Adventures Of Buying The New (To Us) Camper

     Last weekend we went to buy our new to us camper! This past spring we decided to change our style of camping. The motorhome was great and we had a lot of fun in it, but we decided we needed to go a little bigger so all of the family would fit easier. We decided we wanted to go with a camper instead of a motorhome. A 5th wheel camper will be great because we can pull doubles (atv trailer or boat) and the amount of space that is added both inside and outside would be wonderful. It's going to be AWESOME! I will miss being able to get up and go get a snack or drink whenever I want when we're going down the road, but I'll get used to planning ahead and packing a cooler before we leave.

     Here is the pictures and story of our adventure from last weekend:

 

 

     I was very excited to go on this adventure! We haven't been doing much outdoors this summer because we've been in transition mode and getting stuff done around the house.

 

      When we go on adventures, it is my job to take care of the dogs, read the directions & map (or Lola the GPS), watch for interesting landmarks, make sure my husband has snacks and drinks and take lots of photos. It's a lot to do, but we wouldn't get very far very fast if I was the one driving so I proudly take on these responsibilities.
     For some reason I find runaway truck ramps fascinating. When I was a kid and we'd go on mountain drives, I would get excited when I saw the signs saying they were coming up. On this trip, I discovered I still get excited about watching for the ramps!

 

      We saw the smoke from this fire from many miles away. After a summer of watching Colorado fight fires and being so close to a couple of those fires, this sight made us a little nervous. The people that lived on this property were nearby so we decided it was a planned burn and from the size of it, they must not have wanted to watch the fire burn for long.

 

 I have never been to Blue Mesa...well, not that I can remember anyway. When we came to the inlet of the lake I thought it was a river and then I realized it was a lake. I was amazed by the size and wondered why I have never been here before! I think we will have to plan a trip to Blue Mesa for camping, fishing and boating in the next few years.

 

      Apparently, this is where all of the fish were because this is where all of the boats were.

 

      More of Blue Mesa. The water level is really low due to the drought in Colorado.

 

      Another thing I like to do on road trips is to read traffic signs (and of course take pictures of the really interesting ones). It is interesting how each state has their own way of handling certain types of traffic situations. I had no idea that Colorado had day time and night time speed limits! It made sense along this road. If we were coming through this area at night I would prefer to go slower.

 

 More of Blue Mesa. It's a very beautiful lake.

 

 Even more of Blue Mesa. The largest lake in Colorado.

 

      Another interesting sign right before we arrived at the house where the camper was. I had no idea McDonald's only had one arch at some point! This was a really cool old sign next to a newer building.

 

      FINALLY after driving almost 5 hours, we made it to the sellers' house. We looked at the camper and fell in love with it! It was a little.......okay, a lot bigger than we had originally planned for but once we started picturing everybody hanging out in our new camper we couldn't say no. Having all of the storage was exciting, too.
     I have waited all summer to see this:

 

      On the ride home we enjoyed more scenery. There were a lot of cattle in this meadow.

 

      When we started going around these curves, I got a little nervous since we were a lot longer than when we went through them that morning. Thankfully my husband wasn't nervous at all.

 

      By the time we got back to Blue Mesa, we were starting to deal with some rain.,

 

      There are deer crossing signs all over Colorado and many other states, but have you ever seen an elk crossing sign?

 

      We stopped at the top of Monarch Pass for a break and to check the truck and the camper.....and to take a picture of our truck and camper at the top of Monarch Pass. The air gets a little thinner at 11,312 feet on the Continental Divide!

 

      We enjoyed some more mountain views and decided that no matter how comfy your vehicle is, 10 hours riding in it makes for a really long day.

      I pointed out that there was a sign saying we needed to pull over and go camping, but my husband said that's not what that sign was really saying. Since we didn't have any bedding, cooking utensils, food or water, change of clothing or our dogs I decided he was right.

 

 

      You're welcome!

 

      It was nice to get home and park the new camper in our yard. It looks a lot bigger in our yard than it did in the sellers' yard. Here is the passenger side and the "front" door

 

      It's HUGE inside! I will share more photos once we start personalizing it. Right now it has a "country cabin theme" and we will be converting it to our "outdoor theme." We went ahead and moved all of our stuff from the motorhome that was stored in the garage to the camper and we have a lot of extra storage space leftover. Right now we have a shelf just for pudding!

     
     One of our favorite features is that it has a back door! When the slide is in, you can't get from the bedroom to the "main" door so having a "back" door is a safety feature, but also a REALLY handy feature.

 

      Kaos says she's ready to take it out for a trip.

 

    We may only get to do one camping trip this year so we're having a hard time deciding where to take that trip. We can't wait and neither can the dogs!
     Getting out on this adventure recharged me a little and helped me come up with some more blog posts. We will also be sharing some "How We Did Some RV Modification Posts" for both inside and outside.

Some RV Orginazation Tips

     Since camping season has begun for most people, I thought I would share some of my RV organization tips I have learned over the 3 years we have owned our motor home. I am always looking for new ways to make things easier in an RV because I get frustrated when I can't find something that I know is in there somewhere.

