Trailer Life

No pictures tonight.  I had thought that some of you might enjoy some comments about the RV trailer life on the road.  It's been fun so far but not without it's little problems.

First, our trailer is 16 years old.  You saw the damage to the shell and walls.  That has held  up well  so far.  I discovered that they used staples in the construction of this thing - even the walls.  Yes, some of the staples were pretty big alright but I thought that was a funny way to build it.  I used screws and a lot of them.  Even the big 2X8's were screwed into the steel frame with only 4 screws each.   I used 11.  As we drove across the washboard dirt road across New Mexico a couple of the shelves in the kitchen fell down.  Yes, they were stapled into the wall too.  So we had to take  everything  off the  shelves and screw them  back on.

Also, across the same rough road, we lost the  outside vented  panel that  covers  the  refrigerator  works.  It was  unsightly so we stopped at a Home Depot and  bought  a thin marker-board panel and I  had it cut  to  size.  Then I  made some  vent holes and screwed it on.  The  refrigerator quit cooling!  OK - the only thing that happened was the  added panel.  So  I made more vent holes.  Guess  what?  It still  wouldn't cool.  So I threw that thing away and we are just  going  with it all exposed.  I  don't even  care, as long as it keeps the food cold.  I'll see about  getting a replacement panel when we get  home.

I checked all the systems before we left and everything worked or got fixed.  But our first night of dry camping the fresh water pump wouldn't pump.  It worked before we left.  So we found an RV place and bought a new pump.

Right now, we seem to be in good shape.  I found that you have to have a good attitude about it and be ready to accept and fix some little problems along the  way.  We just left after 3 nights of dry camping (no electrical power or water connection) and we were able to cook, shower, keep our  groceries and ice cold and have hot water and generally stay comfortable.

We check tires, brakes and lights before we leave every campsite.  I double check that the hitch is engaged and locked and we do a walk-around and look for opened vents on top or the TV antenna up or anything else that could cause a breakdown.

I just thought you might enjoy some of that trivia.