Well, here it is, Tuesday morning, 6:30 a.m. Waiting for Scott to wake up, trying to kill time. I’ve already posted yesterday’s activities, such as they were. Uh, for obvious reasons, I can’t yet post todays activities. What to do?
Then I thought, let’s provide a little mundane detail! I’m sure people are just DYING to know what it takes to get the camper in motion on days we’re moving. So here goes:
First, any dishes used for breakfast must be washed and put away. Not an overly hard process. Then, we start at the front, inside of the trailer and stow everything. Nothing can be loose. The bed is made, clothes picked up and either put in one of the closets or in the laundry. Toothbrushes, razors, soap… all put in the medicine cabinet. Cleaning supplies are removed from their shelf, and nestled all snuggly in the sink. Coffee maker, unplugged, the pot goes on the bed (after washing and drying, of course) and swaddled in towels, the maker itself goes on the floor under the table. Cook spoons and spatulas, etc, go in othe sink. TV is unplugged, it’s cable coiled up and put in it’s place (on the shelf where the cleaning supplies used to be, as it won’t move from there.) The TV is laid face down on the bed. Weight keeps it there. Now we make a final walk through… anything else lying about that might go flying? If so, find a spot for it! All this takes about 5 – 10 minutes. Scott and I are pretty good at it. Now, to the outside.
I go back the truck up to the hitch. I can generally, now, do this in 2, maybe three, maneuvers. Scott unhooks the cable TV cable (if we have it – most campgrounds do not, yet) and coils it. It’s stored inside, in the DVD nook. (As you can see, our camping is REALLY roughing it!) Next, he disconnects the city water hose, drains it and stows it in it’s compartment.
While he’s doing this, I go around to the 4 jacks and raise them. Next, I lower the trailer tongue on to the hitch on the truck.
Scott, meanwhile, retrieves the “gray water” hose and connects it. This is used to flush out our “black water” and “gray water” tanks. What are those tanks you ask? You shouldn’t have! There are three tanks on our camper. White, gray and black. White is clean water (this tank is bypassed when we can connect to city water), the water that comes in to the trailer for our use. Gray water is water from the bath tub/shower, or from the kitchen sink, like from washing dishes, or from the little utility sink in the front by our bedroom… toothbrushing, shaving or washing hands. The black water tank is what hold everything that goes through the toilet… I assume I don’t need to be specific here!!!!!
There’s a 4″ diameter hose that connects the trailer to the sewer. At the top of that is a valve that allows us to connect a hose, a GRAY hose that is never used to carry drinking water. It’s used to flush out the gray and black tanks. Anyhow, Scott does that.
By now, I’ve got the trailer lowered on to the truck hitch. I lock it in place, then connect the chains from the trailer to the hitch. Then I connect the sway bars to hitch, and chain THEM to the tongue of the trailer. I then connect the pig tail to the truck (this extends the electrical power from the truck to the trailer to power turn signals, the trailer’s brakes, etc. It also will recharge the trailer’s battery if needed. I turn off the trailer’s propane.
Tanks purged and flushed, Scott puts the gray water hose away, then removes the 4″ sewage hose from the trailer and stows it in it’s special little place in the rear bumper of the trailer.
Now we retract the slideout, disconnect the electric cord from the power station and stow it. Scott does this, and I pull the tire chocks from the tires, and stow them, then find all the jack boards (2×6 boards that we generally place under all the jacks and under the tongue jack to keep them from sinking in to the dirt) and stow those.
Scott locks the camper door, and stows the steps. I wander around the outside of the trailer, lock all compartment doors, and look for anything that still needs to be put away. Finally, Scott and I perform a quick “police call” to make sure we’re leaving no trash behind, and generally pick up some stuff that other campers have left.
And, finally, we get in the truck, take a last look around us, and away we go.
Generally, from the moment we start until I pull away from our site, only 20 minutes has passed! We’re getting really good at this!
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