     First, we'll start with some kitchen and pantry organization. Below is our kitchen in our motor home. One of the things I wish our motor home had was more storage space especially for cooking tools and food. I have found ways to help with the organization issues and also take care of some other annoying little things about an RV. Look at the stove top and you will notice there are no burners on it. It drove us crazy listening to those rattle while we were driving down the road. The people we bought the motor home from, told us they always put something heavy on the burners to keep them from rattling but we thought that was a really bad idea. We combined that problem with another small issue we had to take care of in the kitchen. See that curtained area above the stove hood?

 

     The curtained area above the hood is the spot for the microwave. Most people worry about breaking the glass plate in a microwave while driving down the road, but we added that to the stove burner rattling plan.

 

 

      The inside of our motor home microwave looks like this. Each of those 4 pouches has a stove burner in it and the towel is wrapped around the microwave's glass plate. The pouches fill up the microwave so the plate doesn't move around and each burner is protected in a pouch so it won't hit anything and make a bunch of noise driving down the road.

 

     Each burner pouch is perfect size for 1 burner. There is a piece of padding on the bottom side that adds an extra little bit of protection and the Velcro closure makes it easy to get into the pouch and keeps it closed so the burner stays in the pouch. It is SO nice not listening to those burners rattleing while we're driving down the road.

 

     The next kitchen issue we fixed was the pots and pans storage area and the food storage area. Most RV cabinets are just one large open space with no shelves inside which means you just have to stack everything together. Of course when you stack everything and then drive down a bumpy road, turn a corner or look for something in the cabinet, everything moves and then it becomes a huge mess. To fix this issue, we added some closet and house kitchen cabinet shelving to our RV kitchen storage space. Here is what the pots and pans cabinet looks like. Now, to use that blue pot on the bottom left, I don't have to take both frying pans out to get to it!

 

      Here is the food pantry storage area empty. This is where I was the most excited about adding the shelving. To get a can of soup out was almost impossible if everything had fallen over.

 

      Here is what those cabinets look like full. Those 3 baskets are great for storing small items like spices, cans of Vienna Sausages, gravy mix and other small food items. One thing I decided to do for next year is to take a picture before we empty these cabinets for winter. I couldn't remember where everything went and kept having to move stuff around. After I took this picture I moved everything around 2 more times and then asked my husband to come in and fix it because I was too frustrated.

     Another nice kitchen organization item we added was this little wire basket. It was originally made for silverware drying. My husband cut off the little hooks on the back that were made to hang on a dish drying wrack and we used a few 3M Command hooks to hold it to the wall.

 

      The spices we use the most of while cooking are right by the stove and they can stay there for the ride. The salt and pepper containers are small spice containers with a piece of electrical tape holding them together. You screw off the pepper to get to the salt and they are both handy at all times.

 

      This next one I am very proud of. We needed an easy way to carry small amounts of flour, rice, sugar, hot cocoa mix, rock salt (for the ice cream ball), pancake mix and tea bags. I was making some lemonade for my niece one day and thought they would make perfect containers for the motor home. I found that the name brand (Country Time and Kool Aid) containers work the best. The container the tea bags are in (middle of the top row) a generic brand and they don't seal as good. You do have to clean them really well then put baking soda in it for a few days and wash it really good again. You don't want your flour and pancake mix absorbing the lemonade and Kool Aid taste from the previous contents. If you can't smell the lemonade aid or Kool Aid anymore, then you're safe.

 

      This next photo isn't really an organization tip, it's more of a safety when opening the fridge door tip. You can kind of see those spring loaded dowels across every shelf in the fridge and the top shelf of the freezer (there was also one across one of the pantry cabinets). Those dowels have saved my toes and the top of my head many times. When fridge and cabinet items get moved around during the ride to camp, sometimes they rest against the door so when you open the door they come flying out. Those dowels prevent a lot of items from flying out and landing on your head or foot.

 

      You have to have your hotdog and marshmellow forks handy at all times but storing them isn't always easy. My husband came up with this idea. He got some 2 sided Velcro strips and stabled them to the wall above the bathroom and closet doors and it is the perfect spot to store the forks. The bad part is, your niece might see them and expect a fire every night you are camping so she can cook her hotdog by herself.

 

      Now for the bathroom. We have one of those tiny RV bathrooms where the entire bathroom is the shower. At the time we bought the motor home I didn't think it would be a big deal. After a few uses I realized it was kind of a pain, mostly because it is hard to juggle your soaps, the shower and make sure water doesn't get behind the shower curtain where it can leak out of the bathroom door or into the medicine cabinet. I used to put the soaps in the sink but the curtain pulls across the sink so it protects the medicine cabinet. For this year we added the shower caddy basket that you usually hang on your shower head in your house. (Does anybody else have a Flammable Gas sign hanging on the inside of their RV bathroom door?)

 

      Here is a closeup look of the shower basket hanging on the bathroom wall. We used the 3M Command hooks again (Those are great for use in RVs).

 

      Here is everything loaded in the shower basket. There's enough room if we have any guest campers with us, they can put their shower items in the basket, too. I can't wait to try the basket out. Even when the day comes that we upgrade our motor home to something a little bigger with the "dry toilet" bathroom (meaning the toilet isn't in the shower), this basket will still come in handy because everything stays in it really nice while you are driving down the road.

 

     I am always looking for ideas on how to organize our RV so if you have any ideas (especially if it has anything to do with organizing that closet) please email them to GirlsInTheOutdoors@yahoo.com.