Darren's RV Adventures

This is a military campground , so not a place the average camper can stay.  I had been wanting to try this campground out for a while, and the wife and I were going to have a three day weekend, so we made a plan to visit Ocean City, MD for a day and stay at the campground. The camp sites are part of the training facility.  There is a laundry facility on site and all the sites I saw had water, electric, and sewer.  Cement pads that were very level and some even down near the water.  Not the ocean side, but an inland water area with a dock and a small beach. There was no WiFi but there was a Poke Gym and two Poke Stops.  So if you're into Pokemon Go  then you'll have some fun there. Over all the camp ground was really quiet.  It was about $30 a night, but considering how close we were to Ocean City (20 minutes) and with the town of Bethany Beach just a little ways up the road (.5 miles) we thought it was totally worth it. Next time we plan to...

The Lovely Wife and I had planned to take a trip to the ocean as they say here in Maryland.  The trip began the night before by picking up the camper from storage and bringing it back home. The next morning we were loading up and the wife noticed that there looked to be some tread pulling away on some of the tires.  By some, we mean all four to various degrees. The trip wasn't supposed to be terribly long, but long enough that these tires presented a problem.  It was Friday morning.  I called a few places that did RV service and no one was going to be able to help me.  One of them recommended a tire place in Glen Burnie.  Gillette Tire Distributors. I gave them a call and they said they could take me whenever I got there.  So we loaded up and headed over.  They had to finish up working on a big rig trailer but got to us and replaced all four tires in under an hour.  I was also pleasantly surprised by the price. New...

It's that time of year again.  The Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival was May 5th and 6th this year and as has become our routine we took the camper out to Ramblin Pines Campground for our shakedown cruise.  We had just finished the bulk of the work on our bedroom remodel so we got to test out the new sleeping arrangements and the wife got to go to Sheep & Wool. The campground is in Woodbine Maryland, which isn't very far from where Sheep & Wool is held so it's a much easier commute to and from the event.  and since we come at the event from the opposite side as 99.99% of everyone else it makes the trip a lot faster. Since last season one of our dogs passed away, and my normal dog sitter was sick so we decided to take Belle with us.  Since she's become the only dog in the house she seems a lot more laid back, so we felt that it wouldn't be too stressful to take her. She's getting a little grey around the mouth, but she still loves to fetch t...

Absolutely the worst photo of the propane detector I could have taken. That isn't the important part of this post. It seems this thing was slowly draining the battery when the RV was in storage for extended periods. We decided to get a switch to put in line so we could secure that power when we stored the RV. This seemed a simple fix. Splice in a switch and that would be it. We picked up a switch and these connectors. Since there wasn't much slack in the wiring, we ended up needing another connector and a jumper, but that isn't really important to the job at hand. A quick hole drilled in the front of the bench seat to put the switch through, some stripping and connecting of wires, and we were in business. The switch is pretty low profile, so it shouldn't get snagged on a pant-leg, or worse, a leg. Now, we can turn it off easily so it won't drain the battery.

The forward compartment has these silly little flap doors. The compartment isn't silly, it's really awesome. The problem is that that this space used to be part of the bed base for the queen-size bed. That means any sufficient breeze could sneak in through those doors an under the bed. Not a great design to keep the humans warm. When we boxed in this section, we thought it would be a great time to insulate the sides that face the inside of the camper to try to keep the inside temperature controlled. We used one 25 foot roll of 24" wide Refletix to insulate the pass-through. I'm hoping it will be sturdy enough to hold up through several seasons. This is where we store such wonders as chock blocks and camp chairs. We finished off the plywood of the bed deck with vinyl, peel and stick planks. They are a little dark but not terrible. We had a piece of quarter-round oak in the garage that was perfect to finish the edge at the wall. We have plenty more little things ...

Here I am again with another installment of our ongoing project to remodel our travel trailer. My last post  showed the built out bed boxes we created to replace the queen-size bed. Last week, we took an hour after dinner to install the hinges, and covers for each mattress. We opened up one of the mattresses (this is the cheapest foam mattress available from IKEA) to make sure my calculations were close enough. Overall, I'm really pleased with this part of the project. Last weekend we moved on to fixing this section of ceiling. The ceiling had been patched in response to water damage prior to us purchasing the camper. My other half pulled out all the damaged ceiling bits to find almost no insulation remaining after that repair. We picked up some foam board panels from the home improvement warehouse and cut and pieced them to fit.  This part wasn't difficult, but it did take almost all the duct tape in the house (both  Duck  and  Scotch  brands) ...

