Leaving Home

On Sunday, November 19, 2017, we set off from Tatro Road on our trip which may or may not last for two month. It was a blustery day which was scary for two people unused to the swayings of their Alto caravan. But with good spirits and an equal amount of trepidation we set off. I'll will post a departure video when I figure out how to do that.

Our first camping spot was Bass River State Forest on the New Jersey Shore. ($25.00) We got there 15 minutes before closing (who knew campsites had closings?) so the clerk was not terribly interested in answering the unusual amount of questions we had. This was Renee’s first experience booking a camp site and she hadn’t inquired about hook-ups, the electric, water and sewage kind. Bass River had none of these BUT there was a communal source for potable water. We made our way to this pronto since we had about 45 minutes of light.

We remembered the right side of the caravan to stick the water hose, got that all fitted up, and let her rip. Awesome! except as much water as went into the caravan came out of the bottom. Harry twisted every valve he could find but we eventually had to call Louise, our lifeline at Discount Rental in Montreal. She had assured us that we should call her (day or night!) whenever we got stumped. This was our third call in two days. We love Louise.
Harry and Louise worked on the problem for 30 minutes (daylight fading) and finally Louise just said we should bring the Caravan to an RV repair place in the morning. Sad! but motivating, so we continued to study the owner’s manual, examined the illustrating photos with a magnifying glass, and finally found one little valve that still needed to be turned. Really awesome! We filled up and went to our little space in the Forest where we would spend the night. We were the only people in the Forest.Read more