Our big problem has been the price of propane.  The place I’d been getting it from for the past year, North Point Fuel, was charging about a buck a pound to fill up my tanks.  The neighbors told me they’d been going to United Propane.  It’s a little farther away, but it’s also a LOT cheaper!  They only charge about 75 cents a pound!  That means it only costs me $45 to fill up both of my 30 pound tanks instead of the usual $60. United is a big company, so I guess they can afford to sell the stuff for less than a little mom-and-pop operation like North Point.

Plus I have to say that the fellow who fills up the tanks at United is pretty nice.  He chatted with me about the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival sticker on my car. Gotta love someone who actually knows what MSWF is! Sometimes at North Point the woman who helped me was a bit on the surly side. I don’t like giving my money to surly people if I don’t have to.

I’m feeling pretty good about saving at least $30 a month on propane and only having to drive an extra five miles to do it.  Another thing I’m loving is that every time I get that little 5 pound cylinder I bought recently (the one we’re using to power our portable propane heater), I’m saving $12-16 over buying 5 individual one-pound propane cylinders.  I think I’ve had it filled three times now, so I’ve basically already paid for the $50 cylinder.  My only regret is that I don’t have a second one so we can keep a backup.  We love our little “fireplace” as we like to call it.  So do the pets.  They jockey for position in front of it when it’s on.  It’s handy for camping, too.  Took it when I went to Hancock in October, and it helped keep us all from freezing our tootsies off.

One last thing I’m fond of is the smell that propane makes when it burns.  If you’ve lived with propane heating in the winter, you know what I’m talking about.  For me, the odor provokes bouts of nostalgia.  We had gas heaters all around the house and a forced-air wall heater that burned propane in the hall.  Some nights it would get so cold in our old, drafty, uninsulated house that I’d take a blanket and a pillow and curl up on the floor in the hall right next to the wall heater.  My daddy would find me there in the morning when he’d get up to go to the bathroom, and I’d just be sound asleep.  The smell of propane can take me right back there to that worn linoleum hall floor where I’d lie and watch the blue flames dance around behind the grille until I drifted off.

Romantic, eh?  What’s not romantic is changing out those cylinders in the middle of the night when it’s in the teens and icy winds are whipping around.  That’s one thing my daddy did not have to do.  We had a huge propane tank in the backyard (looked kind of like this) that must have held a couple hundred pounds of LP gas. I used to pretend it was a pony, and I would hop up on it and ride my silver steed off into the sunset.  The silver paint would rub off on my hands and my clothes, but I didn’t care.  A big truck would come to refill the tank maybe twice a year.  Our stove, hot water heater, and heaters all ran off propane, but we didn’t use much, it seems.

Speaking of unromantic, it’s time for me to go walk the dogs and take out the trash before heading to bed.  It’s about twenty degrees out there right now, and there’s a stiff breeze.  Should be a good time for all!  Good night, Blogland.

Stealing would be bad, so I suppose I have to wait until I can afford one of my own.

Today I learned two things about this RV park.  A) They only pick up trash Mondays and Thursdays, and I missed Monday’s pickup.  That meant I had to go locate the dumpsters and drop it off myself.  B) There are too many children on this side of the park for my comfort, and they all seem to think it’s okay to walk through others’ campsites.  Most of the kids belong to the mobile home dwellers in the park, so they’re long-term residents.  I think the transient RVers are somewhat of a novelty to them.  School’s out, and they’ve nothing better to do than wander around and stare at our rig.  Yippee.

There were errands that needed running today, so I looked up the closest RV supply company, Peco Campers, and headed up Stone Mountain Highway to check it out.  They had a pretty kickass parts and accessories department, actually.  What I needed was a pressure regulator, which I got, but while I was there ended up dropping $125.o0.  On what?  Not sure.  I did find replacement parts for our TV antenna, so I’m hoping to get that fixed this week.  Also got another set of Lynx levelers.  Think of them as Legos for RVers. Who knew we’d need so many of those things?  They come in packages of ten, so I figured that’s all anyone could possibly need.  I now have four of those sets, and if we ever end up parking somewhere really lopsided, I’ll still be screwed!

