A Typical Morning on a Driving Day

Little Starlet wakes up at 6:00am, reads her book, then wakes us up at 7:30am (though we’re usually already awake). She pulls back our privacy curtain with a big happy “Good Morning!” Deep Thought drags herself out of bed twenty minutes later: She stays behind her privacy curtain as long as she can.

Hubby collects our mugs, kettle and water from outside. Then he breaks Little Starlet’s bed, reconstructing the dinette. We collect our coins, towels and toiletries, and walk round to the campsite showers. Then we eat a breakfast of cereal. (It’s usually cooked food on a stay-put day.)

Everyone gets dressed, then Deep Thought and Little Starlet wash and dry the dishes while I put them away. We tidy everything that is left hanging around, e.g. clothes, shoes, books. We tidy up as we go along: It is very important to be super tidy in such a small space. As we are in bear country we are careful to make sure all food and anything that looks like it might be food (e.g. a mug) is put out of sight. Apparently the bears can try to get into your vehicle if they think they can see food. Hubby tidies up outside, again putting away anything that is or that looks like food. Visits to the campsite toilets, brushing teeth and hair, medicines, and a final sweep of the dusty floor (with the handy brush that collapses down into a very short length of handle, as provided by the RV company).

If we are moving on, Hubby checks the outside of the RV: storage cupboard locked, door step away, leveling blocks away, any hookup unplugged and the cord away. I check the interior: All cupboards securely closed, air vents closed, windows closed, curtains pinned back, nothing loose on any surfaces or on the floor to slide around, all appliances turned off, water pump off, toilet empty and closed, lights off.

And we’re away.

Best Things So Far

Asked Deep Thought and Little Starlet what they had liked most so far about the trip. Response:
(1) The swimming pool at the Jackson Wellsprings campground.
(2) The Shakespeare play. (Little Starlet is now sure she wants to be an actor when she grows up.)
(3) The big redwood trees at Humboldt Redwoods State Park.

Hubby says he likes being able to visit the beautiful places. I liked the big trees too.

Also asked DT and LS what they had liked least about the trip:
(1) The smell of the water at the Jackson Wellsprings campground.
(2) Worrying about bears at Humboldt Redwoods State Park.
(3) The campground at the Bothe-Napa State Park. It was a bit dusty and cramped.
(4) The bumpy and twisty roads, when the RV feels very big.

Hubby says the only thing he hasn’t liked was the smelly water. I wasn’t too sure about being in a “home away from home” at the start – it didn’t feel enough like camping – but as we’ve been able to run the AC when it’s been hot and wrap up in the warm when it’s been cold, I’ve got used to the civilization of it all.

Best things about being in an RV:
(1) Not having to walk around in the dark outside to go to the toilet in the night.
(2) It stays warm when it is very cold outside (like at night).
(3) When it rains you don’t get wet.
(4) It’s easy to go further.

Time To Dump :-)

Now we can dump our Grey waste (from the sinks and shower) dad's giving it a try.

Moving on Day (Again)

Today we leave the delights of the Jackson Wellsprings behind us. We are taking a side trip to Jacksonville, said to be one of the best preserved Victorian gold rush towns in the nation (it was bypassed by the railroad in the 1880s), then it is up to Crater Lake. That should take us just over two hours. The campground we are headed to has over 200 campsites, so we don't have high expectations of "scenic", but there aren't many choices for us RV-ers around there.

Hubby has refilled the water tank again and is currently taking a shower, with the result that the RV stinks of rotten eggs. This place could be called Sulpher Springs, it really is very pungent. We tried brushing our teeth in the RV sink using the Wellsprings water, but when you get to the rinsing part it is actually a bit shocking. "GAK!" we all said, spitting it out.

Hubby's next adventure is to dump the grey water (which is full) and he may try to dump the black water (which still says it's empty).

Nerdy Interlude

No camp fire for us here, but we do have electricity and water. For the nerds among our readers, a full tank of water has lasted us about three days, and a full tank of gas takes us about 300 miles. As for the infamous “black water” issue, this ship has a strict rule: All “number twos” have to happen in the campground loos and not on board. So our black water tank is only 1/3 full so far, and not close to needing to be emptied. In fact the RV's instruction manual says the tank should only be emptied when it is full so that "solids" (lots of delicate euphemisms appear in RV-speak) do not get "left behind" when the "liquids" are drained. We may need to up the wee productivity to get there. Our "grey water" tank is almost full, so we shall need to dump that before setting off from Ashland.

But Hubby is looking on the bright side. He might only need one pair of gloves after all.

[photo by Deep Thought.]

Heading North

Two discoveries: (1) The RV toilet flushes, it isn't a horrid chemical toilet after all and (2) the shower in the RV runs scalding hot, freezing cold, scalding hot, freezing cold, etc. So we won't be using that much. Hubby took a shower in the park's coin showers this morning ($1 equals 2 minutes), but the kids remained filthy.

