I was totally NOT white-knuckled the entire drive down. Ok, maybe a bit... I'm still learning to tow. But I digress. With Heather already covering a lot of the logistics, I'll hit the technical details.
Tow prep and hitching up
Since I had already checked my lug nuts with a torque wrench (110 foot-pounds) a couple of weeks prior, I knew they were in good shape. So I proceeded to check the tire pressure on the trailer, and I was amazed at how much pressure they had lost in just three weeks (down to 35 psi from 50). I quickly realized that my 12V air compressor works much faster when I actually have the truck running and the alternator generating some current.
Hitching up was pretty straightforward, as I haven't really touched our weight distribution setup since the dealer installed it. Absolutely love having the power jack, it really helps lift the tongue up high enough to secure the weight distribution bars.
Towing
Ok, I'll admit that heading south on 95 with a lot of big rigs passing me was intimidating. I keep expecting the trailer to sway, but I'm slowly learning to trust that my truck and hitch are doing their job properly. I'm also probably changing lanes way too early, but I freak out in anticipation of having to get over into the lane I need to be in to turn. Ah well, hopefully it'll get easier.
Chocking, unhitching, leveling, and stabilizing
Got to the KOA just fine, and love those pull-through sites! Made parking super easy. First order of business: we put the slide out, because we wanted to level with the weight shifted as it would be parked. Second order of business: wow, that's a big slide. Put it back in, pulled the truck forward about four feet, and put it back out. Would have hit the electrical hookup with it otherwise. Didn't need to level left to right according to our bubble level, so I chocked, unhitched, leveled front to back, and cranked down the stabilizer jacks.
Shore power and city water
Hooking up to shore power was a piece of cake, but we realized that our GFI breaker was tripped at the galley outlet. None of our outlets worked as a result, but that was an easy fix. Water was a bit more interesting, because I couldn't decide how I wanted to hookup the regulator, the hose, and the filter. I ultimately decided to hook them up in that order, but I disconnected everything probably five different times before I turned on the water. No leaks, so that was promising. Went inside, ran the cold and hot water to get all of the antifreeze and air out of the lines, then I turned on the water heater. We had hot water in about fifteen minutes, which I thought was pretty impressive.
Now, it went below freezing each night and our hose was not of the heated variety. In fact, I didn't even realize they made heated water hoses until my boss (an expert trailer camper) told me about them the following week at work. So to prevent freezing I basically disconnected and drained the hose and filter each night, storing them in the storage areas of the trailer. Our Lance is 4-Season rated, so according to he manual: as long as you run the furnace in freezing weather the pipes and tanks stay above freezing. We had no problems at all, though our next winter camping trip will definitely involve a heated water hose.
Running the furnace
We ran the furnace (which uses propane) from the moment we hooked up to shore power to the moment we hitched back up to leave, and I was pleasantly surprised that we only seem to have burned about half of tank of propane. I'm fairly confident we came back home with a full tank and a half left, which was more than I expected to have. The furnace kept us quite warm all night long. My only nitpick is that with the thermostat set to 66 or so, it would let the temperature fall to about 63 before kicking the furnace on and heating the interior up to about 68. I had brought along a digital thermometer and humidity monitor, and we noticed that we wanted to shed layers up around 68 and then pull them back on down around 63. Ah, well. All in all I can't really complain, everything worked great.
Keeping an eye on humidity
With two adult humans converting air into CO2 and water inside a buttoned-up 19.6 foot trailer, condensation can become a concern. The owners manual says to ventilate if the humidity ever gets above 60%, and to always ventilate while using the propane stove or showering. With just the furnace running all night, we awoke to find very minor condensation on the inside of the double-paned windows - which we expected from reading reports from more experienced campers online. We wiped everything down each morning and ran our Fantastic Fan for a bit, but we never got about 45% humidity unless we were cooking or showering. Performing either activity inside quickly brought the humidity levels up over 60%, so we had all the exhaust fans running while cooking or showering. That Fantastic Fan can move some air, it's incredible.
The bed that hurt me
So we have the optional queen bed that converts into a sofa in our 1885. I'd call it a sofa-bed, but it's totally not what you have in your homes. It's more of a queen bed first and sofa second. Heather and I both agreed to give the queen mattress a try before buying any sort of mattress pad or topper. We left it made up in bed mode the entire trip, not really needing the sofa with just the two of us.
So after the first night we promptly got dressed, made breakfast, got into the truck and drove to the nearest Costco in order to buy a 3" memory foam mattress topper. We discussed the purchase for all of about 30 seconds at breakfast, and the decision was unanimous. The second night's sleep with the mattress topper installed was much improved over the first's.
The shower that hugged me
So with a corner shower (photos below in Heather's post) in our 1885, we decided to double up on the shower curtains to try to prevent water from spraying out and getting onto the floor. We've seen a bunch of people post about their rather ingenious solutions to this problem, so we knew the threat was real. We decided to keep it simple (and cheap) for now, and the good news is that the two curtains did a fabulous job of keeping the water in.
The problem is, when you get a nice hot and steamy shower going, the updraft tends to cause the curtains to hug you. I kept backing further and further into the corner of the stall until I finally pushed the curtain back out a bit, and this fight continued throughout the shower.
I'm not going to lie to you: the water pressure was abysmal. I used the Navy shower approach primarily because it would have been more annoying not to, what with the pathetic trickle of water coming from the shower head. After we got home and did a little research, I promptly ordered a proper water pressure regulator and a replacement shower head from Camping World. Both were recommended by other Lance owners as solutions to the problem, and I'm looking forward to getting them installed before our next trip out.
Re-winterizing
Before towing our trailer back to our storage lot, we took the time to re-winterize it by following the steps Lance recommends on their website (which essentially mirror the user's manual). I was very intimidated by this process at first because it seemed rather involved, but it ended up being extremely simple to follow the directions. We'd brought along far more RV antifreeze (4 jugs) than we needed (1.5 jugs), but better safe than sorry. I pumped antifreeze through all of the water faucets (remember that outdoor shower!), both cold and hot, after draining and bypassing the water heater, and finally put some down into the grey and black tanks for good measure. We didn't use our fresh water tank at all, so really we just had to worry about the water heater, the plumbing, and the grey and fresh water tanks.
That's it for now! All in all, a successful shakedown camp. I'm going to get the shower sorted out, and try to get a TV mount and flat panel installed before our next trip in April. Can't wait!
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