On the way back, I had to stop by the bank and go grocery shopping.  That was the first time I’ve been inside a Kroger in a long time!  Nowadays, every retailer has one of those loyalty cards.  Without those things, prices are significantly higher, so even though I’m only here a week, I had to first stop by customer service and get one.  I added it to my keychain which must already contain twenty of those little barcoded keytags.

As luck would have it, between Kroger and the RV park, there’s a Krispy Kreme.  We haven’t had hot, fresh Krispy Kreme in a long time because they’ve closed all the stores in the Baltimore area, so when I saw the “hot donuts” sign on, I had to stop.  Grabbed a box of those, and headed back to the RV.

By this time, it was around 2 p.m., and we hadn’t yet had lunch.  After I brought in the groceries, I went back outside and lit the grill so the charcoal could burn down a bit.  After the groceries, I tossed some bison burgers on the barbecue. They were pretty yummy, I must say.  Tasted very much like regular beef, just a little leaner.

Then it was time to clean house.  This is always a great task because top to bottom, it takes no more than half an hour or forty-five minutes.  I washed dishes, swept the kitchen floor, vacuumed the rugs, cleaned the toilet and bathroom sink, and made the bed in record time in anticipation of the arrival of our guests for the evening, Wes and Amanda.

Wes and I are old friends.  He’s originally from Indiana but is now teaching music at a college here in the Atlanta area.  Visiting with him and his wife was one of the big reasons for stopping in this area.  They came by the camper, we gave them the thirty-second tour, let the animals maul them for a while, and then they took us to Manuel’s Tavern, apparently something of a landmark in Atlanta.  Manuel’s is said to be a hotbed for progressive politicos around here, which explains Wes’ interest.  He’s  total wonk.  We enjoyed our evening out with them. The food was tasty, the beer was cold, and the company was excellent.  I came away from the evening with a new book to read.  Wes loaned me his copy of Molly Ivins’ biography.  He’s the only other person I know who treasures the now-deceased Texas journalist as much as I do.

Tomorrow I have but two goals: grade papers and take Lex to the laser light show at Stone Mountain Park.  Everyone says it’s awesome.  We shall see!

I also got some neat accessories for my screen door: spring closer, door opener (clever gadget that keeps us from having to open the slider just to unlatch the screen), some little plastic protective corners to help reinforce the door, push bars, and a grille, all by Camco. I installed all these tonight. Now, $100 later, I have a pretty sweet screen door, one that has some weight to it and isn’t easily torn up by our critters who insist on jumping up on it.

I also replaced the blackout shade in our bedroom which had broken and cleaned the vent screen while I was at it.

I still have some bulbs to replace inside and out, and I need to buy a replacement cranking mechanism for our TV antenna, too. I somehow managed to bust that a while back when trying to lower the antenna during a storm.

The RV dealer is FINALLY coming to repair the holes they made in our rig during the Great Awning Caper of 2009. It will probably rain Saturday and he’ll end up putting it off again. We’ll see, I guess.

There’s just so much to do before we hit the road in just under a month, and I’m not sure I can swing all of it. I’ll do what absolutely must be done for travel and handle the rest as I can afford it.

My slide toppers are in tatters after this rough winter, my underbelly cover has come loose, my fresh water tank isn’t properly connected to the water pump, I need to clean the sensors in all my holding tanks, and my tires and battery need to be checked before we head out.

And then there’s the matter of the wash & wax. I plan to hire someone to deal with this task. I have no desire to climb up on the roof, but it’s in desperate need of a scrub.

I’ve managed to tear one of my day/night blinds as well. All these little issues are just that, little. Many I can deal with myself while others will have to be left to the pros. Ugh. Just thinking about it all makes my head spin. So glad I have my tricked-out screen door to comfort me!

Updated with push bars, grille, opener, and spring closure

But there are some things we can take care of on our own.  I’ve been ordering replacements for parts that have worn out over the past year.  I had to get a new lens cover for the porch light, bulbs for the vanity fixture in the bathroom,  a new vent shade in the bedroom, and all sorts of things for the screen door — push bars, a kick plate, spring closer, and a special gizmo that will allow me to latch and unlatch the door without actually opening the slide (keeps the bugs out). I ordered most of these parts online last week, and I  came home to find that the USPS had delivered 8 packages!  I do love getting packages   What can I say?  I geek out  a little on RV gadgets!

