RV and other adventures….

The experimental RV trip is well underway. The RV is a 22 ft. C Class Leprechaun. This RV is a rental from El Monte. it is a 2013 model, which they would sell for 64,108. It has just over 26k miles.

We spent one night “boondocked” at the curb in front of the house. We used the leveling blocks which are easy to use in combination with a bubble level.

Tonight we are 4 hours in at a KOA campsite. Drove well with only one harrowing near miss. We had no trouble finding the campground from the highway. Good signage and only .3 miles off of US 30. We hooked up shore power and city water in less than 5 minutes. Pad is level-so no leveling blocks. Sadly, we couldn’t locate the cable hookup. Thankfully, the RV has a DVD player so we are okay.

The refrigerator is excellent. We heated dinner on the stove. Chef Boyardee for dinner.

Both of us have used the toilet without incident. It bear mentioning that the “bathroom” is tight.

Sleep now. More in the morning.

Good Morning we are 15 hours in and we crave the sight of any other color (the interior is brown and shades of brown). We are changing the name of this adventure to “50 shades of Brown.” Even greige would be a welcome pop of color.

The “bed” is plenty big. We put into action the plan suggested by the rental agent-using two flat sheets rather than trying to screw with a fitted sheet. And then we tried to sleep! Sadly, the factory mattress was a painful learning experience. Phrases like, “insomnia chamber” and “psychological experiment” were tossed around in the wee hours. It appears to be a board wrapped in brown upholstery…We strongly recommend a custom or aftermarket mattress.

Ruthie did well and had no trouble with the upholstered board. This is a 22 ft unit and that means it is a “one-butt” unit. This means that one person has to move, sit or go in the bathroom so that the other can move about in the coach.

We have the minivan, so we were able to venture into Caddo Mills and enjoyed breakfast at Bucky’s Cafe. It was great to pop out to eat and come back to the still set up RV. We have noticed that there are a lot of trailers or 5th wheels and/or Class A’s towing small cars. While it is easy to hook and unhook power and water, it would quickly become a inconvenience to do it each time you wanted to pop out, if you didn’t have a vehicle.

After washing Ruthie’s bottles this morning and changing a few diapers, it is clear that you would have to keep this unit clean and tidy. It is like living aboard ship. You would have to develop a system of organization and cleanliness and be vigilant about maintaining it.

The rental agent warned us that the black/gray sensors were improperly registering as half full when empty. So we are watching them carefully. I am looking forward to emptying them for the first time. Woo-hoo!

I noticed that at least one of the full timers here has a trailer and a “permanent” hose from the black/gray water tanks to the dump station on his pad. That seems like a good way to handle that issue.

Ruthie is napping and Monica is writing out some thank you notes. More later!