Wolves in the RV

So we got an envelope full of crap this week from the Winnebago-Itasca Travelers club. Membership was free with our outrageously large purchase of a new Winnebago

After briefly looking over all the stuff, it seems that we get 1 year of roadside assistance (which is nice) and 10% off at selected campgrounds around the country. Plus a swanky membership card and an EXCLUSIVE license plate. Let me run and get my screwdriver!

I’m very happy with my new Winnie, but I’m just not sure I understand the club. Some of the other flyers and ads that came in the envelope were interesting though, like a service that will receive and scan your mail for you and send it along via email while you’re on the road and a service that flies you to a hospital if you become ill while traveling and arranges to drive your RV home for you. But that flier was full of typos… Not sure I’m going to trust them to fly me anywhere with that kind of attention to detail.

Anyhow, there is no camping this weekend… We have some errands to run and a couple of gatherings to attend including the big annual neighborhood BBQ. We may go out again next weekend though nothing official.

We’re also in the process of finding some good candidates for our big Campsgiving trip in November. More on that to come…

These photos came out surprisingly good considering I took them all with my Blackberry… Was just too lazy to grab the real camera even though I had it with me. Here you’ll see it all, tha family fun, Izzy’s obsession with collecting garbage found on the ground and Michele’s first time in the driver’s seat. Enjoy

So we went back to Red Top for the second weekend in a row and made some big improvements in our overall game. First, we  brought the car. When you’re going to be somewhere with small kids for almost 2 days, it’s a strong move unless you’re absolutely certain there’s enough to do within walking distance. It took us a little while to get the car hooked up before we left on Friday, but less than 10 minutes before coming back on Sunday.

We also got a pull-through spot. This isn’t a necessity and I’ve been told that some campers actually prefer the back-in spots, but the pull-through saved us the challenge of taking off the car, unhitching the tow-dolly, backing the RV in and then pulling in the tow dolly and parking the car all with quickly diminishing light on Friday evening. Where pull-throughs are available, and especially when we’re only going for a weekend I think we’ll be going for that. At this particular location, our spot was also very private… Even more so than our back-in spot from last weekend.

We also got set up TONS quicker and weren’t nearly as clueless when we got to the site. We still had a little confusion right at the beginning around what we should actually get done first, but overall we were set in less than an hour with meat on the grill, children adequately entertained and beer in hand.

One of the big improvements this weekend was bringing walkie talkies. We got a set for about $20 at Wal-Mart this past week and they helped a LOT. We could use them when we were packing and unpacking and saved a lot of yelling back and forth. Also very helpful for parking and quick reminders. This was a recommendation from Linda over at Bleakly RV who sold us our unit (or “coach” as they call it) and we weren’t sure how much the radios would help but it was huge. And I got to use “breaker, breaker one niner” in a sentence, though I still have absolutely no idea what it means.

There will be no camping next week, though possibly the week after. More updates to come along with photos from the weekend.

We got back from camping at Red Top Mountain yesterday and a good time was had by all (photos here). Our daughter Izzy especially had a fantastic time. We did suffer a few rookie setbacks here and there, but nothing too major.

Overall, here’s what we learned:

• Make sure you understand not only how to best get to the park you’re camping at, but also make sure you have a map of where you need to go once inside the park. We got a little lost Friday evening as the light was fading and we very nearly got ourselves stuck at the end of a dead-end road in the park.
• When going away for a weekend, we’re also going to be careful to look at park maps to try to figure out how close the campsites are to other park activities. We’ve been to a lot of Georgia State Parks and usually there’s a lot to do within walking distance of the campsites. Not here though… The park was very spread out and difficult to walk, especially with small kids. Had we known, we would have brought the car. There was a playground we could walk to easily and we took a long walk around the campgrounds Saturday morning to check out the other house trucks, but otherwise we stayed pretty close to our site.
• Most parks want you to back into your campsite… This can be done with some good teamwork and handwaving, but pull-through spots are definitely more accessible, especially if you are pulling a car. But getting comfortable backing up the RV is definitely something that’s a necessary part of owning these things.
• This was a big one for us… You just can’t use the water in the RV like you do in your sink at home. You wouldn’t believe how much water you waste! We actually topped off our gray water tank (where your used sink and shower water goes) by Sunday morning and it actually started backing up into our shower. We believe the big culprit was Michele running the water while she washed the dishes. We also took showers on Saturday night and I have a bad habit of running the water while I brush my teeth. None of this helped. So next time, we’re going to eliminate all unnecessary water usage. Better to fill the sink with soapy water once to wash the dishes rather than keep it running for 10 or 20 minutes straight.
• I’ve been personally dreading our first stop at the “dumping station” to relieve our Winnie of its load of excrement and used water. But it really wasn’t bad at all. Just hook up a hose, shove the other end down a hole and pull. I wore gloves just to be sure though and when I was done I just grabbed a fresh-water hose to rinse my gloves and the big black dumping hose. Seriously, no big deal.

