If you are ever in Yakima, Washington, you should totally bring your appetite to Miner’s Drive In! Their delicious burgers are the size of a frisbee. Their shakes are thick, and big enough to share. The onion rings are made with fresh Walla Walla Sweet onions, making them some of the best I’ve had.
Whether you choose to sit in the dining area, or outside at a picnic table, your sure to leave with your belly full. Even my two teenager boys are satisfied with their portions!
Five lessons I have learned when packing for an extended camping trip in the trailer.
What are some lessons you have learned when packing for a trip?
Having the right tool for the job always makes the job more efficient. Having the right gear when towing and camping makes your life easier. For some of the gear, it makes your life safer too!
Extended mirrors on the tow vehicle are a must have in my opinion. We drive a large truck with big mirrors. With our mirrors at their regular placement, I cannot see down the side of my trailer very well. Most of my view is blocked by the trailer itself. With the mirrors extended, I can see all the way down the side of the trailer. With the small beveled mirror on the bottom, I can see the road all along the trailer to cut down on blind spots. In the picture below, we are going around a corner, and I can still see a fair amount down the side of the trailer. The more you can see, the safer you are going down the road.
A cordless power drill makes set up and take down so much easier! We keep a handheld cordless power drill in the storage bay with our set up / take down gear. Hubby put a socket on it that fits our landing gear. No fussing with that silly bar to get the gear up or down, ZIP ZIP ZIP ZIP and all four feet are down. Setting up in a new site is quick and easy. While hubby gets the tongue jack set up, I quickly walk around the trailer putting down pieces of wood for the landing gear and putting in the wheel chocks. Once he has the tongue jack secure, he walks around with the cordless drill and just zips the landing gear down. Then he pulls the level out, I run the electric tongue jack to level the trailer. We are generally set up within ten minutes.
All the comforts of home are already there. When we bought Bessie, hubby and I agreed, we wanted the trailer to be as ready as possible to just hook up and go. We wanted to be able to just grab some food, a change of clothes, load up the dogs, and hit the road. So, we gathered and bought household items to live in the trailer. I color coded as much as possible. When we come back and do laundry, it is easy to tell what towels and washcloths go in the trailer. All the brown or purple go in the trailer. An extra set of bathroom items are already in the medicine cabinet. I knew I didn’t want to be dependent on paper plates. I bought a cheap set of dishes for the trailer. They are a different color than our in home dishes, so children can easily tell what needs to go back in the trailer after we bring them in for sanitizing in the dishwasher. I bought an electric coffee maker for when we have electric hook ups, and have my percolator for when we don’t. I keep all my camping pans and cooking utensils in there, so we are ready to prepare a meal. I also keep a small amount of shelf stable food in the trailer. Over the past few months, we have slowly built up the trailer to be as set up as possible without packing. If I wanted to go camping today, all I would need to grab is our pillows, daily medications, some clothes, water, and fresh food. I love knowing that we are that close to getting out and camping.
I love my morning coffee. One of my favorite things about camping is that quiet time in the morning. Usually I’m the only one up. I’ll brew a pot of coffee to enjoy with my book and nature. I’m a fairly early riser, so the campground is usually pretty quiet and all the birds and small animals are out and about looking for crumbs left by lazy campers.
There are many ways to brew coffee while camping. When we tent camped, I had my trusty percolator that I would use on the little propane stove. With the trailer, I was excited to have an electric coffee pot as an option. I bought myself a cheap electric coffee pot to live in the trailer. Out of nostalgia, I packed that shiny little percolator into a cupboard just in case. I’m so glad I did.
I end up using my percolator more than I ever thought I would in the trailer! Turns out, we are boon-docking and dry camping more often than we are in a full hook up park. When boon-docking or dry camping, the trailer isn’t plugged in to any electric service. My lovely electric coffee pot isn’t a good choice to use up battery life. So, I pull out that trusty little percolator, and brew my morning coffee on the propane stove just like I always have.
Lesson learned? In order to enjoy your morning coffee, you might still need to be prepared to brew without electricity. Having a back up plan is always a good idea.
As we learned in my last post, when the valve pull for the black tank is left open bad things happen. Today’s lesson learned is all about getting ready to drive away. There are scary videos and blog posts all over the internet about what can go wrong if you don’t hook up correctly to your tow vehicle. The safety of your family and others on the road depend on being hooked up correctly. A simple Google search will get you all the information you could ever need on that. I’m not going to talk about that. I’m going to talk about all the little things that make your life easier by preventing damage to your trailer.
While hubby is hooking up the trailer to drive away, I’m in charge of making sure everything else is turned off, closed properly, and ready to go down the road. The inside of the trailer is pretty easy. I walk from one end of the trailer to the other starting in the bathroom. If it opens, close it. If it turns on, turn it off. If it slides, put it on the floor or secure it.
Then I walk around the outside of the trailer. I start at the hitch on the passenger side. I literally touch everything as I go around. Are all the hatches closed? Is the awning in all the way? Is the door closed completely and locked? Is the door support handle tucked in all the way? Are the steps up? Are the end caps on the bumper pushed in? Are the lights all working? Are the valve pulls tucked in and the cap on the sewer pipe? Are all the caps secured over the water and electric hook ups? Are the propane tanks off? Is the lid secured on the tank cover?