This post was written by my Wonderful Wife.   We've had our travel trailer for a few years. One of the many things we've learned is that we don't particularly care to share a bed while camping. The queen size mattress is short (this is a trailer thing that makes little sense to me), and we seem to roll into the middle of the darn thing and it isn't a very good mattress. We decided to pull out the cabinets, the bed, and remake the space for two twin mattresses. To call the plan a plan is to use language a little too strong. But, we did have a plan. Here is what the bedroom looked like on one of our trips. What these manufacturers think is attractive in a window treatment doesn't really sit with our tastes. After  Darling Husband did all the demolition , it was time to get down to building a replacement for that bed. Here is my rough plan, taped onto the floor. It doesn't make much sense, but I did warn you that 'plan' was a strong word. This secti...

When we got our travel trailer it had signs of some water damage up front in the bedroom.  There had been a leak, but the previous owner had gotten it fixed before they traded it in for their new travel trailer. My wife and I have started to sleep in separate beds so that we both get better sleep.  When we go camping, this presented a problem since the trailer has a Queen bed.  We're not keen on setting up the dinette as a bed and tearing it down every day, so we set our minds to remodeling the bedroom. I poked around the internet and found some projects other RV campers have done that were along the same lines.  After jotting down some ideas and showing them to the wife we settled on a plan. Next step was demo.  We decided to pull the over bed cabinets as well and repair the ceiling, since the damage was inside the cabinets.  This might also be an opportunity for me to run the wiring for my solar panels, since I had planned to bring those cables thro...

We went to the Hershey PA RV Show.  It's supposed to be the largest RV show in the country, but I'm not so sure.  It's certainly the largest I've ever been to. Laid out were acres of RVs and dealers all trying to get you to spend some money on their product.  We have settled on a Class C, but we made sure to step into a Class A bus that was well out of our price range to count how many TVs were in it and be amazed at the bad decor. I had settled on a Class C Diesel, but a chap who was working with one of the vendors challenged that notion.  He indicated that he and his spouse were full timers and had been for a few years.  Then went on to talk to me about how the difference in gas mileage wasn't worth the increased price for diesel and that it had no real benefits. When we look at prices, both for new or used, with very few exceptions a diesel unit is more expensive.  When you look at the miles you might be putting on a rig over the life of your owner...

The planning for most of our trips is pretty lax.  I usually plot the travel path, pick the camp sites, make the reservations, and do the driving.  At least on the way out.  After that, it's like a goat rodeo. Our last trip was to Rhode Island to see our son.  Along the way we stopped in Pennsylvania for the Renaissance Faire at historic Mount Hope.  The plan was loose, we were taking a week off from work capped by weekends on each side.  We drove up to PA on Saturday and would attend the Faire on Sunday, then continue North the following day. It was August, so by the time we got to the campground and got unhooked and set up I was a sweaty mess.  I asked The Wife where the suitcase was, after not finding it in any of the three places it normally ends up.  This began one of those conversations you see on situation comedies.  And then the 2 hour drive back home to get it. We had packed it.  Made sure to put the electric toothbrushes,...

The wife and I have been toying with the idea of changing our RV.  We have a travel trailer that we are very happy with but are starting to consider that a Class C might be a better way to go for the type of RV lifestyle we eventually want. For those that aren't familiar with what all the class designations mean, a Class C is essentially a camper built onto a truck or van chassis.  I suggest really doing your homework if you decide to go shopping for an RV.  I talk to plenty of sales folks and other RVers who relate stories of people buying too little or too much RV in the beginning. There are plenty of full time RVers on YouTube that have changed their RV over the years, and they usually do a video explaining why they changed giving the pros and cons and encouraging you to make your own decisions.  There are plenty of decisions to make too. When we first wanted a camper I wanted a travel trailer.  I was going to be shopping for a new vehicle and I had dec...

The first year we got our camper we went out a good bit.  The second year we were shopping for a house and then moving, so we didn't get to do any camping that year.  The next year we only managed to get out a couple of times. I often wonder how many days of camping are enough to really warrant the expense of the camper.  We got a deal on our camper, so we don't have payments, but towing it incurs more in fuel costs than normal driving.  I only own the truck so that I can tow a camper (it was the plan when I got the truck).  We don't keep the camper at the house, so there are storage fees. I'd like to think, even counting all of that, if I get a couple of weeks a year camping, I'm doing pretty good.  We managed to get a long weekend in early Spring this year, but we might not get another trip until Late summer or early fall.  We are taking a trip to the opposite coast in July, but it's not nearly long enough to be able to drive it with the camper. ...

