom and has a lid so you could keep snacks outside longer. It’s a bit of a frivolous item, but a bargain at $14.99 because it made me so happy.

After checking out the improved camper, we hitched it up and Lee maneuvered it out of the storage area. I think we were so excited that we had successfully managed that part that what happened next was sort of inevitable. Lee was getting ready to turn onto the main road and we were talking when we heard a big crunch. I looked out my rearview mirror and the wheels of the trailer were going up and over a pretty big rock. Lee was upset; I started laughing. Yes, I know it’s an odd reaction, but when we bought the camper the daughter-in-law of the couple who sold us to it gave me one piece of advice. She said the first time we dinged the camper not to get upset. It was going to happen and it was just a camper. This flashed into my mind and I admit I felt a little relieved that the first ding seemed so minor. We pulled off at the first place we could and Lee checked the camper. The stairs were slightly bent and one of the panels was crunched a bit, but nothing too major. Lee didn’t take it quite so well.

(Well, duh. First of all, I was just minding my own business, driving out of the parking area, and this seriously large rock, a boulder, really, with a major attitude problem leapt off the side of the road and bit right into our sparkly new camper. You can see the perp in the photo below.

Doesn’t it look like a thug? I was going to teach it a lesson, but you have to be careful. These street boulders travel in gangs.

Seriously though, I was worried I might have done real damage to it, and in the first few minutes of our first real trip. Luckily, it was only a slight bend to the steps that I was able to straighten our with some pulling and grunting (see pulling and grunting below) and a judicious kick.

This is what the steps are supposed to look like.

And this is the new-and-improved, modified version.

As you can see, the affected step brace now has an arch to it. Engineers say that an arch is the strongest architecturally, so if you think about it, I improved the design and made it stronger. Some of the skirting, which is just cosmetic also came loose, but it doesn’t flap while driving at highway speed, so it’s really just art. My ego, on the other hand, damaged beyond repair. – Lee)

Once we were back on the road, the traffic surprised us a bit. We thought we had left in plenty of time, but the drive was on mainly two-lane highways and it is construction season so the roads were often down to one lane. I only mention it because I always have to be on time. Why it matters being on time to a campground for vacation weekend, I have no idea, but I need to have a healthy dose of “we get there when we get there” for these trips. Why start off stressed? It turned out to be fine since check in started at 3:00 and despite some unexpected delays we still arrived at 3:15. (I chalk this accomplishment up to my almost supernatural ability to manipulate time and space. It’s eerie, really. – Lee) In our previous travels (without a trailer) we saw tons of places to pull over and shop or maybe have lunch, and indeed we saw tons of those places during this trip, but very few have a parking lot that accommodates a truck and trailer. (And of course, now that I was aware that there are roving gangs of boulders wandering around looking for innocent campers to attack, I didn’t want to take any chances. – Lee) Once we got closer to the campsite, I made some mental notes of places to visit, and we circled back later in just the truck once we had dropped the trailer, but mostly the little shops along the way are something that you might have to give up. Lunch was another challenge. If you are on interstates there are truck stops along the way, but since we were on less traveled roads it was more of a challenge. Luckily I had bought a phone app for $10 called AllStays which shows your vehicle on the map and what facilities are coming up. This was really helpful for finding gas stations that could accommodate trailer height and upcoming turnarounds or pull offs to take a quick bathroom break. As a side note, the ability to stop and get into your trailer to use the bathroom is pretty awesome. At first I felt kind of weird about it, but no more scary public restrooms for me–you bring yours with you! We ended up stopping at a small Citgo truck stop which had gas and a small deli inside. (Eat here! Get gas! – Lee) I would have preferred one with a restaurant of some sort, but the food was cheap and did the trick, plus, as I said, options were limited. One word of advice: start thinking about where you will stop at least 30 minutes in advance. The app was very helpful in this case because you can look ahead along your route. It’s definitely a mindset adjustment if you are used to just being able to stop anywhere. Plus, setting up the camper is physically demanding and a good solid lunch is key for later on.

After lunch it was my turn to drive. This was my first time driving a trailer of any kind and I was pretty nervous, but the only way to make this work on longer trips is for me to take a turn so I took a deep breath and pulled out of the station. Below are my takeaways from the experience. I didn’t get comfortable on that first go, felt a lot like a brand new driver, which, in a way, I was.