At 10am, we headed out of the Napa State Park on highway 29/highway 128 towards Ukiah. The drive across to 101 took about an hour along twisty narrow roads through lovely vineyards. Hubby particularly liked driving the twisty bits. We stopped to take photos in Sonoma, then at a gas station in Hopland, and here we are at the McDonald's in Ukiah.

Notable moments so far today:
1) the Hopland gas station's counter display of condoms and vitamin supplements "to give your lady pleasure all night."
2) Egg, bacon and sausage for breakfast.

Dumping Heaven

Our neighbors are having their house remodeled. Yesterday, Little Starlet and I paused to watch the man empty the workers' mobile toilet ("porta-potty"). With eyebrows in her hairline and a flamboyant toss of the head, she declared that she NEVER wanted to be that man.

So it was with mobile poo on my mind that I discovered a wonderful website designed to put all your sanitary fears to rest, www.RVdumps.com, a noble website created by something called Roundabout Publications. Yes, listed in one easy directory state by state, all the dump stations available for your "black water" tanks, complete with reviews. "This one might be a bit tight for large units" says one reviewer. "Nice people, but it's all self service," sighs another. "This one provides a clean hose and everything," enthuses a third. Gosh, I can hardly wait.

Fees for getting rid of your sewage seem to range from about $2 to $20 per dump, with most commentators feeling anything over $10 is extortion (especially if it doesn't include a free refill of the water tank or another RV specific service).

And that reminds me, must remember to put "rubber gloves" on the final shopping list for tomorrow. Little Starlet might not be planning to be the Porta-Potty Man, but I know a man who is.

Size is Everything

Hubby and I have been checking back on the size of the RV we've hired. It's the smallest available - we didn't want to be too ambitious on this, our first trip - but the dimensions seem enormous now we really consider them. 25ft long, 8ft wide, 11ft high.

Even so, a quick look at the floorplan so helpfully provided by Camping World makes us wonder where we're going to stash all the stuff that is already on our barely-started packing list. And Little Starlet hasn't even begun to put her extensive Polly Pocket family into a suitcase.

The floorplan consists of a driving cab area (lucky, that), with a "cabover bed"; a lounge chair which appears to be bolted to the floor, probably a good idea as we are combining the accident-prone Little Starlet with a twisty road; a "dinette" that converts into a single bed, reminiscent of all those happy holidays spent in fixed caravan sites in Rhyl; a "double bed" designed for two short, svelt sleepers; a shower and sink; the delicately named "toilette"; and a cooking area of small oven, microwave, stovetop, and sink. There is also something enigmatically labelled "Refer", which presumably is some hitherto unknown abbreviation, or perhaps a special technical word known only to RVers, refer-ing to the refrigerator.

Let's hope so, as we plan to take as much food with us as we can load into the van. Though our route follows major highways through delightfully named towns like Eureka, we're not sure that the Formager D'Affinois or Greek olive oil will be so easy to find as it is in the Bay Area. Mind you, the food shopping I've done so far consists of jumbo boxes of Cheezits and multi-packs of tomato sauce, so who am I trying to kid?

Hubby says with a reassuring chuckle that I would have no trouble driving this monster. Well, that's not my plan. Someone needs to commune with the maps, and that seems like my sort of gig.

Down the Drain

I rose from my bed today with an important question to answer: Do we need to buy special toilet paper for our trip?

As a family encompassing funny insides and two smallish children, this is clearly a key issue to get right. We don't need any clogged thingies or overflowing wotsits. (I presume I'll learn the correct terminology in due course, though as I am rather planning to leave the toilet department to beloved Hubby, perhaps I'm wrong about that. Which reminds me that I need to buy him a pair of rubber gloves.)

Anyway, to cut a long story short, our friends at Google provided links to a couple of very good RV info sites. Of course there were the usual range of ideas and insights, from "Spend all you've got on special septic tank paper made by this women's collective in Ohio" to "We've been RVing for 30 years and only just moved on from dry leaves to newspaper." But leaving the outliers aside, the general conclusions were:

(1) Don't buy the expensive special RV toilet paper at Camping World etc
(2) Go for single ply over 2-ply. Scotts single ply is much recommended.
(3) Test your paper before you set out, by putting a couple of sheets in a jar of water, shaking it vigorously, waiting 15 minutes, and then seeing whether the sheets have broken down into shreds. If they have, use it. If they haven't, go back to the store.

I couldn't find a jar, but correctly judged that Hubby's capacious Gartner beer mug would do the trick. Having now undertaken a scientific comparison test of the CVS own brand and Seventh Generation recycled toilet papers, I think we'll be going with Seventh Generation, which had shredded almost completely within just a couple of minutes after the vigorous shake. Good. Another problem resolved.