Not Quite Smoothly

When we purchased our camping trailer back in December, the dealership went through how everything worked. As we were getting ready to leave Carlton behind, to be stored there for the winter, my head was spinning. There was so much to remember! But one of the guys saw us off with the following wisdom, “Don’t worry about it. There’s a YouTube video for anything you need to know.”

Or twenty-five videos.

In anticipation of our first camping trip in a few weeks, I’ve been sucking up YouTube videos on RVs like a COVID patient sucks up oxygen. And they all offer different advice, and all the campers are a little different from ours.

I tell myself that we can do this; it’s not that hard. You can’t tell me that all those people driving shiny new RVs have master’s degrees. But ours isn’t shiny and new, so it doesn’t have quite as many bells and whistles as all those videos demonstrate.

But it will all be all right.

I mean, look, I got the bed figured out!

And actually, even the refrigerator, stove, and microwave. Even the furnace runs like a charm for us. 

The sinks? Water goes in and water goes out, but my OCD brain still is not happy with its little knowledge of where that water is coming from and where it’s going. Well, I know it’s going into our grey water holding tank, and we are pretty okay with how to drain that. Except when it comes to the black water tank (i.e., toilet). We’ve convinced ourselves we aren’t going to use the toilet, but really? It’s going to be okay. We got this.

This gadget still has me scratching my head—the hot water heater.

This plug needs to go in . . .

That hole and there is not a single video that makes this look difficult, but it took us two days. Again, I’m thinking – we just aren’t going to use hot water.

Everything will be fine, I continued to tell myself, as we worked on things in Carlton all last weekend – sanitizing the freshwater tank, lining the shelves with shelf-lining stuff, putting away the dishes, changing the license plate (that was another nightmare! And a long story). Until I found this in one of the hidey-holes, with a murdered mouse attached.

It’s going to be okay, Chris. If the pups can handle this, so can you. (Can you see all three of them? Sorry that the lighting's not the best.)

Yes, seriously, we got this. I just wish I could do a YouTube video showing the reality of RVs.