In  other news,  we recently got a call from the local RV dealer who damaged our RV and ripped us off by pawning off our own used parts on us when replacing our awning last year.  Apparently, their conscience got the better of them and they decided to try to make it good, claiming they wanted to set up an appointment to come out and fix the holes in the RV.  That’s a start, I reckon.  Nevermind that even if they manage to get that done, we still will be stuck with only half a new awning and out the money  it took to diagnose and repair the electrical short that was caused by them drilling unnecessary holes in the side of my camper.

For a couple of weeks, I’ve been playing phone tag with one of the owners of the dealership. In this last voicemail the woman from the dealership claimed she’d tried to call us four times (wrong–we’ve only had two calls, and I’ve returned both of them).  She also sounded irritated, going on about how the company has thirty years’ experience.  What that has to do with anything, I don’t know.  You’d think a company with such longevity would know that it’s best to do a job right the first time rather than to have to come back and fix it over and over, alienating customers in the process.

Whenever I return the woman’s calls, she’s conveniently gone for the day.  This weekend, I called less than an hour after she left a voicemail, and, yep, again, gone for the day.  Instead of her, I talked to one of the employees, and he said he’ll be coming on the 22nd to fix the holes.  Whether he will or not remains to be seen.  The company has not demonstrated much follow-through to date.  Not holding my breath that they’ll start now.  They’ve lost both our trust and our business, and if anyone asks me what I think of them, I’ll be happy to recount the tale of the Great Awning Caper.

Of course, we’re not in the market to buy, so it was all strictly window shopping.  I expected to walk away feeling envious of all the shiny new things, perhaps deprived because I didn’t have some cool gizmo that the new ones have.  I have to tell you, though, that I didn’t see a single RV that has a layout that I like more than mine.  I saw ones that were much more expensive, had fancier fixtures, full-size refrigerator/freezers,  nicer cabinetry, etc., but not a one of them had the things I like best about my RV all in one unit: the galley-style kitchen, the big living room slide that we were able to convert into an office, huge picture window in the rear, a pass-through bathroom with a utility closet and hamper, and the big dresser in the bedroom.

And I know I paid less for all of these things than any of those buyers at the RV show did because I bought used.  Their shiny new RVs will depreciate up to 35% the second they are driven off the grounds.  The previous owner of the Big Blue Beast took that hit for me.

I did see some pretty interesting stuff, though:

Fancy bathroom sink fixtures

So pretty!  These are the bathroom sinks in an up-market fifth-wheel RV.  The entire rig was quite elegant.  I can’t imagine anyone wanting to track mud and snow inside or trying to gut a fish in the kitchen sink.  The rig did not scream “camping” to me.  It really is more for fulltimers or seasonals.

Who's the genius who designed this rig?

I don’t think I’d be comfortable using the restroom in this rig.  This one and a few others like it had outer doors opening right onto the throne room.  What if the wind blew your door open or someone popped in at an inopportune time?  I guess it might be a good idea if you plan on spending a lot of time outside and don’t want to track mud through the entire RV in order to make it to the toilet.  Plus you have to admit, you’d never have to light a match again.  You just open the door and air out the place.

If I can fit, anyone can!

Thanks to a passing couple, I got this picture of me sitting inside a Little Guy 5-wide teardrop trailer.  I am in love with teardrops.  Most weigh in at well under 1000 pounds so can be towed by just about anything on four wheels and by a few things on two.  There is a surprising amount of space inside, enough for a queen-sized bed, cabinets, light fixtures, 110V and 12V outlets, and, in the rear, a galley and bumper-mounted grill.  And this one happens to be decked out in Ravens purple.  I would love one of these to take out on weekend trips.

This is by far the coolest rig I saw at the show!

This is a Rockwood Roo hybrid trailer with a built-in deck.  How awesome is that?  The beds pop up like a regular folding camper, but the trailer itself is full size.  The deck is what gets me.  It’s so unique!

All in all, a fun day.  If you see an RV show advertised near you, plunk down a few dollars for a ticket and go.  Show season is February/March and September/October. Who knows?  Maybe you’ll end up becoming an RVer yourself.