What is Sous Vide? Sous vide (pronounced sue-veed) , means “under vacuum” in French, and refers to the process of vacuum-sealing food in a bag, then cooking it to a very precise temperature in a water bath.  It sounds complicated, but it's really simple and the tools for this have become very affordable. How does this relate to RV life? My RV adventures are not those of a full time RVer, but the same techniques would certainly work.  I've only recently become exposed to sous vide cooking, but it's already made our camping easier.  You can cook a surprising number of things using this method, and because the majority of the items are already vacuum sealed, once they're cooked they can be stored in the refrigerator until you need them later. Caveat. The sous vide cooker and cooking process require electricity.  I keep forgetting to plug my Kill-O-Watt meter in to see just how much it uses.  This might not be suitable for boondocking (dry camping) beca...

How much stuff do you need? This is our fourth season of owning a camper, but only our third season of using it.  We didn't get out at all in 2015 because we were house shopping and moving.  So this year we were hoping to go on a few more trips, which warranted rethinking what we have packed in the camper. The first year we went out I know I over packed the cabinets with food stuffs.  It's a bad habit I have so this year we made a conscious effort to go through everything we had and make sure it was there for a reason. Space isn't a serious issue for us.  We're not full timers, and it's only the two of us, so we have plenty of room. Our Rig Kitchen Kit. Pots and pans we managed to do well on.  I do as much cooking as I can on the grill (hoping to cook more over open fires this year) so our pots and pan needs are pretty low.  I have a cast iron skillet that does most of the breakfast cooking, A cake pan, a pie pan, a 2 quart sauce pan with a ...

I love a campfire.  Unfortunately every trip we've taken the closest I've gotten was when I managed to cook a few pork tenderloin cutlets over a fire in my cast iron skillet. Mostly it's been an issue of wood and weather.  Many places don't let you bring wood, due to the risk of certain insects and other tree health related things.  The other factor is rain.  When I have taken the step to get wood, either from a local market or the campground, I've had to spend more time in the camper due to rain.  Most of our trips tend to be in the early part of the season or later in the season, so Spring and Fall rains tend to be the norm. This year I spend a lot of time on You Tube watching videos on how to start fires even in bad conditions.  I was in the Boy Scouts as a kid, so I have had experience with these sorts of things, and I recalled a lot of those skills, but practical application of knowledge is the only way to really get good at it. We bought a fire ...

Adventures in water tank sanitation. We've had our rig a few years, but we have only boondocked one time.  This season I thought it might be a good idea to sanitize the fresh water tank, both to clean it and that we might go out to boondock a little more this year. Conventional wisdom seems to be 1/4 regular household bleach for every 15 gallons of capacity in your fresh tank. For those of you who have ever used bleach to purify water might look at that volume with a little suspicion.  I know I did.  But, something to keep in mind is that this is to clean the tank, so we're not really purifying the water. Dilute your bleach in a gallon or two of water, and take appropriate safety precautions.  Chlorine Bleach is dangerous if you get it in your eyes, and I highly recommend wearing gloves (latex, nitrile, etc.) to keep from getting bleach on your hands.  If you do get any on your skin, wash it off with water.  That slimy feeling when you get it on you i...

Black tank cleaning.  Attempt # 1.   The last few trips we’ve been on my black tank sensor has consistently read ½, even though I know the tank is ‘empty’.  This is pretty common in black tanks, solid waste will stick to the walls and give false readings.  I was hoping to resolve the issue this season, so I decided to try combining the sanitation of the fresh water tank with a good cleaning of the black tank. I don’t have a sprayer wand, but I thought if I put a fairly decent amount of hot water in the tank and then took the RV for a drive, it might help loosen up the solid waste and clean things a bit.  I also threw in some dishwasher detergent at the wife's suggestion to help things along.  The reason you would want to use dishwasher detergent for this sort of thing is that it’s designed to foam less.  You know this if you have ever thought that you could just put some dish soap in the dishwasher and run it.  When the foam started to se...

Campground Report - Ramblin Pines (Woodbine, MD) - May 5-7, 2017 The Maryland Sheep & Wool festival is an annual event here in Maryland.  The traffic to get to the Howard County Fairgrounds to attend is terrible unless you go early.  For the last two years we have made it the Shakedown Cruise for the season for our camper. Ramblin Pines is pretty close to the fairgrounds, and getting there from the campground brings you up on the lower traffic side, which makes getting in and out much easier. Ramblin Pines is a quiet wooded campground.  The staff have always been very fiendly, and the sites are pretty good.  Dirt, not cement, which means mud this time of year since it always seems to rain the weekend of Sheep & Wool.   The WiFi is rubbish at many of the sites.  The first night it decided to tank pretty much completely.  I’m pretty close to a repeater, so I’m not sure if it was the weather or the hardware.  After about 8:...