TrailManor Owner's Forum - View Single Post

06-08-2008, 11:22 PM

Today was a rather short leg from Lake Tahoe to Grass Valley. We managed to maintain at least 55 going over Donner summit. But....What a difference between the Nevada and California road surfaces! California uses a pebbled surface at the higher elevations of I-80. It nearly shakes your teeth out, especially when driving in the right lane used by the semis. This can't be good for the TM. But it seems we arrived in good shape. Everything inside seems to have ridden well.

We're at a very large bluegrass festival. The first three days are a music camp - instruction by some of the festival performers for wanna bees like me. Later in the week the performances begin and it will draw around 3000 people most of whom come with RVs or tents. We were unable to get one of the full service spots (they are handed out by lottery) but we did get an electric only spot. The festival sponsors bring in a large generator and string lines all over a big meadow. Sites are about 20 x 40 marked in white chalk lines. Every six spaces share a connector box. Electricity won't come on until tomorrow so we're dry camping tonight. We used 12v for the refrigerator but switched over to propane once we got here and it seems to keep things quite cold. My Haggen Daz bars are still in good shape!

This will be a good test to see how long our water holds out and how long it takes to fill the holding tank. We're good at Navy showers and will be frugal with what goes into the tank. I'd love to make it to next Sunday but have an 18 gallon Barker Blue Tote just in case. From what I've read here, 7 days is about time and a half as long as I should expect.

Our camping neighbor has a Honda 3000 watt genset and offered to let me tap into it for today. I ran a 20 amp cord over to my TM and plugged it in with the refrigerator and hot water heater on. Popped the overload right away. So I turned off the water heater figuring it was a big draw and still couldn't keep it from cutting out. Found out that his wife had the A/C, a hair dryer, and sundry other high draw items running all at the same time. So I gave up and just switched the Refrigerator back to propane. I'm finding that the TM is quite well suited to dry camping. Low tonight should be in the mid 50s. High tomorrow will be 82 with a nice breeze. So no real need for A/C or for the heater that I can see.

It's about 10 p.m. and the jamming is just getting started. Not much sleep at these events! More to follow if there is interest.

06-08-2008, 11:22 PM	#5
Bluegrass Guest Posts: n/a	Today was a rather short leg from Lake Tahoe to Grass Valley. We managed to maintain at least 55 going over Donner summit. But....What a difference between the Nevada and California road surfaces! California uses a pebbled surface at the higher elevations of I-80. It nearly shakes your teeth out, especially when driving in the right lane used by the semis. This can't be good for the TM. But it seems we arrived in good shape. Everything inside seems to have ridden well. We're at a very large bluegrass festival. The first three days are a music camp - instruction by some of the festival performers for wanna bees like me. Later in the week the performances begin and it will draw around 3000 people most of whom come with RVs or tents. We were unable to get one of the full service spots (they are handed out by lottery) but we did get an electric only spot. The festival sponsors bring in a large generator and string lines all over a big meadow. Sites are about 20 x 40 marked in white chalk lines. Every six spaces share a connector box. Electricity won't come on until tomorrow so we're dry camping tonight. We used 12v for the refrigerator but switched over to propane once we got here and it seems to keep things quite cold. My Haggen Daz bars are still in good shape! This will be a good test to see how long our water holds out and how long it takes to fill the holding tank. We're good at Navy showers and will be frugal with what goes into the tank. I'd love to make it to next Sunday but have an 18 gallon Barker Blue Tote just in case. From what I've read here, 7 days is about time and a half as long as I should expect. Our camping neighbor has a Honda 3000 watt genset and offered to let me tap into it for today. I ran a 20 amp cord over to my TM and plugged it in with the refrigerator and hot water heater on. Popped the overload right away. So I turned off the water heater figuring it was a big draw and still couldn't keep it from cutting out. Found out that his wife had the A/C, a hair dryer, and sundry other high draw items running all at the same time. So I gave up and just switched the Refrigerator back to propane. I'm finding that the TM is quite well suited to dry camping. Low tonight should be in the mid 50s. High tomorrow will be 82 with a nice breeze. So no real need for A/C or for the heater that I can see. It's about 10 p.m. and the jamming is just getting started. Not much sleep at these events! More to follow if there is interest.