First Night

We picked up our new travel trailer August 28 from Mocksville (near Winston-Salem.) We plan to leave September 13 for a 7-week trip to the Maritimes. Before setting off on our first journey, we thought we should do a mini dry-run, just to make sure everything worked okay. So, on September 4, we pulled the trailer (sans cats) to David's sister's house in Swansboro, two and a half hours away. Although it was Labor Day weekend, traffic was light both ways since we left on Saturday mid-day and returned the following day, avoiding peak holiday travel. The biggest challenge was getting out of our driveway, which is steep, curves and has a big dip at the top. The dip turned out to be the biggest obstacle. We discovered that our trailer is a little low to the ground and won't clear the dip. David put boards down under the truck's wheels to lift everything up. Sounds easy enough, but it took more than an hour to get the trailer out, just as it did to back it down the driveway to begin with. But we succeeded both times.

We slept in the trailer and discovered that the mattress has prominent wires that stick in your back. Well, that's solvable. Our tiny bedroom has a sliding door, which I wanted so that one of us could sleep when the other one got up. Well, David got up in the morning, closed the door and proceeded to make his coffee. What I didn't realize is that the water pump is incredibly loud. "Just like on the boat," said David. "I don't remember it being so loud," I said. Also, the boat was bigger and laid out much differently. Can't do anything about the water pump, says David.
As I lay in bed listening to the water pump cycle on, the bed shook as David moved around the camper. He hadn't put down the stabilizing jacks the day before. Yep, sure am glad we have them but no sleeping in this morning. The other rather annoying discovery is that the water faucet in the bathroom is so close to the edge that you can't really get your hands under it, and water dribbles over the edge and pools in the corner. Perhaps we can replace it with another RV fixture, but for now we'll just have to keep a towel on the counter. All the other systems worked fine, except that all the fresh water mysteriously disappeared before we got home, and we know we didn't use 36 gallons of water in one night! Well, David's not worried, so we'll just have to wait and see about that. Maybe he didn't fill it up. All in all we're happy with the trailer, and at least we'll never have to worry about dragging anchor!

Plato and Neptune sharing a couch

In case you're wondering, the trailer is a 2011 North Trail 26rks. It is about 30 feet long, but the body itself is 26 feet long. Its "dry" weight is 5500 pounds, which is pretty light for this size camper. It has one slide, which makes the living area a bit roomier. I had wanted another trailer that had a second slide in the bedroom, which made it more spacious and allowed room for a dresser and sliding mirror closets. But that trailer weighed 6500 pounds, and David was uncomfortable dragging all that weight to Alaska with our Ford F150 truck. Our camper has lots of storage space and a kitchen in the rear, which gives it a little more counter space. After looking at dozens of trailers all over the place, we decided this one most closely met our needs.