Tag: adventure

It’s Christmas, and I’m in a van with my cat on the adventure of a lifetime, and my gift to the world (or at least to whoever’s tuning in) is a blog about our travels, discoveries, and mishaps along the way.

We started in Pennsylvania with an experimental trip at Gifford Pinchot State Park in early October. I was just getting back from a work trip, so I rushed to get what I thought would be the essentials for us to live, work, and sleep from the RV for a few days. The fall colors were beautiful, and the temperatures were perfect – high 60s to low 40s.

Estella was a champ. She drove great and backed herself right into our relatively level spot – one try! She even got a compliment from our neighbor; he said she looked “sharp”.

Arthur struggled. This was his first drive that didn’t involve a vet appointment, so he was anxious, “vocal”, and a pile of drool. He expressed his unhappiness by peeing in his carrier, a carrier has not continued the journey with us. Once we were parked, and I shut off the engine, he did better.

I did ok. I had watched all the videos, read the Facebook posts from other new campers like me, and I bought almost all the things. Even the best prepared run into things, here’s my list from this trip. I’m using a chocolate bar (🍫) rating scale (🍫 = minor; 🍫🍫 = ordinary; 🍫🍫🍫 = embarrassing; 🍫🍫🍫🍫 = terrible; 🍫🍫🍫🍫🍫 = not enough chocolate in the RV to recover).

Mishaps from Pinchot

• I forgot chocolate. I learned very quickly that my coping mechanism for stress is chocolate. 🍫🍫🍫🍫🍫
• I didn’t think to bring any of that tape stuff you put on hose threads, so the hoses slowly leaked at the connections the whole time. Wasting water = 😩 🍫🍫
• I also didn’t think I’d need a support for my sewer hose, so that it would more easily drain. The resolution to this mishap involved me using whatever I could find to create a slope to empty the grey and black tanks, which was – of course – observed by some other campers slowly walking by and talking loudly about how they liked to see how other campers set-up their rigs. 🍫🍫🍫
• Taking Arthur outside the RV. In short, he didn’t like it. I think, because he lived in the woods as a kitten, it was just too scary to be back out there even on a leash and with me. So, we went back inside and didn’t try that again. 🍫
  • I underestimated how small Arthur could make himself when he got scared. When we left, the carrier smelled like pee, so I didn’t want to put him back in there. I let him just sit by my feet, which was fine until this happened:

Our Best Story from Pinchot

So, there I was, following the directions from RV Blogger on how to set-up your water at your camp site…. (I wish I had taken a picture, but I was in a slight panic even after it was over.)

Step one: Let the water run out of the spigot to run out any rust or sediment that may have accumulated since the last camper used it. The water spigot was pretty tall; the handle came up to about my shoulder but lifted pretty easily. It had a c-shaped lever to turn the water on. So far, no issues with step one.

After about a minute, I went to shut it off, so I could hook up the pressure reducing valve, hose, filter, etc., but I could not get the handle to go back down. I was hanging from it, and it wouldn’t budge. Water everywhere because the pressure was intensely high. I didn’t have a hammer. I tried to use a strap to give myself more leverage – no movement. I think another minute had elapsed before I remembered I brought a hatchet. I used the flat end to pound the lever back down. 🍫🍫🍫 Crisis averted.

Thankfully, we did the experimental trip. I made some mistakes, but I gained a lot of confidence as well. #ICanDoThis