1. Turn off the battery when you park her for weeks, or it dies.

2. How to bypass an electric tongue jack and hand crank it.

3. Buy any necessities before the day you are supposed to leave.

4. There’s always a Wal-Mart within a half hour’s drive.

5. Other drivers suck.

6. When buying used, flush all the water lines – thoroughly.

7. Pre-cooling a fridge and freezer with jugs of frozen water really helps – and also gives you good drinking water when you buy a used trailer, do not flush all the water lines thoroughly, and your water smells like sulfur.

8. Turn on the campground water for a few minutes before you attach your drinking water hose and filter.

9. Run lots of water through that hose – even brand new – before you hook it to the trailer!  (Thankfully, I did this as black nasty gunk came through.)

10. Even ducted AC is loud.

11. Camping is fun.  Camping with air conditioning is more fun.

12. No matter how many times you say you're not going to watch TV and post on Facebook when you're camping - you will watch TV and post on Facebook.

13. A heated mattress may sound nice for fall and winter – but memory foam sounds way better!   

14. Even on the best, heavy stoneware pan, turn the biscuits half-way through cooking or eat black-bottomed biscuits.

15. If you don't run the exhaust fan when cooking, you will set off the smoke alarm.

16. Tank sensors are just totally guessing and they aren't very good at it.

17. Get a good checklist for set-up and break-down that says things like...

18. Raise the tongue jack before you start driving!

19. Furrion backup/observation cameras only work if you turn your headlights on.

    20.  Sanidumps LIES!  Verify before you leave.

    21.   Dumping your tank isn't nearly as bad as I expected.

    22.  Those sewer hoses do NOT fit in the bumper.

 - Alice

Edited August 20 by Alice

LOVE IT! What an entertaining and realistic read. On #15, so then I'll stop using the smoke alarm as a timer And on #19, I thought just the parking lights activated the cameras. 

     Spot

#1 -  You shouldn't have to do a shut off of your battery unless you run stuff in your rig off of the truck? 

#13.  Not sure what Mf has to do with a mattress heater.

Hope you had a great trip and a good learning experience!!!

Thank you,  Alice, for a humorous look back at all the things we have learned along the way. Our Monday is complete. 

Edited August 20 by Darryl&Rita

  On 8/20/2019 at 2:01 AM, Darryl&Rita said:

Thank you,  Alice, for a humorouslook back at all the things we have learned along the way. Our Monday is complete. 

Thanks.

  On 8/20/2019 at 12:05 AM, $ Spot said:

LOVE IT! What an entertaining and realistic read. On #15, so then I'll stop using the smoke alarm as a timer And on #19, I thought just the parking lights activated the cameras. 

     Spot

Ours runs off the lights at the top of the trailer and those don't come on unless we turn the headlights on.

  On 8/20/2019 at 12:11 AM, Barbaraok said:

#1 -  You shouldn't have to do a shut off of your battery unless you run stuff in your rig off of the truck? 

I meant when parking it for weeks.  All the little things like the microwave lights and other little energy sucks killed it.  (I edited)

  On 8/20/2019 at 12:30 AM, hemsteadc said:

#13.  Not sure what Mf has to do with a mattress heater.

The mattress is a heated mattress...and hard as a rock.  It will have to be replaced or at least topped, with memory foam.

Alice, thanks for clarifying.  The  microwave doesn’t run off of batteries, but yes the phantom loads will drain rig batteries if you don’t throw disconnect switch.  Things like propane detector and CO detector, as well as TV antenna booster,  are among those small things we don’t see as we go about daily activities. 

  On 8/20/2019 at 3:28 AM, Barbaraok said:

The  microwave doesn’t run off of batteries

If it has a clock it probably does.

Good, and fun, list. Thanks for posting it.

Linda

Nothing works on the microwave if the RV isn't plugged into electric.  The clock doesn't run.

Great read. Now take what you learned and start a check list(maybe multiple). Always use it, even if you think you have it memorized. If interrupted going through your list, start again.

Just think of the "around the fire" stories you have!!!!

  On 8/20/2019 at 4:22 AM, sandsys said:

If it has a clock it probably does.

no. Go unplug yours.  No clock.

Edited August 20 by hemsteadc

#4 - YUP!! Our maiden trip was to a campground that was both near our home and a Walmart.

#5 - This is a cardinal rule no matter what state, county, city, town, village you are in! 

#10 - Not so (at least in our RV)

#16 - True that!

#11 - Absolutely true!! I have even managed to convince my son that "glamping" in his TT is better than boon-docking all the time. 

  On 8/19/2019 at 11:26 PM, Alice said:

Pre-cooling a fridge and freezer with jugs of frozen water really helps –

I always start the refrigerator the night before we pack up to travel.

  On 8/19/2019 at 11:26 PM, Alice said:

Run lots of water through that hose – even brand new – before you hook it to the trailer!  (Thankfully, I did this as black nasty gunk came through.)

The black stuff probably came from a new, carbon water filter. They suggest flushing them for 3 to 5 minutes before each use. A new water hose will both smell and taste when you first connect it but only needs flushed for a few gallons of water. 

  On 8/19/2019 at 11:26 PM, Alice said:

Even on the best, heavy stoneware pan, turn the biscuits half-way through cooking or eat black-bottomed biscuits.

RV ovens do not have enough mass to heat evenly but if you put either an unglazed tile or pizza stone into it that will cover nearly the entire bottom of the oven will make it heat much more evenly. 

Thanks for sharing the list! It is important to remember that the main reason some of us know many RV answers is that we have made more mistakes than you have. But I like to think of them not so much as mistakes, but as learning experiences!  ?

One day we should share a list of things that RV folks either have done, or will do at some future date. 

We had LOTS of learning experiences ?