Some time back, I bought a gadget called a Swivel Stik.  Basically, it’s a holding tank rinser that attaches to the end of a garden hose.   It has to be inserted down the toilet where it supposedly snakes into the holding tank.  The end of the Swivel Stik is a flexible hose with a brass fitting on the end that acts as a pressure washer.  When the water is turned on, the flexible end whips around, and the brass fitting spins, shooting water out everywhere.  Sounds dangerous, eh?

Well, surprisingly, I didn’t make a huge mess, but I don’t know that I fixed anything, either.  The holding tank sensor still says that the tank is 1/3 full.  Not possible.  I even ran the outside flush after I used the Swivel Stik, and the water was running out clear.  I was hoping that I might end up blowing out whatever blockage was causing the problem with the valve, but I don’t think that happened.

I’ve done almost everything I know to do at this point: flush, tank rinser, chemicals, fabric softener.  The only thing I know about that I haven’t tried is filling up the tank with ice cubes and water and taking the RV out for a drive over a bumpy road before flushing the tanks again.  Might be worth the try.  Won’t cost much.  It’ll just be a giant hassle to unhook the RV and hitch it up just to go for a drive.  Maybe I can convince Lex to take a short weekend trip just so we can try the ice trick without wasting all the effort.

If we don’t find a way to fix it quickly, I’ll just have to call the repairman and ask him to take another look at it.  I hate doing that.  It’s $100 or more each time he shows up.  I’d rather spend that money on cool gadgets or save it for a trip, but if our toilet isn’t working, life in the RV will be mighty unpleasant.

On a happier note, the Oxygenics shower head arrived yesterday, and I installed it.  No biggie.  Just a screw-on operation.  Yes, the water pressure is stronger, but there’s no shut-off valve like there is on our old lame-o shower head.  I think I can pick one up at Home Depot, though. Yippee.  Another trip to the Big Orange Box.  I’m getting tired of that place.

I’d been lusting after the shiny, new Splendide washer/dryer combos in the Camping World flyers.  They’re designed especially to fit in the small space of an RV, and they only use 110 volts to get the job done.  There are two basic types of RV washer/dryers: vented and ventless.  The vented models work pretty much like your standard washer and dryer except that the washing and drying happen in the same machine.  The ventless are a completely different animal.

Ventless models dry using condensation.  Basically, the wet laundry is heated until steam is produced, and then that steam hits condensing coils that are cooled by running water.  The coils cool the steam, turning it back into water.  The water is then flushed away.

These machines are  much more efficient than those in a stick-built home.  They use less water and less electricity overall.  The downside is that the loads are smaller, so laundry has to be done much more frequently — like every day.  Loads also take much longer to wash and dry.  In all, it takes around 3 hours for a single load to go through both wash and dry cycles, more if the load is larger and needs longer to dry.  Perhaps the biggest difference is that laundry does not come out completely dry nor all fluffy the way most of us are used to.  Instead, the clothes are usually slightly damp to the touch and must be shaken out and, in most cases, hung to dry for a little while before folding.

The vented machines do a much better job of drying because they use the usual air drying method, so what I really wanted was one of those.  Had I bought one from Camping World new and had it installed, it would have cost me around $1400 including installation (a hole would need to be cut into the sidewall of my RV).  Saving the $1400 has been a challenge, especially since loads of little extra expenses have cropped up — all sorts of repairs and parts (more to come this week when the repairman comes out to fix my sewer valves).  My goal has been to save for a week-long trip to Florida over the winter.  That trip and the washer cost roughly the same. Decisions, decisions.  A week away in South Florida during the first week of January or no more trips to the laundromat ever.  Hrm.

Well, the problem seems to have resolved itself,  at least for the time being.  I was searching Craigslist when I finally came across someone in D.C. selling a used Splendide Comb-o-matic 6100, a five-year-old ventless model, for $250.  That’s a $1000 machine brand new!  I called the fellow, and he said it worked fine.  He bought it used about three years ago, then used it for a year or so, and its been stored since.  He said he fired it up a month ago when he decided to sell it, and it worked fine.  He conceded that, like most ventless machines, it didn’t dry very well.  That much I figured but still couldn’t pass up the bargain.

