This summer we found another use for our TM. We used it as a home base while we toured colleges. We have typically only used the TM for weekends and week vacations. This was a new experience for us. My daughter is a Sr. in high school this year. She was interested in serveral colleges and wanted to visit some of them this summer. This became our family vacation, two adults and two teenagers in a 2619 for 13 days. This trip was either going to make our relationship with our teenagers closer or it was going to strain it.
Here are the stats from the trip: in 13 days we towed 1200+ miles, drove a total of 2030 miles, stayed at 3 campgrounds and 1 motel and toured 5 colleges. Our trip took us from MA to eastern PA to western PA to western NY and back to MA. Not a very relaxing vacation.
Here are some of the lessons learned on the trip:
1. Knowing where you are going at all times is very important. Most days had us either arriving at a campground or at a college. I made a notebook with directions to all the places we had to be. This turned out to be more valuable than I orignally thought it would.
2. The co-pilot (DW) needs more advance warning for navigational updates. For two reasons, 1) frequently when traveling the the co-pilot goes into power saver mode (aka napping). 2) My wife and I are at the point in our life where we are experiencing adjustments in our reading distances and reading assist devices are required. I found that the process to remove the co-pilot from power saver mode and the search and retrieval of the vision assist devices may take up 15 minutes. Note: the time needed to remove the co-pilot from power saver mode is propostional to the amount of time the co-pilot was in power saver mode.
3. When planning to do laundry while on your trip it is best to stay in a campground with laundry facilities. Ooops! This was one oversight on my part when I made the campground reservations. The two campgrounds we planned to do laundry, had no facilities. I think the conversation between DW and I over this matter looked something like this
Although I think the conversation was more one sided with a lot of "Yes, dears". Fortunately a laundromat was only couple of miles away.
4. Assign the "last man down". This is the person who does the final shuffling of luggage and stuff before bedding down for the night. Basically the stuff that won't fit on the beds because we are occupying the space. The "last man" down is also responsible for moving some of the stuff to the van for the night. This was my assignment for most of the trip. As you can image having four adult size people in a 2619 there is a lot of shuffling that needs to take place.
On this trip we also had a unique experience. The last campground we stayed at was Mariposa Pond Campground in Houghton, NY. We arrived here on Sunday, the last weekend in August. The campground was very quiet. There were five occupied camping units. After eating dinner we went out for ice creams and returned to the campground. My teenagers were a little spooked by how quiet the campground was and how dark it was. Around 9 o'clock there was a knock at the camper, everyones immediate thoughts were, "who could that be?" You should have seen the looks on my teenager's faces.
It was the owner of the campground with a plate of homemade cookies to welcome us to his campground. Never in my years of camping has this ever happen. Also, when we were leaving the campground for home, the owner gave another package with more cookies for the ride home.
During our stay at Mariposa, we got to experience the remnants of Katrina while we were touring a college. Needless to say, we got soaked. When we got back to the TM the rain had stop and I put our umbrellas out on the picnic tables under the pavilion to dry. You can see a photo of this on the campground website, the photo has the TM in the background and is near the bottom of the page.
Umbrella Photo
After this trip I can say, I'm closer to my teenagers which is a good thing since one of them will be heading off to college next year.
Another Use for a TM
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