So it’s a COVID world and you’ve decided it’s time to pull the trigger on that motorhome or recreational vehicle? Congratulations, and welcome! You’re going to have tons of fun. But first, you’ll have to figure out all the bells and whistles and everything the new toy can do. It should only take about a week, right? Right???
Five years ago, I purchased my Class A motorhome from a well-organized engineer, who handed me two large three-ring binders and an expanding file the size of a briefcase, complete with handle. “Here’s everything you need to know,“ he said nonchalantly, piling them into my arms. I was immediately intimidated.
This was my first motorhome. I was thrilled to find a DVD from the manufacturer in the expanding file, but the information was cursory at best, its target audience clearly prior motorhome owners. Also true of the owner’s manual.
I got a little bit of a leg up when I hired a safety expert to teach me how to drive the rig. The first hour of our three-hour session was spent walking around the motorhome as he pointed out various features. Because of him I learned about the battery bank and the difference between chassis batteries and house batteries; the onboard propane and where and how to fill it; and the vents for both the refrigerator and the hot water heater.
Bless his heart, the prior owner was just as patient as he could be. Tom took every telephone call with courtesy and humor, from how to open the awning, to lifting the bed to access storage, down to filling the shampoo and conditioner dispensers in the shower.
The Internet helped a whole lot. I’m not sure I would’ve survived that first two weeks without Jason and Nikki Wynn. Modern trailer friends helped too, tutoring me on black and gray tanks and how to fill the fresh water tank. (Unfortunately, that didn’t stop me from wearing the contents of my black tank on my third outing.)
After the first month, when the learning “curve” was so steep that it was straight up and down, I settled into a routine and vowed to read a few pages of the written materials each day. Yeah, I didn’t do that. What I did do was learn by trial and error (mostly error), and I read those materials only when an issue or problem popped up.
Thinking back on the last five years, it makes me laugh to think how long it took for me to realize some features about Nellie the Newmar. I thought I’d share them with you, not necessarily because your rig is going to work the same way, but so you will cut yourself a little bit of slack as you stand there shaking your head and laughing at yourself.
Year Two
On one of my first campouts in Summer 2015, I opened the awning. I wasn’t yet towing Toad; I was just learning to drive the motorhome. I asked a friend to drive me into town to buy a ladder, because I could not reach all the knobs that needed tightening to stabilize the awning.
Every time I opened the awning after that I had to grab that damned ladder that was attached to the rear of the coach, which wasn’t convenient thanks to bungee cords and a locking cable system to deter theft.
Then, one day I looked closely at the shape of the tool used to snag the awning strap to pull it open.
It wasn’t a coinkydink that the end of that tool fit exactly in the recessed areas of the knobs.
Two years, y’all.
Year Three
Before my first trip to Florida in the rig in 2017, I was woefully dissatisfied with the rig’s windshield wipers; I knew they were big and had to cover a lot of surface area on the IMAX movie screen windshield, but they were painfully slow and did very little to clear the glass.
Driving in torrential downpours in Florida is a nerve-wracking rite of passage. One minute the rain is just a sprinkle, and the next you can’t see three feet in front of you. It was during one of those downpours that I turned the windshield wiper knob a little more, just hoping for a little more umfph, to find there were actually THREE speeds. Glory, hallelujah!
I know, I know. Three years. But in my defense, I didn’t drive in rain very often. Still don’t, if I can help it.
Year Four
In those pounding Florida rains, drivers turn on emergency flashers for better visibility. There were many times that I wanted to pull over, but I was concerned I would be rear-ended because the coach was not equipped with them. I couldn’t believe it! How could something so huge lack such a simple safety feature?
One day in 2018 I thought I’d try adjusting the steering wheel for more comfort during those long driving days. I reached for the silver metal clip just below the steering wheel. Nope. That’s the four-way flashers.
Ugh.
Year Five
“Why do you do it that way?” a friend asked in April 2020 as I began filling the freshwater tank. The hose was attached to the RV, the water was on, and when I turned the lever on the coach, the water pump came to life. “You don’t need the water pump to fill the tank.“ I looked at him densely. “The pump always comes on when I fill the water tank.” He replied, “Think about it. The water will flow into the tank whether the pump is on or not. That’s gravity.” Damned engineers and science and shit. (Thanks, Ward!)
Turns out the pump switches on during the fresh water fill if one of three switches is flipped somewhere in the coach. Think of the five years of wear and tear on that pump that wasn’t necessary! No wonder I had to replace it recently. Now when I prepare to fill the freshwater tank, I confirm all three pump switches are off.
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Those are just a few examples of how I was Today Days Old when I discovered something new about the motorhome, and I’m still learning all the time. For example, I recently found out where the 12 volt breaker box is when I blew a fuse last month.
Newbies, take it one day at a time and enjoy the ride!
Veterans, do you have any Today Days Old war stories?
This Post Has 11 Comments
In my beloved 1998 Tacoma I was always annoyed that it had only one single cup holder. After 5 or 6 years owning the pick-up and driving it on countless adventures I was cleaning the inside and saw what I thought was a crack in the cup holder. I gently pulled on it and it slid out to turn into a double-cup holder. Who knew! I wonder what we’ll learn in a few years about the 2019 Tacoma we bought last year.
Thanks for lol’s, you’re a great teacher.
What a great (and, oh so, very true) post. It’s downright embarrassing sometimes to be an RVer. But we all have to go through it. There is just no way around that learning curve, no matter how many YouTube videos one watches. Thanks, Tammy.
