Newbie Camping Weekend & Some Questions (Long)

Decided we'd spend the weekend camping (OK.... Jim W. RV'ing). We left
Scarborough around 2:00pm on the Friday and arrived in Campbellford at
a quarter to four... that's when the trouble started.

Someone had parked a huge semi-trailer at an angle across the storage
parking lot. The big rig that had pulled it in was gone. Trouble was,
it blocked our trailer completely. I got the storage guy out of his
office and politely asked him if it could be moved.

"Nope. The driver's gone until Sunday - new people just moving in..."

I may have not sounded quite so polite as I asked him how the hell he
expected me to get my trailer out.

"Hmmn... " he allowed. "It is a little tight..."

"A little tight?" I said. "A little tight? Even if I could wedge my
truck in there and hook up, he's blocking the way out..."

"Well, IF you can get it out of there, you can always drive behind the
storage sheds on the left and then come out on the other side of it..."

I snarled a few pithy phrases and went back to the truck to see what
could be done. With some careful backing up, I finally managed to get
the hitch ball under the hitch and hooked up. When we were almost ready
to go, my wife said,

"OK... I'll lock up - where are the keys?"

"I gave them back to you..."

"No, you didn't."

"Yes, I did..."

We searched for the damn keys for almost a quarter of an hour. My wife
called me everything under the sun... I was apparently careless and
sloppy and my parents shouldn't have been allowed to have children. She
should know better than to come camping with a deadbeat like me.
Eventually, I gave up looking and started closing everything up. That's
when I found them. My sweet wife had used them to open the storage
compartment, left them in the lock, and then used the plastic thingie
to hold the compartment open with the keys nicely hidden behind it.

"See... I told you I gave them back."

"I'm sorry, sweetheart. I'll make it up to you..."

And she did.... but that's another story.

Anyway, despite the jack-knifed angle, I was able to (just barely) pull
the trailer by the semi-trailer. Another six inches closer and I'd have
lost the slide-out. So I took the owner's advice and drove around the
storage sheds and went to pull back in. There wasn't enough room for
the truck and the trailer. I could have got the truck around by itself
relatively easily, but the combination made the turning radius simply
too wide. I see-sawed back and forth for a while and eventually got it
out without scratching anything. By then I was breathing hard and red
in the face. The owner came out of the office as we passed and said,

"See... you never know what you can do until you try."

I didn't say anything. If I had actually said what I was thinking, our
relationship might have been permanently damaged.

The trip to the Provincial Park was uneventful. If you've never visited
Ferris Provincial Park, it's on the outskirts of Campbellford and used
to be a large farm and fruit orchard owned by the Ferris family who
left it to the Province on the condition it be used as a park. Since
then it's been allowed to regress to nature apart from the camp sites.
The gravel road has pot-holes in it the size of our truck so driving is
slow inside the park... they don't have much in the way of facilities
either but they do have a boat launch and the fishing is great. Very
few families camp there because there's no swimming for the kiddies and
nothing for them to do. So it's ideal for old farts like us... if you
like rustic and natural, you'd like this place. The only time it's ever
crowded is on the long weekends when they get the overload from
Presquile Provincial Park which is half-an-hour away.

We got to the park and drove into our site. Not much room but it's a
site we know very well and were able to find a flat spot where we used
to park our old pop-up. We were level side-to-side immediately and only
took a few minutes to level it lengthwise. Bill, the camp warden showed
up and wanted to see the new rig. He was either impressed or too polite
to say anything derogatory. I said I should put the stabilizers down.
He said...

"Where's the crank...?

"Inside the trailer making a sandwich..." I replied.

Tee hee... camping is such jolly fun.

We had lunch and then went to do some fishing from the shoreline. I
wasn't going to bother to take the boat out of storage for one
afternoon's fishing. The fish weren't cooperating and I caught only a
few rock-bass and a nice smallie which I threw back before giving up.
The NOMA 400W backup power system I had bought along for emergencies
came in useful for re-charging Ortelia's cell phone, and also ran the
lights and the radio all evening to avoid over-using the battery. It
eventually died and started beeping because it was discharged just
before we went to bed. A generator might have been a better solution
but this was cheap at $99 CDN and quiet.

We had a restful weekend with no real problems except that it poured
rain for about 5 or 6 hours on Saturday night. Nothing leaked and I
remembered some advice I read (maybe here?) and let down one side of
the canopy so that the water would run off and not pool and break the
canvas. It's surprising how good advice sticks. Sunday morning,
cooking breakfast, despite our conservation efforts with the power
system the camper battery went dead, as indicated by the exhaust fan
grinding to a halt, and Ortelia panicked thinking we wouldn't be able
to put the slide-out back in. But as you can imagine, once we hooked up
to the truck, it worked, business as usual.

When we got back to the storage place, they had moved the semi-trailer
and with a few abortive attempts I was able to back it back into the
storage slot. I'm still not that good at backing up, but I'm getting
better all the time. Last week, it would have taken me considerably
longer.

More newbie dumb questions...

1) The fresh-air vent is situated cleverly right over the bed. At five
in the morning, we are wakened by daylight streaming through the vent
because the cover for it is transparent. An ideas how to block off the
light and still get fresh air? Paint it black - as the Stones might
suggest? It's aluminum so magnets won't stick.

2) There are small patches of rust starting on the coupler lock, rear
hitch, and the chains, etc. What's the best way to stop them rusting -
WD40? Incidentally do you cover the hitch in storage to prevent rust
(the propane tanks and battery are protected by a plastic molded
cover)?

3) Is it OK to put the canopy away wet? Will it rot?

4) What tools would you recommend we keep in the trailer? I currently
have a hammer... :-)


David "The RV'ing Hamster" Malone

.

Relevant Pages

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    ... Someone had parked a huge semi-trailer at an angle across the storage ... it blocked our trailer completely. ... I snarled a few pithy phrases and went back to the truck to see what ... The trip to the Provincial Park was uneventful. ...
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