One Month Update: Our Rookie Mistakes
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Before embarking on RV life, I found myself addicted to watching Kara and Nate, a full-time traveling couple who document stories in vlog style videos on Youtube. I was so eager to travel that I lived vicariously through them, thinking that it would probably never happen for me but perhaps I could get a taste of travel through their content. After binging all of their videos and running out of backlogged footage, I found other travelers. I followed the adventures of Raya and Louis, Eamen and Bec, The Endless Adventure and You me and the RV. I’m sure you can piece together what happened next, that Drew and I eventually became exhausted by watching others experience the life that we so desperately wanted to live ourselves, and so we took the plunge. We sold most of our possessions, bought our home on wheels, named him Marcel for reasons I will explain at a later date, and have been traveling in him full time for the past month and a half.
I still cannot separate myself from following along on the adventures of the travelers who inspired me to take the leap of faith into life on the road, though. They have a talent for making this strange way of existence seem easy, which, to be quite frank, is not what I have experienced over the past 45 days. Change, no matter if it’s purposeful or well-intentioned, is uncomfortable, and my life has been overflowing with it in quantities that I sometimes wish were a bit more manageable. Before taking on this adventure, I was the type of girl who thoroughly researched every decision before it was made, making pros and cons lists to analyze the outcome of my actions, and carefully constructing and then subsequently completing to-do lists so that I never entered into a situation unprepared. I acted that way before moving into Marcel as well, thinking by the time we pulled away from our sticks and bricks home that we were set up to succeed in every way possible. I quickly learned that some things you can only learn by doing, and that has been an especially large pill to swallow for this bookworm, because with doing comes a lot of mistakes.
Don’t get me wrong. I still believe that Drew’s and my decision to travel the country was the best one we ever committed to. Nobody ever regretted taking a chance to allow themselves to follow their happiness. I am simply here to say that being a full-time traveler is nothing like they tell you it is on Instagram. It is inevitable that every night that is spent in a picturesque setting is sandwiched between two complete catastrophes of our own making. It is only recently that it seems like these incidents are starting to slow in frequency, but I understand enough now to know that they will never completely cease.
It is bizarre to think that Drew, Charlie and I are now one of those families that you can follow along with as we walk through the constant escapades that have become our life story. But since there is already an overabundance of picture perfect traveling depictions on the internet, why don’t we try something new? How about I let you all in on the stupidest things that Drew and I have done on this insane journey of ours, and hope after all of it that we still hold some sort of agency? We quite literally have no idea what we’re doing here, and the creation of this blog is no different.
Below I have compiled six of our biggest rookie mistakes that we made in our first month of RV life. It is by no means exhaustive, but I think it packages the extent of our cluelessness quite nicely. Perhaps we can save just one person a moment of embarrassment that I have now become quite accustomed to. Please enjoy, laugh if you’d like, and cringe if you must. Happy reading.
After reading these, you may ask yourself how I am still smiling. I give all the credit to being able to travel with this man right here, my husband, partner and Clyde to my Bonnie.
1. Not securing our sewage hose before dumping
Why don’t we jump right into a mistake that was one of the worst, and to add insult to injury, completely my fault? Cool with you? Great, let’s get started. This first story, Drew and I refer to as The Shit Storm, and if you have a weak stomach, it might be best to sit this one out.
If you’re unfamiliar with how the sewage system of a motorhome works, then I’ll be upfront and tell you that it is less than glamorous. When the tanks that hold your wastewater and sewage read full, you have to find a dump station, hook up a slinky-like sewage hose to the sewage drain in your RV, and release the valves which allows the waste to empty into the designated location. It’s not the most elegant system, but it is easy enough to do, unless of course you are me at 7am on a Saturday, trying to take advantage of a quick break in the rain to prepare to leave a campground.
In hindsight, I was overconfident, driving up to the dump station and declaring to Drew that “I got it this time” when I most certainly had not got it. I marched up to the dump station, connected the sewage hose to both the RV and to the dump station, and quickly released the lever just in time for Drew to walk around the corner and see that I hadn’t properly supported the hose at the dump station entrance. You see, when you release the lever to your RV’s holding tanks, the collective weight of your week’s turds rush through the hose and can cause it to collapse or bend enough that the cap can easily pop off of the dump station entrance. The Shit Storm ensued, explicits were yelled, and I ran inside with my tail between my legs after learning that the whole incident could have been avoided if I had either given properly supported the end of the hose so as not to allow it to kink in such a manner, or placed one of the many bricks that were right beside me atop the hose cap to ensure it didn’t pop off from the dump entrance.
This is one of those lessons that you only have to learn once, because the aftermath and cleanup was so unpleasant that it will fuel my nightmares for years to come. Don’t be like me. Secure your sewage hose before you dump your tanks.
Only because I had no idea what an RV sewage hose looked up a few months ago, I am including a picture of the same one that we have. It’s not much to look at, but I hope it helps.
