RV Trip Day 2: Frog and Toad

Day 2 of our First RV trip! So how’s it going you ask? Hmmm. The short answer is pretty well! The more interesting answer takes a little longer.

First, a vocabulary lesson: We are towing a car behind the RV. RV’ers refer to the car being towed as The Toad!  Great play on words, don’t you think?  So when you see me talk about Toad, it is the Honda CRV that is tagging along behind the RV for the trip.

There is another word that keeps popping up, much to Larry’s chagrin. As a Children’s Librarian and Elementary Media Specialist I was very familiar with a series of Frog and Toad books by Arnold Lobel.  If the Honda was Toad, it just seemed natural that the RV was Frog. And a friend of mine said it made sense, because FROG means Fully Rely On God. So if Frog crops up in this blog you will know why.

That ends the vocabulary lesson.

Packing for our first trip took all weekend. And my shopping list of stuff to buy that I didn't think about, is growing. 

Lesson learned:  Plan, but take lots of cash to fill in the gaps.

Today, gave us another teachable moment. When we hooked up at the campsite, the water pressure was really low, and the water pump ran all the time. We knew that wasn’t right, so Larry turned it off and we turned it on whenever we actually had to have water. The goal was to look for a Camping World and see if they could see what the problem was.

Note: Camping Worlds are not as plentiful as Wal-Mart. There was one 2 hours east of where we were. The next one was 6 hours away, but on our route. The good news is that once we were there, they discovered a valve wasn't working properly and got things running.

Lesson: Follow your instinct. If something doesn't seem to be working, don’t use it. Check it out.

Living in the RV is going pretty well. The kitchen is working out, but then again, the most we've done is fix coffee, heat water for tea, microwave some frozen chicken tenders, and heat up a can of beans.  However, I've had to readjust my idea of meals. When we were looking at RV’s I was insistent on making sure the kitchen would function well. Eating out is nice, but fixing a familiar home cooked meal is good too. Larry enjoys eating out a lot. So for this short trip I figured that after a day of driving he’d be ready to go somewhere for dinner, but I brought a few things, just in case. I didn’t plan very well.

Readjustment number 1: When you have to unhitch and rehitch the Toad, sometimes you are happy just parking, and eating dinner in your own “home”. Plan a couple of easy, favorite meals for travel days.

Readjustment number 2: Sometimes Toad doesn’t want to go anywhere. Yep. It happened again!

Today, we had the GPS off. Everything was set correctly. But the Honda manual said it is best to pull the accessory fuse if you are towing the car for long. We had hoped to make several stops today to run the engine in the car, but that didn't happen.  So Toad is recharging and we are once again, holed up in Frog, eating whatever I can scrounge up for dinner.

Day 2 is in the books. I wonder what Day 3 will bring? Whatever it is, we are Fully Relying On God. So it can only be good things. Right?