Make wide turns and look at the lower side mirror on the side you are turning (left mirror for left turn and right mirror for right turn) to watch the trailer tires to make sure you clear.
Obey the speed limit. I found every time I crept above the speed limit even 5 mph I started to struggle. Apparently the speed limits are for bigger vehicles and are pretty accurate–who knew?
Watch for sway. The truck we have gives a message on the instrument panel to slow down if the sway becomes too bad. This is great, but you can sway over the middle line because of the wind if you’re not careful. I had seen people driving and swaying and always thought they weren’t good drivers… shame on me.
Stay to the right. The middle lane is way too stressful with having to watch both sides almost constantly. In the right lane, people can easily pass you and generally you have a lot of extra space to play with on the right, so it’s much less stressful.
Take your time. If you’re one of those people plodding down the road, so be it. People can get around you if they have someplace to go and you’re new at this, so don’t be pressured into speeding up. Plus, you’re the big vehicle so they can be more agile than you if needed.

We made it to the campsite and signed in. Again, the people checking us in were super nice–mostly older, semi-retired folks who seemed generally pleased that we were newbies. The setup went pretty easily, although Lee had reorganized and I wasn’t sure where a lot of things were. (Hey, I can’t help it. Things needed to be put where they needed to be put. I had an orientation class, but she didn’t show up. – Lee) There were a couple of challenges. We didn’t have enough sewer hose to park where we wanted. Lee ran down to the store and bought another twenty feet of hose, so now we have forty feet in all. (If I keep buying sewer hose, eventually I will have enough to just run the hose from the camper to our house. – Lee) Also, either from going over rocks or something else, a black plastic hose with wires inside had rubbed against the tire and some of the wires were bare. This is where I am really lucky to have Lee in my life because he repaired the wires. (It is astonishing to me how often it comes up that she is lucky to have me in her life. I should get a medal. Or a statue. Or at least a parade. So, like she said, there’s this little bundle of wires that are attached to the slide-out. When the slide-out slides out, the wires go along with it. And when it’s not slid out, there’s a spring that’s attached the to bundle that is supposed to pull the slack that is created up under the trailer. Some genius engineer designed this whole thing and put it smack in front of the trailer tires. You know, right where it would flap against the tires if the spring broke, allowing the tires to rub away the protective sheath, then the insulation around the wires, and eventually, right through the wires themselves. When we got to the campsite, my eagle eye caught this and I tried to figure out what the wires provided power to. Everything worked, so I can’t imagine what purpose the wires served. I didn’t have a multi-tester with me, but I did put together an “I don’t know this camper very well so I better be prepared for weird things to happen” kit. Luckily, that kit included some wire, and wire nuts. I was able to splice the mess together and for the return trip I used baby bungee cords to stow away the slack loop.

Back home I will have a few weeks before I drive over another boulder to figure out what the wires supply, and install a better splice, and a more robust slack-wire-retraction device. – Lee)

Lesson Learned

Leave extra time for construction traffic
Invest in an app that shows camper resources
Don’t leave lunch until the last-minute
Make wide turns and look at the lower side mirror on the side you are turning (left mirror for left turn and right mirror for right turn) to watch the trailer tires to make sure you clear
Obey the speed limit
Watch for sway
Boulders are dangerous, sneaky creatures, and are not to be trusted

Easy and Delicious Baked Fish

Ingredients

1 cup herb season stuffing mix (finely crushed)
4 Tbsp butter, melted
1 7.6 oz portion of grill flavored frozen fish (2 portions)
2 tsp lemon juice

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees

2. Combine stuffing with butter, tossing well until mixed

3. Lightly grease a baking dish

4. Place fish portion in bottom. Sprinkle fish with lemon juice

5. Place crumb mixture lightly on fish and extra around the sides

6. Bake in preheated oven for 18-20 minutes or until fish flakes easily with a fork

June 17, 2013 by Lee and Tracy

Trial Run – Saturday

Trial Run – Day Two

It’s a good thing we went to bed early because we got up early. Very early. As in, the birds asked us to keep it down because they were trying to sleep. Excitement coupled with a desire to get started got us going. I should say here in complete honesty Lee got me going. (Yes, that’s true. – Lee) Lee is a very early riser, so for him a 5:30 rise time is normal, but for me on a weekend, not so much. We got up and walked outside and it was so quiet. I mean really quiet, like you never get to experience in a town, and I took a deep breath and smiled. I had forgotten how much I liked the quiet. Raising three kids and working at a job that requires non-stop communication with people (I am a project manager/efficiency expert) doesn’t allow for much genuine quiet. It was a great feeling, but then the practicalities kicked in. We had no coffee. No food. Some people can roll with these kind of things, but for me these are pretty basic requirements. So we got in the truck went back home and took showers and grabbed a bite to eat. I know what you’re thinking, at this point we had spent precious little time actually at the campsite. You would be right and it actually gets worse before it gets better!