2. Going to bed before checking the weather
I have never been accustomed to checking the weather on a regular basis, and aside from sometimes being caught in a rainstorm without an umbrella, I never faced any serious consequences for it. I’ve since learned that this is not the case when you call an RV home, and that knowing what weather to expect in the near future is a necessity.
When we were staying at our first Boondockers Welcome location, a lovely little private farm, we faced a lot of stormy weather as Hurricane Henri ripped up the New England Coast. Before the rain caught up to us, however, Drew and I took advantage of a few nice days under our awning. To veer off track just a tiny bit, if you are ever in the market for a motorhome, I would highly recommend getting one with an awning. Ours isn’t anything particularly fancy, but it provides a bit of sanctuary where you can enjoy some shade or shelter while listening to the sounds of nature. These awnings also have a reputation of being a bit delicate, and when the overpassing rain brought strong wind gusts throughout one particularly ill fated night, Drew and I both woke up in a midnight panic. You honestly don’t know fear until you are surprised by the creaking of your awning arms in the middle of the night, worried that the awning is about to be ripped from the side of your RV
Out of caution, we rolled in the awning, and having an electric awning, all we needed to do to retract it was to simply press a button inside the front door, making the fact that we were too lazy to do it before we went to sleep all the more ridiculous. To add insult to injury, after a moment of rest, we were greeted by the fresh, but just as unpleasant noise of one of our storage bins flapping open in the wind. That’s right, we had left a storage bin unlocked, and since the awning was no longer keeping the side of the RV dry, that meant that everything in that storage bin took a nice, long, cold shower. Oh, and that bin just happened to contain the inverter.
I don’t know how, but our inverter has proved resilient to our newbie mistakes, and is still working for us in flawless capacity to provide our cab with usable electricity. I fully recognize that it probably won’t survive another bath like the one it was the recipient of that night though, and we have now gotten into the habit of preparing for any chance of foul weather far in advance.
Our awning, fully equipped with an LED light strip which we like to show off to guests, does not hold up well to strong winds. Below the awning, to the left of our staircase, you can see the infamous inverter bin which we left open during a rain storm.
3. Leaving the bathroom fan on while connecting to the dump
If you have spent any amount of time in an RV then I know that you are one of the voluntary few who knows what the bowels of hell smell like: the inside of an RV dump station. Fair warning, folks, this is another poop story. Something I didn’t know about this lifestyle before I started living it was how familiar with my own waste I would have to become. I certainly don’t make the rules, because they would be much less feces ridden if I did, I just report them.
Anyhoo, a wonderful feature of most RV bathrooms is an overhead fan that leads directly over the roof. Ours is fast, powerful, works to quickly pump out the air in the bathroom, and is fantastic for clearing any foul odors that may be lingering in our water closet. Drew and I often laugh about how quickly this fan works and what a lifesaver it has been for keeping our home smelling fresh, even though the bathroom is essentially one in the same with the bedroom.
Now try and imagine for me, what would happen if you had this all-amazing fan on while you were hooked up to the dump station. You know, that large hole in the ground that contains the black water of every Tom, Dick and Harry that passed through the area in the past year? When there is a direct line from that pit of hell to the bathroom, and you couple that with an overhead fan whose sole job is to suck air out of said bathroom, it is a recipe for gag inducing, eye watering, throat constricting, putrid odors. I know I have a tendency to lean towards exaggeration but I promise you that there is no way of accurately describing the series of smells that ensued the first and only time I had the bathroom fan on as Drew was outside dumping our sewage tank.
It humbles me to say that I now know the smell of fermenting shit. I would not wish that experience on anybody in this world, so do yourself a favor and turn off your bathroom fan before connecting to the sewer.
4. Depending on the fresh water overflow drain
Wouldn’t you say we’re due for a story that doesn’t involve fecal matter? You’re in luck, because this one involves nothing but drinking water and a mistake we made with our fresh water tank.
You see, our RV can hold about 50 gallons of fresh water. This is about enough to last us a week of off-grid living if we are conservative, and to extend the length of time between water refills we prefer to fill our fresh water tank to the tippy, tippy top. Luckily, all fresh water tanks have an overflow drain which starts to leak when the fresh water tank has reached capacity. It’s a fine system actually. You can hook up your tank to a hose and take care of other business until you hear the sound of water on pavement which alerts you to then turn off the water supply. What we weren’t aware of, however, is that if you allow this overflow drain to steadily pour, then it can create a siphon with the remaining water in the tank, emptying the 50 gallons of drinking water that you just took the time to fill onto the sidewalk. That is exactly what happened to us while staying in Portland, Maine, and the funny thing is that we both looked at each other and shrugged, laughing at how the drain seemed to have dumped more than usual because we must have just REALLY overfilled the tank. It wasn’t until we got to our next destination that we realized our fresh water was empty.
