Maiden Voyage!

With our bathroom mod completed, and a variety of supplies loaded in, we proceeded immediately to the next step: CAMPING!

Friday, June 28, 2019

The decision was to not venture too terribly far from home on our first trip. Our van is old. It's a 1999 Grand Caravan, and while it is equipped for towing with a transmission cooler, the "better" engine, an electric brake controller, etc., it's still an old van, and we didn't want to end up stranded away off in the distance. We chose the KOA near Gettysburg, which is about an hour from the house. Also, if we forgot something really important, or things went terribly wrong, we could get back to the house in a reasonable amount of time.

The trip up was completely uneventful. The temperature gauge on the van barely moved from its usual spot, which told me that I probably wasn't putting undue stress on anything. That said, it did remind me a little bit of driving a Volkswagen Type 2 bus, especially when it came to going up hills. To hold any kind of speed, I really needed to get a good run at it.

We arrived at the campground, and were led to our space by a friendly associate, who even assisted with directing me into our campsite. That was unexpected and an extra nice service. We got set up fairly quickly (having practiced in the driveway) and got checked in at the office.

We spent a little while longer getting settled in, ate a little dinner, and then decided to take in a little bit of the evening's activities: A disussion and performance of Civil War period music.

Now, those of you who know me know that I really have very little interest in Civil War history. but Donna does, and, being in Gettysburg, I thought seeing the show could be interesting and fun. The presenter/performer, Matthew Dodd, presented the show in full uniform, first as a Union soldier, and then as a Confederate.

He even discussed a little bit of flag history during his introduction of The Bonnie Blue Flag, explaining that the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia was, in fact, not the Confederate flag. Bravo.

After the presentation, we spoke with Matthew for a few minutes (maybe closer to 20) and learned that he does a number of different educational music shows at campgrounds throughout the region, as well as play and sing in a local rock cover band.

Afterwards, we paid a brief visit to the Kamp Store for some soft-serve ice cream and a little shopping, walked back to the campsite, and settled in for some reading and relaxation, and eventually, bed. The day had been hot, so we left the air conditioner running, and it held the temperature very well. However, we did decide that we should get some Reflectex insulating blankets to cover the bunk ends. They'll help keep them cool in the summer, and warmer in early spring and late fall. They come purpose made with grommets to bungie on, or we can make our own (like in the video below).

Saturday, June 29, 2019

After doing a reasonably good job of ignoring alarm clocks, we rousted out of bed and made it down to the Kamp Kitchen in time for a nice pancake breakfast, prepared by the owners of the campground. This is a regular thing here at this particular KOA, it seems, and the pancakes were pretty darned tasty. Almost all of the rest of the day was spent lazing around the campsite.

We had intended to drive over to the battlefields to take some pictures, but an afternoon thunderstorm put the kibosh on that. 

Instead, I started a fire (we are camping, after all, and a campfire is required by law, or so I'm told), and the smoke set off the alarm in the open trailer. Once that was quieted down, we set about roasting marshmallows.

One thing we tried that didn't work well at all: pre-packaged frozen smoothies. The idea is that there's a bag of fruit that you mix in a blender with milk. One word describes the result: disgusting. We do know our way around a blender, and we are pretty good at following instructions. However, after a serious pass through the machine, we were left with large chunks of fruit rind in our drink. Not to mention, it didn't taste good. Blech. Take our advice, folks. Come up with your own recipe, and for goodness sake, remove the rinds!

Cleaning up after that required a trip down to the Kamp Kitchen and restroom, where we could flush the remains and clean out the blender and cups. Of course, while we were there, we simply had to get another dose of soft-serve ice cream.

We were able to spend a good deal of the day with the windows open and the A/C off, but by a little before bedtime, the humidity had gotten pretty high again, and we closed up and fired up air conditioner. Within a very short time, the camper was comfortable again, and it was time for bed.

Sunday, June 30, 2019

Our last day out, unfortunately. It was a really nice trip and we really didn't want to come home. Most things went really pretty well, including the bathroom setup.

Of course, being our first trip, a few didn't. For instance: 

• Our sink didn't want to drain reliably
• One of the bunk-end fans failed
• Installing the door was a real pain. We apparently got the instructions for installing the door mixed up, or we were shown incorrectly, so it was harder to get into position than it should be. I finally thought to review a setup video after we got home. D'oh.
• Putting the awning up could be easier
• Those nasty smoothies

There were some other really minor things, like packing inefficiently, over packing and a bit of disorganization, that just come from being the first time we've been out with the new camper. 

A couple of not-so-minor issues also cropped up:

• First: Some of the screws are pulling out of the galley hinge. They've got the entire weight of the galley hanging on these screws when it's in its storage position, and a few good bumps, and the galley is going to end up on the floor. I'll replace at least three or four of them with some better hardware. Stay tuned for a future post on that.
• Second: Our refrigerator, while one of the better units of its kind, has a really difficult time keeping up with any kind of heat. Keeping the temperature at or below 40° without running the AC has been a real problem. The problem may be relatively easily solved, though, and that will be the subject of a future post.

The van did okay, for the most part. It's a little under-powered even with the 3.3L power plant, so it's a bit sluggish going up hills. We also had a little bit of a coolant temperature spike just as we were getting back into Westminster. It came back down quickly, though, so I'm not too worried. But I will definitely have my mechanic check it out.

We're also coming up with a list modifications we want to do to make the trailer work even better for us.

To wrap up, we're really quite happy with the camper, and can't wait to plan our next adventure!