Refreshed and ready to face the day we went back to the camper. Of course it wasn’t even 8am yet, so I puttered around double checking the list and Lee worked on whatever it was that he needed to do. Finally it was time to go back to shopping! We had picked up a lot of what we needed at Target, but it turned out that there a lot of things specific to a travel trailer that Target didn’t have. We needed to go to a store that specializes in camping and RVs.

The nearest camping store was 1-1/2 hours away in Chichester, near Concord, but we decided to make the drive and go to Camper’s World. Camper’s World is definitely the place to go for RV camping specific supplies! We had gone to outdoor/sports places and they have items but mostly these are for tent camping and the hard-core adventurer. (As you are learning, we are not hard-core adventurers. – Lee) Camper’s World is for the RV traveler and our wish list got MUCH longer once we saw what they had to offer. One thing I want to mention here is their Good Sam club membership. It includes, for $69.95, tow assistance for both your vehicles and trailers. Even if you have tow assistance on your current vehicle it may not cover the trailer, and I thought the coverage they provide was definitely a bargain for the corresponding piece of mind. I also want to mention that this is where we blew our budget. We had spent the bulk of the initial $1,000 on “household goods”, but Camping World had RV supplies, really a completely different category and I’ll be honest we completely blew the budget. By the time we were done with initial expenses I think we hit about $1,800. Also, measure everything before you go. Spacial relationships are different in a camper than what you’re used to, and you’d be surprised how often things won’t fit. Below are some of the more interesting things we saw:

Carpet for the steps – Apparently camping is a bit dirty…who knew? So as I was sweeping for the umpteenth time I realized we needed both mats and carpets steps to minimize the dirt. The people in my family will laugh to hear me say I was sweeping (I am not known as the cleanest person in the world) but it’s a small space and keeping it neat just makes sense. But step carpeting for the RV was #1 on my list. Unfortunately we hadn’t pre-measured so we had to delay this purchase until later
Electric jack – when we had the incident with not being able to get the camper unhitched poor Lee was cranking the trailer up and down and up and down. I tried but it’s pretty hard to do, so electric jack is definitely high on our list of things to buy in the future
Paddy O’ Room – This is a way to enclose your canopy. VERY expensive and we did not buy one, but it did go on our wish list
New mattress – the mattress was really not working for me, but the ones they had for sale were in the $600 range. Too much to spend without some comparison shopping and some thought. While Queen sheets may work on a Queen short the mattress has to be specially made in order to take advantage of the storage space underneath. It was good to know there were options, but this was something we would chew on.
Pioneer Grill – I love the fact that the camper has a three burner stove and an oven, but I wanted to try cooking on a campfire. We had done some of this when we took the kids tent camping, but I love a fire and the challenge was appealing. I did remember however what a pain it was to cook on uneven heat and saw a product I just had to try. The campfire grill looked great in the box, but older and wiser now I knew it was a long shot. Imagine my surprise when it worked great. It is very heavy-duty and has a stake that sticks in the ground. You can adjust the grill up or down over the fire and it comes with its own nice carry bag. This product was great and absolutely lived up to its packaging. (Update: we love this product. It has totally held up and works at almost every campfire ring we have had.)

Finally done, it’s getting late again and by the time we stopped at the store it was 6pm. I decided to try something simple, that I had never done before so I made chicken legs, corn on the cob, and sliced tomatoes. We grill out a lot; hamburgers, steak, beef products, but never chicken, so I was in uncharted territory. It took 1-1/2 hours to get the fire hot enough and cook the chicken but it tasted great and it was an easy start to my cooking adventures. I should mention here that the camper has a real table and 4 chairs. This was a huge selling point for Lee as he doesn’t like the little booths and we were both very happy sitting down to our first meal. (Seriously, take a look at the picture. Doesn’t that look better than some weird booth that turns into a bed? Who wants to sleep where people eat? Who wants to eat where people sleep? Give me a proper table and chairs, and I’m a happy man. – Lee)

Lessons Learned

Coffee, food, and showers are a minimum requirement (at least for us)
A trial run 15 minutes away was once again a brilliant idea.
Budget for the money you will need to equip the camper
The lighter, cheaper, less expensive option is often best
When purchasing always think about storage and space
Don’t skimp on the can opener
Know what matters to you and don’t skimp on those items. Everything else bargain shop
Invest in trailer roadside assistance. The piece of mind is worth the price.
Be prepared to go over budget.
Measure everything in the camper (interior and exterior) before going shopping.

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