So last Thursday night, Lex and I drove to Washington D.C.  in rush hour.  That’s never fun.  Lex moaned and groaned the entire way.  Can’t blame her, really.  D.C. is a nightmare.  We found the address without much trouble, and the man who was selling the machine had a dolly and a strapping young nephew (and I do mean strapping…what a hottie!).  The two of them wrestled the 150 lb. machine down three steep flights of stairs out of their townhome and into the alley.  Then they lifted it up onto the back of the truck for us.  Angels!  That was worth at least $100 of the $250 that I paid!

Before we left D.C., we stopped in Hyattsville at a Mexican food joint and had some really yummy tacos and parillada.  Nom, nom!  I brought home leftovers, and we had breakfast tacos the next morning.  I wish we could get food like that in Baltimore, but I’m inevitably disappointed with the Latin cuisine here.

When we got home, I opened the door to the RV, and Lex backed the truck right up to the door.  It was easy to get the washer out of the truck and inside, but it was harder to wrangle it up the steps into the bathroom and then harder still to dead lift the thing the three feet in the air into the cabinet.  I actually had to remove the cabinet doors and hardware so I could get it onto the shelf.   These cabinets are designed exactly to fit machines like this one, which are about 24″x22″x32″, much tinier than standard machines.

We finally got the machine in place without serious injury to either one of us and connected it to the water supply and the drain standpipe.  The water input hoses were leaking, but I fixed that with plumber’s tape around the faucet threads.

I had to try a load right away.  It did take a very long time, and I was disappointed at how damp the clothes were at the end of the cycle.  I read the owner’s manual that I downloaded from the Splendide website and learned that there’s a filter that needs cleaning, so I took it out and did just that.  I found all sorts of junk in there: a quarter, a button, half a foam heart, and loads of lint.  Cleaning it seemed to help a little, but the clothes were still coming out pretty wet.

I’ve been experimenting since, and I’ve discovered  that there are certain tricks to using the Comb-o-matic.  First, it helps if I use a low-sudsing detergent designed specifically for high efficiency machines.  Plus, it’s important to use just the right amount of the stuff.  These washers use much less detergent than regular ones.  It only takes a tablespoon per load, in fact.  Fewer suds equals shorter drying times. One to two tablespoons of fabric softener go in as well.  Apparently, softer laundry dries better.  I also found that I have to put much less in the loads than I first thought I could.  I can do one bath sheet or one outfit at a time.  Bed sheets will probably have to go in separately, and rugs and blankets will have to go to the laundromat.

Even with these tricks, I’m still finding that the laundry is coming out slightly damp.  My solution: a folding wooden laundry rack that I paid $10 for at Kmart.  It doesn’t take up much space and stores flat.  I’ve found that clothes are usually ready to put away after a couple of hours on the rack.

I had to make one last big trip to the laundromat this weekend to wash up the two weeks’ worth of wash that I’d been stashing in the trunk of my car, including a quilt and set of sheets along with a whole load of towels.  There was no way I could do that stuff at home.  That wash done, I was finally “caught up.”  If I’m going to keep up with the wash, I’ll have to do a load each day from now on.  I’ve got one running right now, in fact.

In case you were wondering, yes, the machine does make quite a bit of noise when it’s running, and it also shakes the whole house when it’s on spin.  It’s a bit like a jet plane taking off.  It may seem odd, but I actually find the noise and the motion comforting.  It’s not so noisy that we can’t hear the TV or the telephone, though.  Mind you, we do have to turn the volume up a hair.

So I’ve made some concessions for my five-year-old washer, but for now, the good outweighs the bad.  It does take a shift in perspective and habits to get used to the thing, but, again, worth it.  I figure I’ll use it until it dies, and then I’ll invest in one of the new ones.  Even if I only get a year of use out of the Comb-o-matic, it’ll be worth it.  A year of wash at the laundromat would cost me approximately $500.  That means six months from now, the machine will have paid for itself.  Since I don’t pay utilities here at the RV site, I don’t have to factor in the cost of water or power.

I’m hoping, too, that going with the used machine will also allow us to take our Florida trip in January!   Perhaps that’s the best part of this tale.  Not only will I only have to go to the laundromat for bedding and rugs, but we can go on vacation and take our washer with us!  Woot!

Picked it up used from a Craigslister for only $250!