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Back from the weekend
We spent all of the Memorial Day weekend at the trailer in West Virginia.
As planned, Kent & house guest Michael met me at my office Friday around lunchtime and we made good time through the holiday traffic west to the end of Maryland and beyond. We hit some extremely heavy rain about 15 minutes from the campground; I would have pulled over to let it pass if it was an option on those winding, narrow roads. Mercifully, the rain passed by the time we arrived at the trailer and we were able to unpack everything and park the minivan before the heavens opened again.
I like the sound of rain on the roof. The farm house of my childhood had metal sheeting over the side porch below my bedroom window; I spent many nights falling asleep to the gentle pelting of rain. Of course, being evil, I also relished the fact that I was listening to this particular rainfall inside a warm trailer, grabbing a cold drink from the fridge while other poor schmucks in their tents elsewhere at Roseland were being washed out to sea by the deluge.
While attempting to start up the water heater, I discovered we had no propane. WTF?! We filled those tanks as we closed the trailer for winter last October, and they were fine when we were there in April! Michael & Kent headed into town to refill the tanks as I puttered around the trailer, wondering if we had a leak, or if the power had been out for an extended period, forcing the fridge to fail over to propane usage. I then made the discovery: we had left the furnace on when we left in April. The trailer had been doing its damndest to keep it at least 65 degrees F for nearly two months. Doh! I'll never make that mistake again.
Kent & Michael weren't able to get the tanks refilled: the supplier was closed. Instead, they bought a smaller 20 lb tank from Walmart, one suitable for our grill at home. We'd have hot water at the trailer for the night at least until we tried refilling the regular tanks early Saturday, and we'll finally be able to make use of the bbq at home when we returned.
Jerry & David arrived by about 9:30 PM, so we had a full house. Alas, Michael had to head back to Cleveland Saturday morning to attend a wedding but it was nice to have him there for at least the one evening.
In minor trailer maintenance, we finally replaced the ceiling vent in the main bedroom. Shortly after we purchased the trailer, we realized that while there were plenty of windows, they don't help in the slightest if there's no wind. The central air conditioning & fan are great, but they are a notorious power hog. As a compromise, about this time last year,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kent4str purchased online a bidirectional, multi-speed, thermostatically controlled fan to replace the simple screen vent in the space where we sleep. Multiple past attempts to install it were all thwarted by a lack of tools or supplies: there was no electrical socket near the vent so we would have to run wiring from the adjacent light fixture, but then we'd need to tunnel through the ceiling insulation. We'd need extra wires, wire nuts, a long-ish drill bit, etc.. By the time we got our act together, the weather had turned so hot that the last thing we wanted to do was sit for an hour on top of a baking trailer, exposed to the sun without respite; besides, those were the days when the AC was really the only useful option anyway.
There were no further excuses Saturday: the old vent was removed, the new one was installed and it is working very well indeed. Set to maximum exhaust with a single window at the opposite end of the trailer opened, one can feel the air flow through the center of the trailer, even with no outside wind. Delightful!
The afternoon did heat up to an uncomfortable degree however. Both Saturday & Sunday had temperatures in the mid 90s F, far beyond my tolerance: I was definitely built for somewhat more polar climates. We spent the bulk of each afternoon reading or napping until the late afternoon. Alas, I found I had forgotten to pack a backlog of magazines to read so I was scrounging for material. Figures.
As usual, we had far too much food on hand. Far too much. We could have fed twice as many. We're going to be eating leftovers for the balance of this week. I'm still overweight from the nonstop binging in Seattle & Vancouver so now I'll have to cut back severely on intake and double up my time on the gym equipment. Good-bye sweet carbs... fare thee well!
The trip home was uneventful. Actually, it was vastly better than I was anticipating but I'm still glad Kent was driving us through the stop-and-go traffic of I70 eastbound towards Hagerstown. We were home around 7 PM and lazily unpacked before I called it an early night and headed to bed.
As planned, Kent & house guest Michael met me at my office Friday around lunchtime and we made good time through the holiday traffic west to the end of Maryland and beyond. We hit some extremely heavy rain about 15 minutes from the campground; I would have pulled over to let it pass if it was an option on those winding, narrow roads. Mercifully, the rain passed by the time we arrived at the trailer and we were able to unpack everything and park the minivan before the heavens opened again.
I like the sound of rain on the roof. The farm house of my childhood had metal sheeting over the side porch below my bedroom window; I spent many nights falling asleep to the gentle pelting of rain. Of course, being evil, I also relished the fact that I was listening to this particular rainfall inside a warm trailer, grabbing a cold drink from the fridge while other poor schmucks in their tents elsewhere at Roseland were being washed out to sea by the deluge.
While attempting to start up the water heater, I discovered we had no propane. WTF?! We filled those tanks as we closed the trailer for winter last October, and they were fine when we were there in April! Michael & Kent headed into town to refill the tanks as I puttered around the trailer, wondering if we had a leak, or if the power had been out for an extended period, forcing the fridge to fail over to propane usage. I then made the discovery: we had left the furnace on when we left in April. The trailer had been doing its damndest to keep it at least 65 degrees F for nearly two months. Doh! I'll never make that mistake again.
Kent & Michael weren't able to get the tanks refilled: the supplier was closed. Instead, they bought a smaller 20 lb tank from Walmart, one suitable for our grill at home. We'd have hot water at the trailer for the night at least until we tried refilling the regular tanks early Saturday, and we'll finally be able to make use of the bbq at home when we returned.
Jerry & David arrived by about 9:30 PM, so we had a full house. Alas, Michael had to head back to Cleveland Saturday morning to attend a wedding but it was nice to have him there for at least the one evening.
In minor trailer maintenance, we finally replaced the ceiling vent in the main bedroom. Shortly after we purchased the trailer, we realized that while there were plenty of windows, they don't help in the slightest if there's no wind. The central air conditioning & fan are great, but they are a notorious power hog. As a compromise, about this time last year,
kent4str purchased online a bidirectional, multi-speed, thermostatically controlled fan to replace the simple screen vent in the space where we sleep. Multiple past attempts to install it were all thwarted by a lack of tools or supplies: there was no electrical socket near the vent so we would have to run wiring from the adjacent light fixture, but then we'd need to tunnel through the ceiling insulation. We'd need extra wires, wire nuts, a long-ish drill bit, etc.. By the time we got our act together, the weather had turned so hot that the last thing we wanted to do was sit for an hour on top of a baking trailer, exposed to the sun without respite; besides, those were the days when the AC was really the only useful option anyway.There were no further excuses Saturday: the old vent was removed, the new one was installed and it is working very well indeed. Set to maximum exhaust with a single window at the opposite end of the trailer opened, one can feel the air flow through the center of the trailer, even with no outside wind. Delightful!
The afternoon did heat up to an uncomfortable degree however. Both Saturday & Sunday had temperatures in the mid 90s F, far beyond my tolerance: I was definitely built for somewhat more polar climates. We spent the bulk of each afternoon reading or napping until the late afternoon. Alas, I found I had forgotten to pack a backlog of magazines to read so I was scrounging for material. Figures.
As usual, we had far too much food on hand. Far too much. We could have fed twice as many. We're going to be eating leftovers for the balance of this week. I'm still overweight from the nonstop binging in Seattle & Vancouver so now I'll have to cut back severely on intake and double up my time on the gym equipment. Good-bye sweet carbs... fare thee well!
The trip home was uneventful. Actually, it was vastly better than I was anticipating but I'm still glad Kent was driving us through the stop-and-go traffic of I70 eastbound towards Hagerstown. We were home around 7 PM and lazily unpacked before I called it an early night and headed to bed.