Luray Weekend 1: March 27-29, 2015

We headed to our trailer, which was nicely settled in it's spot, in Luray this past weekend. It was such a great feeling to drive out there, knowing we didn't have to do a full set up when we got there!

This trip was a little different for a couple of reasons:

1) It was going to be below freezing a good majority of our trip which meant some special equipment.
2) We were bringing both the cat (Wendy) and the dog (David) with us. Wendy's never been camping and her car rides usually only lead her to the vet.

Wendy did really well in the car. A little bit of crying, but nothing major. David didn't puke! Victory on both! Once we got to the trailer, it took Wendy a little time to warm up to the idea of the trailer. When she did, she managed to find a hiding place, enjoyed the sun a little, and even let David be on the bed with her for a while. That last one is HUGE! These two fight like... well... cats and dogs.

David was so excited to see the trailer again. He really enjoys it. Plus, the Luray KOA has a nice dog park. He had so much fun running around like crazy!

On Friday afternoon, we got the water set up. This is where the special equipment comes into play. We got a heated hose, on recommendation of a friend of ours. It was totally worth it! We also bought a heat gun (Black & Decker runs about $30), which was also totally worth it. Everything was insulated/heated except the spigot, which made for quick defrosting in the mornings. Jon decided not to put the pressure regulator on so he wouldn't have to defrost it as well. (This turned out to be a fatal flaw in our plan.)

David loves drinking from the spigot instead of the bowl.

First of many sunsets this season

We also restrung the day/night shades in the dinette area. When I took the valance/shades down to recover the valance, the shades got all crazy loose & needed to be restrung. It's probably for the better because we need to do the ones above the bed as well - and that's before the valance comes down!

We made trip #1 to the Super Walmart to get food for the weekend & a couple of other things we needed. Back to the trailer & I made dinner while Jon did something else set up all of his internet things.

Saturday morning, Jon got up and defrosted the spigot with the heat gun. It worked, yay! Running water is a good thing. We chilled out & surfed the web until about 1pm, when we went to Harrisonburg. We decided to check out a luxury apartment complex that's being built, just to see what's in the area. After that, we went to the AT&T store to pick up a hotspot, cause Jon's a geek. Really, he has to explain all that, but let's just go with the geek thing.

Jon and Wendy enjoying breakfast.

We headed back to Walmart, because what's a camping trip without at least 2 stops at Walmart? We picked up everything on our list for this trip and headed back to the trailer.

Once back at the trailer, we figured out that BOTH propane tanks had run out of propane. Of course, it was just after the office closed, so no propane refills were happening on that end. Jon decided to take both tanks to see if he could either replace them or refill them. He tried the gas station across the street and thankfully, both tanks could be exchanged for "normal" gas grill style tanks. YAY! With those set back up, we were back in business.

They were actually playing nice! 

Tasty dinner!

We managed to mount the WiFi Ranger to the wall & get a couple of other things done. Around bedtime, we decided to start watching Turbo. We got a bit into it and then decided to sleep instead. We were both pretty tired.

Sunday, Jon got up & defrosted us again. It took a little longer Sunday morning than Saturday morning. It was also a bit colder on Sunday morning. Once the weather got a little nicer, we took David down to the dog park & let him run for a little bit. We're still trying to teach him to fetch a ball. Guess that's a project for this summer.

Both of us had random stuff we needed to do around the trailer. Right before doing said "stuff", I went into the bathroom... and found water around the base of the toilet. At first, I thought it was coming from the toilet. Then I found more water near the wall of the bathroom... next to the water heater. NOOOOOOO. We immediately checked the water heater and sure enough, it's leaking! Crap.

The piece at the top & the one at the bottom are check valves. The one at the top was cracked.

Thank goodness for the Lance owners forum. The check valve was cracked & it's pretty much a known issue. Now, to get that thing out of there & replace it with a brass check valve. The parts are on order & we've bought what we hope will be the correct wrenches to get those things out! We'll update more on that later.

After we determined that we wouldn't be getting the water heater fixed on Sunday, we drained all of the water, black tank, and gray tank, and got on with our other projects.

I unpacked a bunch of stuff we brought from home. Jon started to install the battery box we bought. I helped him with what I could (read: what he'd allow) and left him to the rest. We still need to actually connect the battery & Jon had to order another part. I'll let him do a separate post about that (and a few hundred other things).

Battery box - day 1

Eventually, it got to be time for us to need to head back home. So, we packed up and headed out. Overall, a good weekend. Something always goes wrong on the shakeout trip. We'll get it all fixed and it'll be good!