I’ve been full time for 5 years and am still having aha moments. But workamping at the front desk of a busy campground you see a lot of newbies, especially the last few months. Someone called to make a reservation last week. Said they would be arriving after we close at 8 (which is also when it starts getting dark) and since it was their first time hooking up would there be someone to show them how. I just shook my head.
I don’t have an RV (yet), but I’ve been reading about you and the copilots for a while. I started when I read about “The Abode” on Retro Renovation and fell in love with it. Anyway, just keep in mind how most people don’t know half of what is in their regular vehicles only a fraction of the behemoths y’all are driving. I’m terrified of just the mere idea of driving one. You guys are doing great. I’m the weirdo who reads the manual for the can opener….. yeah, that’s how I discovered that the odd thing on the front of it was a bottle opener, lol.
Maybe I should start reading RV manuals now, years before I even think of getting one. Lots to learn. Have fun!
Loved your post!
Ward said that was word for word your conversation about the fresh water pump.
We’re trying to think of some days old war stories!
Geez Tammy – although we are Newbies I’m not feeling as bad! I didn’t know about the awning tool though – GOOD TO KNOW! On our first (and so far only) trip which was an adventure since we flew to TN to pick it up and drive it 2500 miles home … I didn’t have the water pump turned on when we filled the tank – but that’s because I didn’t know anything about the switches and my default is if I don’t know anything about it – leave it off… Course when we learned about them we discovered that the pump is barely putting out water so that’s now on the list of things that need replacing! Only learned about the flashers because the fuel filters got filled up with junk (we didn’t know that was the problem) as we tried to cross the mountains in Montana – ya – HOURS to get to the rest area at the top (where we spent the night and considered our limited options) because she would take off fine and go up to about 45mph then start down shifting and down shifting until we were crawling to the edge, turn her off, wait a couple minutes, turn her back on and do it all over again (until we got to a CAT dealer in Spokane…) so flashers were found as we crawled along. We have learned a LOT by going back and reading about your early adventures so THANK YOU for that – and now I’m going to go out and check my windshield wipers!!!
Tammy:
Another great, honest post. just a quick note, when you turn off one of your pump switches, it should turn off all of them if its the same as my Newmar.
Love your honesty and openness in all your posts !!
Oh how I wish that was the case with my 2008 Newmar, but the pump stays on unless it is switched off in the bathroom, the kitchen, AND outside in the water bay.
Your so awesome-always love your writing, humor and kindred spirit. Loved to learn you followed Jason and Nikki Wynn-they are ever so adorable! I just read they recently got to drive a high powered yacht.I am excited to say that FINALLY-after three plus years, David and I have made the promise to leave the island by year’s end to begin our RV life.Now we just have to find a rig in this crazy time of Covid. Wishing you well-stay safe virtual friend-K
Well I’ve got to chime in! I’m Type A, and the second time we pulled our fiberglass egg, it was for 3,000 miles. I read everything twice and made sure I had a backup plan for anything that might go wrong. Not much did, except for a sticky toilet water valve that filled the black tank to its rim, as we carefully drove through Phoenix in search of a dump station… but that’s not the story. The story is taking neighbors for their first rented-trailer vacation. They’d done this before, so I assumed they knew everything. Eh, no. We started with checklists, pretty much eliminated them, and have now returned to them – they help us not forget things. Duh! And I should have used one here.
Right off the bat, the fridge wouldn’t turn on. After 1/2 hour of fussing, it turned out the battery was too weak to fire the propane. We arrived at our destination… the fridge door was closed, but not firmly. As a result, the floor was covered in milk. No problem, mop it up… Next, the stove wouldn’t light. That was fixed by turning the propane tank on and off. However, within a day, there was no hot water… because there was no propane… because the heat was set nice and high. Easily fixed. It was a cold night, though.. and our neighbor looked up from the bed and discovered why: The vent above the bed was wide open! Next up was full tanks, at the end of day 2. All right, we’ll hook up the hose to dump… and find that the hose had no gasket, so would leak. And… the toilet stopped up. Efforts to clear this had resulted in water right up to the rim. We would have taken the tow vehicle into town for a plunger and hose gasket, but the angle at which the trailer was set trapped the hitch ball. F-350 duallys have pretty stiff suspension, so jumping up and down on it to free the hitch ball was fruitless. Fortunately, we traveled in a pack, so we headed down to the store to rectify matters. We also needed a drinking-water-safe hose, since none had been supplied with the trailer. And the sewer hose was just thrown into the storage compartment below the bed. Lovely. Oh, did I mention that the skylight in the bathroom leaked onto the toilet?
In spite of all this, we otherwise had a wonderful time. I did my best to explain each event, what caused it, and how we would remedy it. I’m glad we were with them, as they were going with other non-RV friends to a more remote place.
Lessons we learned: 1) Just because it’s obvious to me, doesn’t mean it’s obvious to a new person. 2) Use a checklist, especially with a newbie; that’s why we have checklists. 3) Check that rental out carefully, with your own checklist. I was, to be polite, quite irritated at the rental company’s ruination of our friends’ first experience.
One of their party swears off ever doing this again, but the other is more enthused, and we will likely camp together again. This time, I’m going along to pick up the rental, and we can have knowledge -sharing time on the front end. I told them that they had received knowledge and problem solving that usually takes years to acquire, all in one short week!