I started this after our first trip down the coast with Bessie. As we were coming home through heavy traffic, a man in a small car pulled up along side us. He was waving and trying to get our attention. I rolled the window down and he gestured that our travel trailer door was swinging open! We pulled over, and sure enough the door to the trailer was wide open. The door support handle had swung open and folded back. We couldn’t see it in the mirror because they had both opened wide enough they were folded back against the trailer.
At our last stop, we had gotten in the trailer to get a snack. Whoever was the last one out, didn’t fully click the door shut. Then they folded the support handle over the door, and we headed out. Well, that handle won’t hold the door closed. Thankfully, nothing was lost and no damage was caused.
Now I am very careful to push against the door to make sure it is fully clicked shut and locked in place before we drive away. I may look silly walking around the trailer touching all the spots on the outside. But it gives me a level of comfort knowing that we are all secure before we pull away. Often, hubby will go around after me and do the same check. You never can be too safe out there!
We have officially spent more weekends in the travel trailer than our home this summer. Bessie the Jayco trailer has seen five different states and a lot of miles over the six months we have owned her. We have made some mistakes, had some repairs, and lots of adventures during our first camping season with Bessie. As the summer is winding down, I thought I would sit down and write out a few lessons I learned as a new travel trailer owner. Each day this week I’ll be posting a new lesson learned.
Water is your friend in the black tank.
While the trailer was parked for a couple weeks at our home, the eldest teen decided she wanted to use the trailer as her own space. She moved in, and took it over. The trailer had electric hook up, but no water. I did warn her to use the tanks sparingly, and to make sure she poured water in every time the toilet was used. We kept an eye on the tank gauges and when they were getting full, we hooked up and headed to our nearest campground with full hookup for a weekend of camping.
I had a late day at work that Friday with a field trip. Hubby was meeting me at the campground. He was going to get everything all set up before I got back from taking sixty-three sixth graders on a field trip. Hubby pulled into the camping spot and went to hook up the sewer pipe, that is when the adventure began.
First thing that was wrong, somehow the valve pull for the black tank was already pulled out. The lid over the pipe was securely in place, but the pull was open. I can only imagine what my hubby was thinking about that, but I can only imagine it wasn’t very friendly. Hubby was faced with a very full black tank, with only the lid holding it all back. He did his best to get the sewer pipe set up and hooked to the trailer as quickly as possible with as little spillage as possible.
Once the hook up was achieved, it should all be good. The tank would empty and our weekend of camping would commence. Right? Right?
Unfortunately, that is not how this story ends.
Come to find out, the eldest had not been using enough water when using the black tank. It was blocked. Full. And blocked.
Thankfully, our trailer has a hook up for a black tank flush. Hubby hooked in the hose and started running water into the tank, careful to keep an eye on it inside. No over flowing toilet, please! After two or three minutes of running water into the tank, it let loose. It let loose in an amazing fashion. It took ten to fifteen minutes for the tank to empty. However, we dealt with issues of false readings on the gauge and problems emptying the tank for the next few times we went out.
I am very thankful that I arrived at the campground as this whole story was finishing up. We are now VERY careful to make sure enough water is used when dry camping, and we always flush the tank when a hose hook up is available at the dump station.
We went on to enjoy our weekend at the campground. Some friends of ours were at the spot across from us. Much music was played, good food was eaten, and the weekend was enjoyed.
It is the beginning of August, which means I have roughly one month until school starts again. I’m one of those teachers that actually really enjoy the process of setting up my classroom every year. I am usually the first one in the building, and I come in for at least a few hours just about every week day to set up nice and slow. There are other teachers that reprimand me for spending my time free in the classroom. This is a frustration, but if it means I can relax during all the back to school meetings on our staff work days it is worth it to me.
I moved into a new classroom this year. It took me a full day just to unpack most of my stuff. I admit, I didn’t unpack any of my teacher supplies, just shoved those boxes into the closet.
I just love an organized closet!
One of my most used areas in my classroom is my assignment board. Every week, I put all the assignments, standards, targets, and events up on the board for students to refer to. Students write the assignments in the planners and take them home for parents to see each weekend. In my old classroom, I had three big white boards. One whole white board was used for this purpose. In my new classroom, I only have two white boards. I will need all that space for teaching each day. So, I decided to use this wall of cabinets as my new interactive calendar wall.
It took me a while to decide how I could make this space really functional. It had to be dry erase. It couldn’t interfere with the cupboards opening and closing. And, it couldn’t cause damage to the cupboard doors. Dollar Tree vinyl book covers and my Cricut machine to the rescue!
It took me just over 4 hours to complete this project. I used my Cricut to cut 10 inch scalloped squares out of the vinyl book covers. Then put them up on the cupboards in a grid. The vinyl book covers are sticky, but don’t leave a residue. They are dry erase-ish. The marker does leave a bit of darkness when it is erased. The squares were easy enough to make/put up that I plan to cut extras to have on hand. Then if one gets particularly grungy, I can just put up a new one! I’m also excited to have a full month view. My students really like knowing what is coming up at school. This large calendar will give me plenty of space to write in events, birthdays, and assignments.
Our class mascot, Earl, approves this message.
modernbygone 