The hardest part of the whole weekend was probably taking the RV to our storage facility and backing it into the parking spot, which was a bit tighter than anyplace else we’ve had to do that before.

Next weekend, we’re going to go back to Red Top and try again with a few tweaks… We’re going to get a pull-through site and we will definitely bring the car so we can enjoy the rest of the park.We’re also going to get some 2-way radios so Michele and I can communicate a little more easily when we’re trying to back the Winnie up.

Details to come later… Tired now.

Well, we did it…We finally got our Winnebago. And it was a long day.

We started it as many of our fellow metro-ATLians do; sitting in traffic. At about 8:30 we rolled into Douglasville (about 20 miles west of Atlanta) and stopped for breakfast at the Waffle House. Think that made my morning. Next, we hit the RV dealership to scoop our Winnie. If only it were that simple

First we did a walk-through which consisted of testing and learning how to use the various mechanisms, gizmos and do-dads. For the most part, I’ve found in my 18 or so hours as an RV owner that things work like they do in your house, just a little different. For example, the electrical outlets work, but only when you’re plugged in or running the generator. The fridge always works (unless you turn it off) whether there’s power or not; in the absence of electricity or a running generator, it runs on propane. If you want running water when you aren’t connected to a live water supply, you flip a switch and turn on your water pump. When you want hot water, you turn on your hot water heater the same way. You dispose of your waste in the toilet just like always but then, eventually, the toilet’s waste must be disposed of at a dumping station. I don’t know where it goes after that, nor do I care to. Though I think I’m going to adopt the term “dumping station” into my regular non-RVing lexicon.

We spent about 3 hours at the dealership in total doing the walk-through and signing the paperwork. Then we took our baby for a spin around the block to get in some driving practice. It’s a little indimidating at first, but it’s a lot like driving a U-Haul except the ride is better. Then we took it up a notch.

We left the dealership and went to a place about 3 miles away that sells tow dollies (amongst other truck and camping accessories) and bought the tow dolly I was writing about the other day. That was a process.

We needed an adapter to get it on the RV, the plug needed to be changed and then they needed to show us how to use it and safely attach a car. So we used my Camry as a guinea pig. A really expensive gunea pig. So we hooked it up — which took a while — and then finally, sometime around 3PM embarked on the journey home which involved 3 of Atlanta’s busiest highways, just south of rush hour, driving a 31-foot RV and pulling somewhere between 15-20 feet of car behind us (the tow dolly adds about 11 ft of length on its own).

It was nerve-wracking.

We got home somewhere between 4:15 and 4:30 and unloaded the car, which survived. Some notes about the tow dolly though: it’s a major pain in the ass. If you’re on flat ground it isn’t hard at all to wheel it around by yourself if you have to drag it somewhere out of the way. But even slightly uphill or over anything uneven, like the lip of my driveway, it’s almost impossible. I dread having to pull it into our gravel-covered parking spot at the storage place, but we’ll save that hell for another day. Oh, and it’s too big to fit in my garage. I’m having to keep it next to the house for the time being.

Loading it up took a lot of schlepping, but that was kind of fun overall. Sort of like arranging things in a new house. Or house-truck (as my daughter calls the Winnebago). The hardest part was figuring out where to put the car seats for the kids. It all worked out finally, after much discussion (may not be exactly the right word) and rearranging we finally figured something out that we’re happy with. I rate the Winnebago low when it comes to considering very small children in their design, but I suspect this is something we would have had to wrestle with in any RV. And, like I said, we finally figured it out but it took a LOT of effort.

We finally wound down around 10:30 last night and passed out. Today after work, we head out to Red TOp Mountain for our first camping trip!

We’ve made much ado over the past couple of days about securing a tow dolly, something like the one in the picture below:

This turned out to be a slightly more complex purchase than we thought it would be. There is a wide price range on these things, about $750-$2000 from what we’ve seen and there are a few key features to be aware of, most notably the braking mechanism.

The cheap tow dollies don’t have any brakes… Essentially, this increases your stopping distance and something that I’ve been told you need to be very careful of when driving. With all the extra weight being added to your RV with the dolly and (presumably) the car that you’re towing with the dolly, it can take a while to stop. I read on an online forum that it can make the prospect of driving down a winding mountain road especially frightening. The guy who sold it to me also mentioned that tow dollies without brakes are actually illegal in some states.