This dilemma can be fixed by knowing how long it takes to fill your tank, and then shutting off the water supply before the overflow drain needs to be used. Alternatively, it is common for some RV owners to install an additional valve upstream from the overflow drain which allows you to stop the flow of water if a siphon such as this is ever created. We have so far gone with the timing method, because neither of us are confident enough to mess with our RV plumbing system quite yet.
5. Not reading the departure checklist
Before Drew and I even started our first road trip, I made sure that I created a “Departure Checklist.” Humans are forgetful, myself included, and it is silly to assume that we can remember to do everything that needs to be done in an RV in order to prepare to drive it. I’ve seen many bent jacks beneath neighboring motorhomes which I can only assume got that way because the owner forgot to lift them before driving off. I’m still not entirely sure why there isn’t a safety feature which doesn’t allow the vehicle to drive while the jacks are down, but I would like to do everything in my power to ensure that Marcel stays as intact as possible.
So there we are, on the road, staying at a beautiful Harvest Host location which was an adorable little creamery on Lake Seneca. Because Harvest Host spots typically don’t have any hookups, we didn’t have to disconnect any water lines or electricity, and so we were more nonchalant about packing up then we normally are. There was so much less packing up to complete than usual. We could remember it all without reading the checklist, right? Right?!
You guessed it, we were wrong. It was after we had declared that we were ready to take off, and I had just plopped myself into the passenger's seat, that Drew had begun to pull out of the grassy field where we spent the night. I looked in the side mirror and saw something out of place flapping outside the RV around roof level.
“Our awning is out. Our awning is out. OUR AWNING IS OUT!” I shrieked in that way that wives do when they are in panic, but I stand by the fact that this was an appropriate time to use this tone of voice. We realistically only drove about 10 feet with the awning out, but it was enough to prove to us that no matter where we were, or how easy we thought the take down was going to be on a particular day, that we needed to read over our departure checklist before we touched that gas pedal. This is a law that many RVers follow, and I would highly recommend that you do the same.
Whenever I feel myself becoming overwhelmed by the amount of stuff I have had to learn, I channel my inner Zen, click my heals three times, and chant “you are exactly where you need to be.”
6. Ignoring the navigation of our RV safe GPS
As I’m sure you can imagine, driving an RV is vastly different than driving a car. Aside from the technical challenges of making sure you are properly centered in the lane, and giving yourself plenty of space for turns, you also have to worry about weight limits and bridge clearances. Quite fortunately, there is an RV safe GPS which you can get through an annual subscription to the RV Life APP. This app has been an absolute life safer in more literal ways than you might even imagine.
Case in point, when we were recently making the drive from Connecticut to Pennsylvania, Drew and I were frustrated by the 50 minute longer route that the RV safe GPS was instructing us to take. We had been driving for two days already, attempting to get back to our hometown for my grandfather’s funeral, and so we decided to roll the dice by using the standard GPS. Flash forward around two hours or so, as we are driving through New York, and my phone is instructing me to continue onto the Saw Mill Parkway. Now, I never spent a lot of time in New York, and so the term “parkway” means absolutely nothing to me. I have since learned that parkways are old styled roads with lots of short overhead bridges and so they aren’t suitable for anything except passenger cars.
Rest assured, I am currently writing this to you in my RV, and its roof, along with all of its overhead air conditioners are still firmly attached. But that may not have been the case if I hadn’t seen the “NO TRUCKS” sign about two seconds prior to passing the last exit before the parkway began. It can take a while to bring a motorhome to a complete stop, and by the time we were halted, I was sitting on the shoulder of the parkway, looking to my right at the exit that I had just narrowly missed. Between us and it was a small grassy island which had a few obvious tire tracks which undoubtedly were put there by drivers such as myself who had similarly found themselves in this same conundrum. You can’t back up an RV that has a flat towed vehicle like we have with our Jeep, so our options were to either unhook the Jeep on the shoulder in order to back both vehicles up and get on the exit the proper way, or to throw caution to the wind and drive all of our earthly possessions through the grass with a hope and prayer. We chose the second option... and then promptly got stuck as our tires spun on the overwatered, muddy ground.
Drew is the honestly the real hero to this story, because not only was he not driving while these events transpired, he managed to collect himself enough to capture this picture.
Luckily, there was no damage to the RV and the only thing it cost us was a bit of pride as passerbys honked at us as if we didn’t already know that we were stuck on the side of the highway. After taking a few deep breaths, we unhooked the Jeep, and backed both vehicles up until we could reach the exit like the fully grown adults that we pretend to be in our spare time. The lesson here is that if your RV safe GPS adds time to your route home, it probably has a very good reason for it.
That’s a wrap, folks! Thank you for laughing alongside us, whether it is at our expense or not, for the last month and a half. This time in our life has been one overflowing with joy, adventure, and mistakes. We love being able to take you all with us on this ride as we figure out what the heck we are doing, and hope that you can learn something with us along the way.
Thank you for joining us at Discovery Detour, where the destination is always unknown.