The next level of dollies have electric brakes and they are a few hundred $ more expensive than the brakeless variety. The only downside here is that you need to have an additional part installed in your RV called an electric brake controller. With parts and labor it is likely to add a few hundred dollars, give or take, to the cost of the tow dolly. My research tells me that if you are mechanically inclined, you can install your own electronic brake controller and the part is likely to run under $100. When you are towing a vehicle, you need to calibrate your electronic brake controller according to the weight of your vehicle and from there the brakes work automatically.

The third variety of dollies we found have “surge” brakes, which are hydraulic and basically brake according to the deceleration of the vehicle. Dollies with surge brakes are more expensive than the ones with electric brakes.

So at the end of this, we decided to go with the surge brakes because it seemed easier, more reliable and about the same price as the dolly with electric brakes (once you factor in the cost of the brake controller).

Feel like you know more about this than you wanted to? Yeah, me too. But we wanted to understand what we were getting into. By the way, apparently you can’t ever go in reverse if you’re towing anything. Good to know

I also yesterday acquired a storage space for our new RV. Tomorrow, we’re finally picking it up form the dealer. Awesome.

This coming weekend will be our first camping tripin 3 years. And with good reason. In fall, 2005 my daughter Izzy was just a baby and it was her fist camping trip. Judging by the pictures, you’d think it was the funnest family weekend EVER. But you’d be wrong. Very wrong.

We arrived on Friday evening and set up. The tent was ridiculously complicated but we persevered. The next monring was nice. We had some breakfast and took a hike. And then we had hot dogs for lunch. There was no way I could ever know, but at this point, our weekend was already ruined. We just didn’t know it yet. After a pleasant afternoon, dinnertime was approaching and the wife and I were enjoying a snack and a beer. Suddenly my stomach wrenched and I was in terrible pain. I ran to the woods and trew up. Then again several times. I had some kind of food poisoning and I honestly haven’t had a hot dog since.

But that was only the beginning of what was to be an excruciatingly long and hellish night. My nausea continued for sevral hours. I tried my best to sleep but my stomach just wouldn’t settle. At this point, Izzy started crying. She had a fever and seemed to be in a lot of pain and discomfort. We felt bad about the screaming baby keeping up the rest of the campsite, but there wasn’t anything we could do to console her.

And then to make matters worse, more disgusting and not to mention embarrassing, I actually threw up inside the tent in the middle of the night thanks to my inability to quickly unzip two or three layers of tent “door” and make it outside. My wife watched in horror as, in my confusion, I probably zipped and unzipped the damn thing like six times trying to make my way outside before finally blasting the remains of my stomach all over the wall. It wasn’t my finest moment. In the meantime, Izzy continued to scream and did so almost non-stop the whole night.

After what seemed like hours of work packing up the next morning we finally made it out of there. Needless to say, we put camping on hold for a while. As Michele has pointed out, this time if I get sick I get to throw up in a toilet and I can writhe in pain on a real bed instead of on the ground.

We’re excited about our grand return to camping though… Up until this one lousy trip, Michele and I went all the time and thoroughly enjoyed it. Winnebago, here we come!

We’ve been talking about it for years, but last week we finally did it. We bought an RV. Wow. Michele and I have always loved camping but we haven’t gone in years, mostly because of our kids and the hassle. And then there were the horrors of the last camping trip, but I will expound on that episode later.

So anyway, we love camping and used to do it all the time, but looking at it now, it just seems like a lot of work… Loading up the car, pitching a tent and setting up a campsite just to take it all down a day and a half later. And if we did go, we knew it would be difficult to bring the kids. Two adults, a toddler and a baby in a tent just didn’t seem like fun. So Michele suggested we look into RVing and did some research online. We also just happened to have some friends in the midst of a big RV trip around the country who could give us some advice and share their experiences.

When we really thought about it, RVing seemed like a great option for people like us. We’re busy and so most of our good quality family time is over the weekends. But when we’re home, most weekends turn into a marathon of errands and chores. And getting away for a night or a weekend tends to be expensive and impractical, especially when you’re traveling with small children. But with an RV, we can go away for a weekend with little or no planning. And we get to bring the comforts of home with us, which is a big bonus when it comes to the kids. We all get away from the house, we get to enjoy the great outdoors and it will be a lot of fun for the kids. Well at least for the one who’s self-aware. Our son is just a baby and so he doesn’t really understand fun yet, but he will in a couple of years

So we bought an RV and we’re picking it up on Thursday. First trip is Friday. More updates coming…